Rusalka and Devadhamma Jātaka: Water, Water Sprites and New Beginnings
Résumé
Jātakas as narratives of birth and re-birth are the stories of transformation, changes of identity, different appearances, and also of progress and striving for enlightenment. In Devadhamma Jātaka water and associated elements can be analyzed as making these occur for the characters within the story, which is also the case for the story of Rusalka, a Czech opera by Antonín Dvořák. Besides this crucial resemblance each of the two narratives presents a human kingdom and its Prince as moving between the kingdom’s inflexible power structure and its counterpart, the world of nature, where water and water-sprites, the most significant elements, trigger indeed a radical reshaping of the characters. The article intends to highlight the ways in which the paradigms behind the imagery of water function in each of these two works, to pinpoint the perceptions common to both as well as to bring to light the imagination structures inherent in the cultures that have respectively produced them.