summary on butto poem written by Toru Dutt
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The poem "Buttoo" is from Dutt's Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882). It tells the story of a figure named Buttoo, whose story is based closely on the story of Ekalavya from the Mahabharata. In the Mahabharata, Ekalavya is the son of a forest-dwelling hunter-king who goes to Dronacharjya to learn archery. When he is rejected by Dronacharjya, he goes into the woods and makes a statue of Dronacharjya, who he claims will be his guru or teacher. After practicing extensively and mastering archery, he silences a dog without killing it through the use of arrows. Later, when Dronacharjya and Arjuna happen to be passing through the woods, they find the dog and are amazed at the degree of mastery such archery would require (since Dronacharjya promised Arjuna he would be the best archer alive). When Dronacharjya and Arjuna meet Ekalavya in this setting then, Dronacharjya says that, if he were truly Ekalavya's teacher, he ought to extract a fee or donation from him. The story ends with Ekalavya gladly giving up his thumb as a fee to Dronacharjya.
Dutt's poem more or less exactly retells this story, substituting the figure of Ekalavya with the figure of Buttoo. One notable moment of the poem that Dutt adds, however, is the poem's conclusion, in which Dutt conveys an explicit moral to Buttoo's story:"'For this,'—said Dronacharjya,—'Fame / Shall sound thy praise from sea to sea, / And men shall ever link thy name / With Self-help, Truth, and Modesty.'" This addition—that Buttoo's sacrifice and humility will one day make him famous as an example—draws attention to Dutt's retelling of an ancient "legend" and lends her tale a moral ethos for an English-speaking audience that might not be familiar with the Ekalavya story.
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Summary
The poem "Buttoo" is from Dutt's Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882). It tells the story of a figure named Buttoo, whose story is based closely on the story of Ekalavya from the Mahabharata. In the Mahabharata, Ekalavya is the son of a forest-dwelling hunter-king who goes to Dronacharjya to learn archery. When he is rejected by Dronacharjya, he goes into the woods and makes a statue of Dronacharjya, who he claims will be his guru or teacher. After practicing extensively and mastering archery, he silences a dog without killing it through the use of arrows. Later, when Dronacharjya and Arjuna happen to be passing through the woods, they find the dog and are amazed at the degree of mastery such archery would require (since Dronacharjya promised Arjuna he would be the best archer alive). When Dronacharjya and Arjuna meet Ekalavya in this setting then, Dronacharjya says that, if he were truly Ekalavya's teacher, he ought to extract a fee or donation from him. The story ends with Ekalavya gladly giving up his thumb as a fee to Dronacharjya.