Reclaiming the Virangana Myth: A Study of Selected Contemporary Historical Fiction

Abstract

Although there has been extensive scholarship and literature on the figure of the warrior woman and the gendered metaphors to disseminate hypermasculine nationalist narratives, this figure has been dominantly used as a masculine tool, as and when required, to sustain the narratives of nation and nationalism. This warrior woman is dominantly perceived and depicted as the Virangana in cultural and historical narratives in India. These representations of the popular Virangana trope also suggest how the figure, apart from being a portrayal of the once assertive pre-Aryan formation of the Mother goddess, is also stereotypically graceful, beautiful and sometimes sensual. She appears as the mother-in-pain as well as the wrathful warrior on the battlefield. The hyperbolic myth that the Virangana is made to be has found increased reproduction in popular literature, culture and media. Such reproductions claim to be essentially feminist revisions of both fictionalised history and historical fiction, thus catering to the contemporary market and “the need of the hour” narrative spin and debates.