Rewriting the Sacred: Mythic Structures and Political Praxis in Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games

Abstract

Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games is a sprawling narrative that intertwines crime, politics, history, and religion to present a richly layered portrait of contemporary India. At its core, the novel is not only a gripping detective story but also a profound meditation on the sacred and the profane, the mythic and the political. This paper explores how Chandra reconfigures mythic structures—drawn from Hindu cosmology, epics, and archetypes—to critique and reinterpret political praxis in modern India. Through an analysis of narrative form, character development, and thematic symbolism, the study argues that Sacred Games functions as a postmodern rewriting of the sacred, destabilizing conventional notions of divine order and moral clarity. In doing so, it exposes the ideological apparatuses that underpin political authority, religious identity, and nationalist rhetoric. By foregrounding the interplay between myth and praxis, Chandra invites readers to reconsider how sacred narratives are weaponized in public life, and how individual agency can persist within—and against—these inherited structures. Ultimately, this paper contends that Sacred Games is a vital literary intervention that dramatizes the political consequences of myth while reimagining the possibility of ethical action in an ethically compromised world.