U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Samskara (1965), a searing Kannada novel later immortalized in A.K. Ramanujan’s English translation, ruthlessly unmasks the crumbling edifice of Brahminical orthodoxy through the tormented evolution of Praneshacharya. Once the unchallenged custodian of ritual purity in a secluded Agrahara, he spirals from the suffocating embrace of communal dharma—where every life event bends to scriptural decree into a raw, solitary chase for authentic existence. The plague-devoured corpse of Nara Nappa, the village renegade whose unknown lineage stalls the sacred samskara funeral rite, ignites this chaos, exposing the Brahmins’ festering hypocrisies: pious debates over purity while they gorge on forbidden pork and sneak trysts with women. Praneshacharya’s alienation sharpens unbearably in his clandestine, carnal union with Chandri, Nara Nappa’s low-caste widow a forbidden flame that scorches his ascetic facade, leaving him adrift in a liminal hell of guilt, desire, and ritual pollution.