Ramayana

“ Once every year, at the great festival known as the Dasahra, the story of the famous Hindu epic, the “Ramayana,” is, throughout Northern India, recalled to popular memory, by a great out-door dramatic representation of the principal and crowning events in the life of the hero, Rama. The “Ramayana” is not merely a popular story, it is an inspired poem, every detail of which is, in the belief of the great majority of the Indian people, strictly true. ”

“ In the first place we find again, divided by medallions with representations of animal life, a sculptural delineation of the Ramayana, the artist’s buoyant fancy, blending the celestial with the human, shedding a divine light on [168] acts of most common daily occurrence by making gods and semi-gods partake of man’s estate in deeds sublimely natural. The Ramayana was a great favourite for the decoration of temples, as proved by the chandis Panataran, Toompang, Surawana and Prambanan; the Mahabharata or, rather, its Javanese version, the Brata Yuda, came as a good second ”

“ The Ramayana exists in three recensions which differ from one another in their reading, in the order of their verses, and in having each more or less lengthy passages that are wanting in the others. The best known and most popular of these is also the most original version of the poem. Its home is in the northwest and south of India ”

“ The Rāmāyana has become a household-word in Hindu Society, and expressions embodying the memories of incidents celebrated in the epic, pass current amongst all ranks of the people, being mouthed alike by high and low, by prince and peasantry the aristocracy and the nobility of the land, by merchants and mechanics, by cultivators ploughing the field, and by shepherds keeping the flock, by princesses and high-born dames in towering edifices, and the women of the peasantry plying their daily tasks, religionists and politicians and men of letters,—in short by the community universally. ”

“ The heroes of the Ramayana are somewhat tame and commonplace personages, very respectful to priests, very anxious to conform to the rules of decorum and duty, doing a vast amount of fighting work mechanically, but without the determination, the persistence of real fighters. ”

“ Though there is, as we shall see, good reason for supposing that the original part of the Rāmāyaṇa assumed shape at a time when the Mahābhārata was still in a state of flux, we have deferred describing it on account of its connection with the subsequent development of epic poetry in Sanskrit literature. In its present form the Rāmāyaṇa consists of about 24,000 çlokas, and is divided into seven books. It has been preserved in three distinct recensions, the West Indian (A) , the Bengal (B) , and the Bombay (C) . About one-third of the çlokas in each recension occurs in neither of the other two. ”

“ India never grows tired of these Ramayanic repetitions. Sita, the heroine, Rama's bride, is the ideal of every good woman there; I suppose Shakespeare has created no truer or more beautiful figure. To the Mahabharata, the Ramayana stands perhaps as the higher Wordsworth to Milton; it belongs to the same great age, but to another day in it. Both are and have been wonderfully near the life of the people: children are brought up on them; all ages, castes, and conditions make them the staple of their mental diet. ”

“ Nay, we can perhaps safely go so far as to assert that very few amongst those Western scholars who have devoted their lives to the study of Sanskrit literature, have been able to enter into the spirit of that part of its vocabulary in which are couched those peculiarly Hindu ideas and sentiments that constitute the unique genius of the people. To translate, therefore, such a work as the Rāmāyana from the dead and indefinite Sanskrit into the living and real English, is, like unearthening a fossil and inspiring it with life ”

“ The story of the Ramayana is illustrated on the cloister walls of the royal temple at Bangkok and Indian mythology has supplied a multitude of types to the painter and sculptor; such as Yŏmma: ràt (Yâma) , Phăya Man (Mâra) , Phra: In (Indra) . These are all deities known to the Piṭakas but the sculptures or images [236] in Siamese temples also [Pg 97] include Ganeśa, Phra: Nărai (Nârâyana or Vishṇu) riding on the Garuda and Phra: Isuén (Śiva) riding on a bull. There is a legend that the Buddha and Śiva tried which could make himself invisible to the other. ”

“ From the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, no obstacle exists, nor, so far as we know, ever did exist, to the freest intercourse between the various races inhabiting the country. If we may believe the traditions on which the epic of the Ramayana was founded, armies traversed the length and the breadth of the land one thousand, it may be two thousand, years before Christ. The Brahmins carried their arms and their literature to the south at a very early age. The Buddhists spread everywhere. ”

“ By reading and worshipping this ancient history people are freed from all sins and attain to a long life. The Kshatryas, bending low their heads, should hear this daily from the Brāhmanas. Hearing or reading the whole of Ramāyana, forsooth shall people get sons and riches. Rāma is ever pleased with him. He is the ever-existing Vishnu—the first God, the huge-armed Hari, Narayana and Lord. This ancient work produceth such fruits. May good betide ye. Do ye openly declare that Vishnu's prowess may increase. ”

“ Such is the famous story of Rama and Sita. Ordinary men and women are of little account and scarcely figure at all amongst the poet’s creations. Nearly everything in the “Ramayana” is superhuman. The dire conflicts which occupy so large a part of the epic are waged between demigods and fiends, or giants. The weapons employed are celestial, or perhaps only charmed. Mystic spells are of the greatest efficacy, and the results are proportionally great.
In the war that raged around the walls of Ilium the gods did, certainly, interfere in the combats, and sometimes unfairly too ”

“ II. English versions of the “Ramayana.”—The English reader desirous of learning more of the details of the “Ramayana” than is contained in this epitome, may consult the following works: (1) The excellent metrical version of Mr. Ralph Griffith, in five volumes; (2) the prose translation [92] now in course of publication by Babu Manmatha Nath Dutt, M.A.; (3) Mr. Taiboys Wheeler’s “History of India,” vol. iii.; and (4) The “Ramayana” of Tulsi Das, translated by Mr. F. T. Growse. ”

“ The influence exercised by the Rāmāyana upon the Hindus reaching down to the lowest strata of the society, is literally and in actual fact immense. Truly of the Rāmāyana it can be said in Baconian language that it has come home to the business and bosoms of all men. ”

“ And seeing that foremost of Rākshasas looking like a mountain; filling all the heavens as formerly Nārāyana had done; resembling clouds charged with rain; and adorned with golden angadas,—the mighty army of monkeys began to run away at the top of its speed. Seeing the army scamper and the Rākshasa swelling, Rāma struck with surprise, said unto Bibhishana,—"Who is that tawney-eyed one, decked with a diadem, and looking like a hill? And in Lankā the hero appeareth like a mass of clouds embosoming lightning. And alone he seemeth like an ensign of the Earth ”

“ All the poetical works of Asia, China and Japan are taken almost entirely from the Hindu, while in Southern Russia the meagre literature of the Kalmucks is borrowed entirely from the same source. The Ramayana, or great Hindu poem, must have had its origin in the history-to-be of Christ. It has been translated into Italian and published in Paris. The Hitopadesa, a collection of fables and apologues, has been translated into more languages than any book except the Bible. It has found its way all over the civilized world, and is the model of the fables of all countries. ”

“ The India of the “Ramayana” was covered with forests, and it is noteworthy that Rama’s progress is traced rather from forest to forest than from city to city, which last were very few and far between.
The hero of the tale is a very different one from those who figure in the Homeric poems. As a son he is most dutiful, pushing the idea of filial respect and obedience to the extreme, bearing no enmity even towards his designing stepmother. As a layman he is religious and unfeignedly respectful to Brahmans and saints. As a prince he is patriotic and benign ”

“ Indra was still the chief of the gods of the Brahmanic and Epic Period, and in the Sutra literature we learn that Sita, the furrow goddess, is the wife of Indra; it seems, therefore, that Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is, in his original conception, only a new form of Indra battling with the demons of drought. Myth is thus mixed with the epic which describes the historic conquest of Southern India. ”

“ The Bhâratayuddha [421] , which states that it was composed by Mpoe Sedah in 1157 by order of Djajabaja, prince of Kediri, is, even more than the prose version mentioned above, a free rendering of parts of the Mahabharata. It is perhaps based on an older translation preserved in Bali [422] . The Kawi Ramayana was in the opinion of Kern composed about 1200 A.D. It follows in essentials the story of the Ramayana, but it was apparently composed by a poet unacquainted with Sanskrit who drew his knowledge from some native source now unknown [423] . He appears to have been a Sivaite. ”

“ We can follow Vishnu, reborn from mortal woman, on the reliefs of the Siva temple, which are tolerably preserved, through the first stages of his earthly career as Rama, but must renounce studying his subsequent story on the exterior of the temples dedicated to himself and Brahma, where the third tier of sculpture has altogether disappeared, save a few mutilated bas-reliefs. That is a great pity, for the illustration of the Ramayana by the artists entrusted with the decoration of the chandi Prambanan, judging from what we still possess, marks the apogee of Hindu-Javanese art ”

“ And hearing about thee from me soon shall Rāghava come assisted by a large army of monkeys and bears. And impeding the course of the unagitated deep and building, by means of his terrible shafts, a bridge across it, Kākuthstha, shall divest the city Lankā of all the Rākshasas. And forsooth shall Rāma destroy them, even if the celestials, or Death himself stand in his way. O worshipful dame, stricken with grief in thy absence, Rāma is restless like unto an elephant smitten by a lion. ”

“ Truly, the Hindus regarded him as the ninth and hitherto last incarnation of Vishnu, the Lying Spirit let loose to deceive man until the tenth and final descent of the god, on the white horse, with a flaming sword like a comet in his hand, for the destruction of the wicked and the renovation of the world, but he was reckoned with and acknowledged in their mythology, and the remarkable conformity between Prince Sarvarthasiddha’s lineage, adventures and achievements, and those of the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity in the Ramayana are certainly more than accidental. ”

“ Beholding the monkeys slain in the encounter and Rāvana approach, the heroic and highly powerful Rāma, with Sumitrā's son in his company, delightedly set arrows on his bow. And as if rending the whole earth with that dreadful sound he began to draw the string of his excellent bow. With the sound of Rāvana's arrows and the twang of Rāma's bow hundreds of Rākshasas fell down on earth. And coming within the range of the arrows of those two princes, Rāvana appeared like Rāhu in presence of the sun and the moon. ”

“ Hides magic fire that burns eternally.
Thus is foreshadowed in the birth of Rama, his banishment, and the death of his father.
Cantos ten to fifteen form the kernel of the epic, for they tell the story of Rama, the mighty hero of Raghu's line. In these cantos Kalidasa attempts to present anew, with all the literary devices of a more sophisticated age, the famous old epic story sung in masterly fashion by the author of the Ramayana. As the poet is treading ground familiar to all who hear him, the action of these cantos is very compressed. ”

“ Behold Rāghava, environed by Kotis of monkeys, with Sugriva and Lakshmana, slain one of these days! He before whom even the gods cannot stay in the field,—how can that Rāvana ever come by fear? Better that I should be riven in twain,—but bend I never will. This is my native fault; and nature is incapable of being overcome. And if Rāma hath at his pleasure constructed a bridge over the ocean, what is the wonder in this that thou hast conceived such a fear? And although Rāma hath crossed the ocean along with the monkey-army, yet I swear unto thee truly, living, he shall not back hence". ”

“ The king is dead. Long live the king! The story of Rama himself occupies only six cantos; he is not born until the tenth canto, he is in heaven after the fifteenth. There are in truth six heroes, each of whom has to die to make room for his successor. One may go farther and say that it is not possible to give a brief and accurate title to the poem. It is not a Ramayana, or epic of Rama's deeds, for Rama is on the stage during only a third of the poem. It is not properly an epic of Raghu's line, for many kings of this line are unmentioned. ”

“ These serpents—offspring of Kadru—are sharp-fanged and venomous; and had bound thee as arrows through the potency of illusion. O Rāma having truth for prowess, thou art fortunate,—along with that destroyer of foe in fight, Lakshmana. Hearing this, I, summoning energy, have come hither swiftly. And I, doing by thee as a friend, have from affection at once set you free from these dreadful arrowy bonds. But thou shouldst always be on thy guard. By nature the Rākshasas have cunning shifts in fight and thou, who art heroic and of a pure spirit, canst but rely on thy simplicity alone for strength. ”

“ O large-minded damsel, thou shalt never think of earthly women. O thou of an exquisite countenance, enjoying these many things passing human, thou shalt not any more think of Rāma—a human being of brief existence. Placing his beloved son on the throne, king Daçaratha hath sent away his eldest son of weak prowess into the woods. O thou of expansive eyes, what shalt thou do with that wretched ascetic Rāma who hath been deprived of his kingdom? I am the lord of the whole world of Rākshasas; being pierced by the shafts of Kama have I come by thee. ”