by Valmiki
The Rāmāyaṇa as we receive it today, whether it is Vālmīki’s Sanskrit telling or the Rāma story as a cultural artefact (replete with all its multiforms in the performing and fine arts and different genres of literature), is more than a putative original or source text attributed to a legendary composer. The power of the Rāmāyaṇa lies in the stories it tells and it lives well beyond the confines of bound volumes. Each retelling is as integrally linked to the source as it is different from it. And it is the constant retellings and reformulations of the basic story that make the text both organic and dynamic—tied to its mythic origins as well as to its real multiforms.
In speaking of the Mahābhārata, Hiltebeitel declares that he prefers to think of the text as a
… narrative continuum, as a ‘work in progress’, rather than … a fixed or original text. By the same token, it strains matters to regard all the variants as synchronically equal in value. Some features must be older than others, and though indisputable rules for determining textual priorities will probably never be established, historical development through such processes as alteration, interpolation, and perhaps sometimes abridgement, must not be ignored.32
The same can be said about Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa as well as of the greater Rāmāyaṇa tradition which is, in fact, predicated on Vālmīki’s text. While there are considerable differences of style, composition and perhaps even modes of production between the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, Hiltebeitel’s observation applies equally to the former since he makes a point with regard to the way scholars should approach these ‘reconstructed’ texts, rather than a point about the possible way in which the texts come together.
Conclusions
The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa and its critical edition eventually become layers within the greater tradition of Rāma stories that have proliferated over the centuries. Most Indian languages have their own tellings of Rāma’s adventures and even cultures as far from India as Indonesia have made the tale of the exiled prince their own. But the question that remains is, what is it about this essentially simple tale that has compelled so many different kinds of people to hold it close to their hearts? The story is hardly unique, and some have argued that the idealized characters within it have little or no psychological complexities. Why then is it told and retold, by professional bards, by grandmothers, by teachers?
The answer to this question may well lie in the two unresolved issues that linger and haunt the reader/listener long after Vālmīki’s story is over: Rāma’s unlawful acts and his ignorance of his divine status. The killing of Vālī and his rejection of Sītā are so outrageously out of character that there is almost nothing within the premises and assumptions of Vālmīki’s tale that can justify them. We can suggest that all the Rāma stories that follow Vālmīki’s are attempts to resolve this issue narratively as well as structurally.
For example, Tulasidāsa’s Hindi Rāmcaritmānasā from the fifteenth century assumes Rāma’s divinity as a starting point. Rāma kills Vālī so that the monkey will be liberated from his earthly life and body. This motif of salvation has already been established by the killings of Virādha and Kabandha, both of whom are liberated from their curses by their ‘deaths’ at the hands of Rāma. As in Vālmīki’s story, Tulasi’s Ahalyā, too, is freed from her petrified condition by Rāma’s presence. Tulasi follows Vālmīki to justify Rāma’s rejection of Sītā—he knew that she was innocent but had to prove it to the common people. But additionally in Tulasi, Sītā the goddess, was spirited away by the gods in the moment before Rāvaṇa grasped her hand in the abduction. The Sītā that suffered the separation and torment was but an illusion of the ‘real’ Sītā who returned only after the trial by fire. She is, therefore, utterly pure, untouched by the vile creature that Rāma must kill.
In Krittibasa’s Bengali story, Rāma is filled with remorse after he has killed Vālī and after listening to Vālī’s arguments Rāma apologizes profusely, saying that since he had already formed a pact of friendship with Sugrīva, he was bound to kill his ally’s enemy. Instead of justifying Rāma’s unrighteous killing of the righteous monkey king, Krittibasa has Tārā, Vālī’s wife, curse Rāma: because he had killed Vālī and separated Tārā from her beloved husband, he, too, would• not enjoy Sītā’s company for long. He would regain her now but would end his days in loneliness and misery. If Rāma’s acts cannot be justified, he can at least receive retribution for them.
Krittibasa again employs the curse to make sure that Rāma suffers. When the war is over and Rāvaṇa has been killed, Mandodarī, the rākṣasa king’s virtuous wife, curses Sītā—because she has caused the death of Mandodarī’s husband, her own husband will look upon her ‘with poisoned eyes’. Rāma demands that Sītā prove her innocence in public and she walks into the fire. She was not to return, except that the gods are moved by Rāma’s grief over the loss of his beloved and they restore Sītā to him.
These few examples show how the later tradition struggles with Rāma’s odd behaviour and how various narrative devices are employed to exonerate him from censure. If he knows that he is god, as in Tulasi’s story, all his ‘wrong’ actions are actually right ones from the correct perspective. In Krittibasa’s case, curses are used to punish Rāma and to prevent him from acting freely.
As mentioned earlier, we can think of all the other Rāma stories as predicated on Vālmīki’s for two reasons: they take Rāma’s divinity for granted as a starting point for their stories, and they implicitly cite Vālmīki’s text as they tell their own story.
To some extent, all later Rāmāyaṇas play on the knowledge of previous tellings: they are meta-Rāmāyaṇas. I cannot resist repeating my favourite example. In several of the later Rāmāyaṇas (such as the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, 16th century), when Rāma is exiled, he does not want Sītā to go with him into the forest. Sītā argues with him. At first she uses the usual arguments: she is his wife, she should share his suffering, exile herself in his exile, and so on. When he still resists the idea, she is furious. She bursts out, ‘Countless Rāmāyaṇas have been composed before this. Do you know of one in which Sītā does not go with Rāma to the forest?’33
Ramanujan’s example demonstrates that Rāma stories absorb each other and nowhere, perhaps, is this more apparent than in the issue of Rāma’s divinity. Each Rāma story that succeeds Vālmīki’s version addresses this particular question head on, usually in the opening chapters of the book. It is as if the later versions know how subtle Vālmīki’s statement is and, therefore, they take it upon themselves to open out the issue, bring it into the foreground. It is almost possible to see the greater Rāmāyaṇa tradition as a commentary on this primary text.
In most of the Hindu Rāma stories that follow Vālmīki’s in time, Rāma’s unrighteous behaviour and his divinity are inextricably linked. Rāma killed Vālī to liberate him from his earthly body. Rāma rejected Sītā because he knew all along that she would be proved innocent in the trial by fire. Rāma could do and did these things precisely because he was god, not despite the fact that he was god. Because Rāma is aware of and participates in a higher order, his actions cannot be judged in earthly terms and by earthly conditions. Unlike in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, where he has to be reminded or told who he is, Rāma in the later stories acts in full awareness and full control of his divinity.
Shulman eloquently describes the narrative nexus of the Rāmāyaṇa as ‘the portrait of a consciousness hidden from itself … an identity obscured and only occasionally, in brilliant and poignant flashes, revealed to its owner.’ This formulation, of the hidden divinity, the obscured identity, can be extended into a heuristic device for a further understanding of the Mahābhārata as well. In the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa’s divinity is hidden from those around him. He reveals himself as the mysterium tremendum to Arjuna in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā. But he saves Arjuna from the memory of the epiphany which would have, in effect, made him utterly unable to act in the world. In the Rām�
�yaṇa, Rāma must be similarly protected from the knowledge of his own divinity so that he can act effectively as a mortal in the world, most especially to kill Rāvaṇa.
The hidden divinity at the centre of the narrative is a feature of both the Sanskrit epics. The progressive revelation of the true identity of the man-god is one of the drivers of the story. In many ways, the Bhagavad Gītā is the climax of the Mahābhārata and the war that follows is but a denouement, a fulfilling of individual and collective destinies that had been set in motion in the earlier parts of the story. Similarly, the Rāmāyaṇa’s narrative and spiritual climax occurs in the scene when, after Sītā’s trial by fire, the gods tell Rāma who he really is. Once again, the events that follow this critical moment are but the tying up of loose ends as the story moves inevitably towards its conclusion. With the Rāmāyaṇa it is important to note that the revelation of Rāma’s true identity occurs at the end of Book Six, the last of the central books of the text. The seventh book, the Uttara Kāṇḍa, has always been considered an epilogue to Vālmīki’s tale which rightly and powerfully ends in Book Six.
The question that looms large over the Rāmāyaṇa is that of the relationship between myth and history, i.e., is the Rāmāyaṇa a ‘true’ story? When the early Orientalists were discovering Indian texts, they were struck by the absence of a formal and proper ‘history’, the kind they had found in ancient Greece and even in ancient China. Indians seemed to mix up their human heroes with their gods. Chronological lists of kings and dynasties were found in the Purāṇas, which were actually compendia of myths. This lead them to think that Indians could not write history, that when they did attempt to chronicle the past, their fanciful minds came up with never-ending stories peopled with gods and monsters. Thus, to see the Indian epics simply as history is to fall into an Orientalist trap.
At the same time, most scholars of epic believe that an epic grows around a core legend or tale that probably did occur. Thus, it is possible some king (perhaps not named Rāma) did exist, that his wife was abducted and that he fought a war to get her back. Through many hands and many centuries, this set of events became the Rāmāyaṇa, a tale that no longer has any meaningful dependence on the ‘reality’ that spawned it. What we have now is a remarkable tale that captures the imagination of all kinds of people, not just because it is true, but because of the way it is told, because of the adventure and magic it contains, because of the way it takes a known and familiar reality and enlarges it to dimensions that are unknown and unfamiliar.
It has been argued that to trace Rāma’s journey through the Subcontinent in literal terms, identifying each and every place in which he stopped and bathed, to insist that he was born in a particular spot and died at another is a matter of faith and that it is critical to the religious sentiments of vast numbers of people. While this may well be true, literalizing a text of this magnitude does it a great injustice. The Rāmāyaṇa does not derive its meaning from a sacred geography or history: rather, it draws its significance from what it can tell us about ourselves, our decisions and the way we choose to live our lives.
CHILDHOOD
Chapter One
The great sage Vālmīki was a bull among men who practised austerities constantly. One day he said to the eloquent Nārada, ‘Tell me, great one, who is the most virtuous man in the world of humans? Who is the most honourable, dutiful, gracious and resolute? Who is the most courteous, the most dedicated to the welfare of all beings, the most learned, the most patient and handsome? Who is the man with the greatest soul, the one who has conquered anger, who is intelligent and free of envy? Who is this man, whose anger frightens even the gods? I am sure you know of such a man and I am curious to hear about him from you.’
Nārada, who knows the past, the present and the future, was delighted with Vālmīki’s question. ‘There are few men with all the qualities that you have described,’ he replied. ‘But there is one man, O sage, who has all these virtues. Listen, and I will tell you about him.
‘Born into the clan of Ikṣvāku, his name is Rāma. He is brave and illustrious, disciplined and renowned in all the three worlds. He is wise and well-versed in the science of polity. He is well-spoken and glorious. This man, a slayer of his enemies, has broad shoulders and strong upper arms, a graceful neck and a strong jaw. He is a skilled archer with a muscular body and long arms. He holds his head with pride and he walks with long strides. Splendid and prosperous, he has smooth skin and large eyes. His well-proportioned body is endowed with all the auspicious marks.
‘Rāma is aware of his duties. He is truthful and dedicated to the welfare of his subjects. He is learned, virtuous and single-minded. He protects all the creatures of the world and he upholds dharma.* He knows the four Vedas as well as the schools of thought that accompany each of them and he is equally knowledgeable about the finer points of archery. Well-versed in the sacred and philosophical texts, Rāma has a brilliant memory and a ready wit. This courteous, brave and wise man is loved by all who know him. As all rivers flow into the sea, so all good and noble people come to Rāma.
‘This virtuous man is the son of Kausalyā. Viṣṇu’s equal in valour, he is as deep as the ocean and as resolute as the mountains. As beautiful as the moon, he has the endurance of the earth, but he can be like the doomsday fire when he is roused to anger. As generous as Kubera, the god of wealth, Rāma is ready to sacrifice everything for the truth.
‘Because of Rāma’s many virtues, King Daśratha decided to declare him the heir apparent. Rāma is the oldest and most beloved son of King Daśaratha, who was devoted to the welfare of all creatures. But when Daśaratha’s wife, Kaikeyī, saw the magnificent preparations for Rāma’s coronation, she called up the promises Daśaratha had made to her in the distant past, promises that exiled Rāma to the forest and placed her son, Bharata, on the throne. Bound by dharma and his given word, Daśaratha had to banish his beloved heir. Rāma went to the forest to preserve his father’s honour and to make Kaikeyī happy.
‘Rāma’s younger brother Lakṣmaṇa, the son of Sumitrā, followed him into exile because he loved him dearly and because it was the right thing to do. Rāma’s virtuous wife Sītā, the most excellent of all women, also followed her husband into exile as the constellation Rohiṇī follows the moon.* When Rāma left the city, King Daśaratha and the townspeople went with him for a distance, but at the village of Sṛngavera, on the banks of the Gangā, Rāma dismissed his charioteer.
‘The sage Bharadvāja told Rāma and his companions to go to Citrakū?a and Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā went from forest to forest crossing many deep rivers on their way. In the pleasant surroundings of Citrakūṭa, the three of them built a little hut and lived there as happily as the gods and the gandharvas. Meanwhile, Daśaratha missed his son sorely and while Rāma was in Citrakūṭa, the old king died of grief.
‘When Daśaratha died, the brahmins led by Vasiṣṭha offered the throne to the heroic Bharata. But Bharata refused the throne and went into the forest to meet Rāma. Rāma urged Bharata to return to the city to rule and finally he gave Bharata his sandals as a symbol of his regency. Bharata touched his older brother’s feet and, acceding to his wishes, ruled the kingdom from Nandigrāma while he waited for Rāma’s return.
‘Rāma knew that if he stayed in Citrakūṭa the townspeople would visit him all the time. So he moved further into the Daṇḍaka forest. Rāma killed the rākṣasa Virādha there and then went onwards to visit the sage Agastya and his brother. Rāma took Indra’s bow, a sword and two inexhaustible quivers of arrows from Agastya. While Rāma lived in the forest, he was approached by the sages who dwelt there. They asked him to kill the rākṣasas and asuras who harassed them and Rāma did so.
‘An ugly and terrifying rākṣasī named Śūrpanakhā, who could change her form at will, lived in Janasthāna. On her instructions, Khara, Triśiras, Dūṣaṇa and all the other rākṣasas arrived in Janasthāna and made preparations to fight Rāma. But Rāma killed them and their companions
, slaying fourteen thousand rākṣasas in all.
‘Rāvaṇa was enraged when he heard about this massacre and enlisted the rākṣasa Mārīca to help him take revenge. Mārīca implored Rāvaṇa time and again not to oppose Rāma, whose strength was far greater, but impelled by destiny, Rāvaṇa ignored Mārīca’s advice and took him to Rāma’s forest dwelling.
‘Mārīca drew the two princes away with his power to create illusions and Rāvaṇa abducted Rāma’s wife Sītā, killing the vulture Jaṭāyu as he carried her away. Rāma met the dying vulture and when he heard about Sītā’s abduction, he was overcome with sadness and began to weep. He performed funeral rites for Jaṭāyu and then wandered through the forest in search of his wife.
‘In his wanderings, he came upon the deformed and fierce rākṣasa Kabandha. Mighty Rāma killed the rākṣasa and performed funeral rites for him so that Kabandha could go to heaven.
‘By the shores of lake Pampā, Rāma met the monkey Hanumān. Following Hanumān’s advice, Rāma went to meet Sugrīva and told him his entire story. In turn, Sugrīva related all that he had suffered as a result of his enmity with Vālī and he also warned Rāma about Vālī’s strength. Rāma promised to kill Vālī but Sugrīva was not convinced of his prowess. To prove himself, Rāma kicked Dundhubi’s immense carcass with his big toe and it landed ten yojanās away. Then he pierced seven sāla trees with a single well-chosen arrow. The arrow passed through a huge mountain and lodged itself in the bowels of the earth.
