Naga-Mandala: Folk Representations, Gender, and the Politics of Identity Girish Karnad’s *Naga-Mandala* is a significant modern Indian play that draws deeply upon folk traditions, oral narratives, myths, rituals, and popular beliefs. First performed in 1988, the play demonstrates how folk forms can be transformed into a sophisticated dramatic language capable of addressing contemporary social questions. Karnad does not merely reproduce a traditional folktale; rather, he reshapes it through theatrical imagination to explore gender relations, patriarchy, female sexuality, marriage, social morality, storytelling, and the relationship between illusion and reality. The play’s folk representations provide both its aesthetic structure and its critical method. The central narrative concerns Rani, a young woman married to Appanna, an indifferent and authoritarian husband. Appanna spends most of his time away from home with another woman and keeps Rani confined within the house. She is denied affection, companionship, and sexual fulfilment. Her loneliness reflects the condition of women whose identities are defined by patriarchal marriage rather than by their individual desires. Rani’s situation is not presented simply as a personal tragedy; it represents the wider social structure in which the husband possesses authority while the wife is expected to remain obedient and sexually controlled. The play’s most important folk element is the story of the Naga, or serpent. Kurudavva, a blind old woman associated with folk wisdom and magical knowledge, attempts to help Rani by giving her a magical root that is supposed to make Appanna fall in love with her. Rani prepares the magical mixture but, frightened by its appearance, throws it into an anthill. A cobra consumes it and subsequently becomes attracted to her. The Naga assumes the appearance of Appanna and visits Rani at night. Through this transformation, Karnad brings together the supernatural and the everyday. The serpent belongs to the world of folk mythology, but its function is closely connected with Rani’s emotional and sexual desires. The representation of the Naga is especially significant in understanding the play as folk drama. In Indian cultural traditions, the serpent has multiple meanings. It may be associated with fertility, sexuality, supernatural power, protection, danger, and sacredness. Karnad uses these cultural associations without reducing the Naga to a single symbolic meaning. The serpent is simultaneously a magical being, a lover, and a representation of desires that cannot be fulfilled within Rani’s actual marriage. Its ability to change form destabilises the boundary between human and non-human, reality and fantasy, and husband and lover. Karnad’s use of the folk mode is also evident in the framing device of the play. At the beginning, the playwright introduces a character suffering from sleeplessness who meets a storyteller. The storyteller narrates the tale of *Naga-Mandala*, and the play gradually becomes a performance of that story. This structure reflects the oral tradition in which stories circulate through narrators and communities. The tale is therefore not presented as a fixed literary object. It exists through telling, retelling, performance, and transformation. Karnad thereby emphasises that folk narratives survive because they remain open to reinterpretation. The personification of stories is another