The 48 Ramkathas discussed in this compact edition also place in a chronological order the convolution of this story, often called ‘itihasa’ and equally contested as epic poetry, the imagination of perfection by a poetic man.
While “Ram” is a matter of politics today, the universal Ramayana faces no such limitations and, in his book, Professor A.A. Manavalan unobtrusively focuses on the genealogy of the core events as traceable to the ideologies governing the various rewritings of the Ramayana in his meticulously structured Tamil study, Ramakaathaiyum Ramayanangalum. The English translation of a detailed perusal of three Kaandams brings to global readers not only what the various Indian versions across the subcontinent tell us about the twists and turns in Rama’s story but also what the Chinese, Japanese (the Sambo-ekotoba, 10th century CE), Tibetan (9th century CE), Indonesian, Laotian, Filipino, Javanese (9th century CE) Myanmarese and Nepali versions say.
The 48 Ramkathas discussed in this compact edition also place in a chronological order the convolution of this story, often called “itihasa” and equally contested as epic poetry, the imagination of perfection by a poetic man. As the learned professor notes, interestingly, the story acquires divinity only in the Middle Ages. The work won the K.K. Birla Foundation’s Saraswati Samman.
The ideological issues presented in the book are fascinating, especially as Prof Manavalan leaves gender issues open for the reader to contemplate. He does not make any judgmental remarks with regard to the various versions, but his main focus is how the receiving language’s rendering could have made a greater impact than the original in the popular imagination of the people.
He says the original Rama story is older than history and Puranas, a myth actually. Research too shows there is no evidence in Vedic literature that the Ramayana had been composed during the Vedic period or that there were songs and tales relating to Rama’s story. Scholars say, names like Rama, Sita may have been used in Vedic times. Manavalan has no doubt that Valmiki’s epic is not the source of Rama’s story.
According to the scholar Indira Parthasarathy, “the story of Rama began, perhaps, in the collective unconscious of the ancient Indian tribes who inhabited India in the distant past”. He says, the story might have remained as an oral tradition for a long time, perhaps until the fifth century before Christ. “The story first found expression in a written form in the Buddhist Jataka Tales (Dasaratha Jataka, Anamakam Jataka and Dasarath Kathaanam, all in Pali). It was an essential part of the spiritual mythography of Buddhism. It was a simple and straightforward fable, wherein Rama represented one of the evolutionary stages of Gautama, the Buddha, before he attained Nirvana. These treaties clearly refer to Rama’s self-exile to the Himalayas.”
The Buddhist versions scrupulously avoided war and violence, befitting the sattvic traditions of that religion. So, the earliest Rama stories have no “Lanka kaandam”. No Ayodhya either. In these stories, the capital city of Dasaratha is Varanasi; Rama and Sita are siblings; their sojourn in the forest is in the Himalayan region; the duration of the stay in the forest is twelve years. Ayodhya enters the picture only in Valmiki’s Aadi Ramayana, two-three hundred years after the Buddhist texts.
No Prakrit or Sanskrit text has been found in north India of any Rama story before first century of the Common Era. The Valmiki text transliterated in the Nepali language of Nevari in 1020 CE is among the oldest of those found so far. There are some transliterations in new Pali from Sinhala, where the Rama story has migrated south through Buddhism. There is still some doubt about the antiquity of the 6th century CE Ramayana listed in the Asiatic Society library catalogue and found recently in a Kolkata Sanskrit library.
Just like there is controversy over Rama’s birthplace, it is surprising to know no northern recension discusses the star under whose influence Rama was born. Prof Manavalan points out that the southern culture dared to sing a padikam (a form of Tamil verse) rejecting belief in auspicious days and the influence of planets as superstitions. Yet, it is the southern recensions that talk of Rama’s birth star. Reverend Camille Bulcke, who researched into the various recensions of Valmiki, avers that the details regarding planetary positions which are found only in the southern Vanmikam could have been inserted as interpolations mostly after fifth or sixth century AD (Ramkatha 282). “From the research notings of Prof UP Sha and Reverend Bulcke, we come to know that these details were added as interpolations in the Southern Recension of Valmiki, particularly in the Grantha manuscripts as well as the Malayalam manuscripts. If such is the case, one needs to look for the basis for these conclusions,” says Prof Manavalan.
Many of the female characters in Prof Manavalan’s work raise traditional eyebrows.
Torave Ramayanam (16th century CE) and Govinda Ramayanam refer to Manthara as an incarnation, born to instigate Rama’s exile and eventual end of Ravana. There are four reasons discussed for Manthara’s anger against Rama. Agni Purana (post-eighth century AD) is the first text to state that Kooni (Manthara, a woman with a hump) nurtured a grouse against Rama because of the various kinds of injuries that he had caused her (although later texts call him “The Perfect Man”). But it does not explain what harm he had done.
Among the epic poets, it is Kamban (tenth century CE) who is the first to put forth anger as reason. Kamban says, the cause for Manthara’s enmity was that in the past Rama had made fun of Kooni, hitting her with darts of clay balls. It is possible to consider that Kamban might have drawn this idea from the following hymns of Thirumazhisai Azhwar, Nammazhwar and others. The Telugu Ranganatha Ramayanam too cites the same reason that “When Rama was a little boy, he playfully broke the leg of Kooni. On account of that incident Manthara bore a grudge against him”. Bhaskara Ramayanam also holds the same view.
Madhava Kandali’s Assamese Ramayana shows Manthara as one who is in love with Bharata and this is the reason why she plots to deprive Rama of the kingdom.
The comparatist is at his best in unravelling the variations in the treatment of the Ahalya episode. In the Northern Recension of Valmiki, there is just the curse, whereas in the southern recension she turns into a stone. In Kamba Ramayanam, Ahalya is cursed to turn into a stone. Absorbed with the task of tracing the genealogy of concepts, ideas and episodes, Prof Manavalan locates the source of Kamban’s version in Tamil Sangam poetry. This version of the Ahalya legend was already in circulation in Tamil society and literature. The story of an associated curse, the curse on the king of the Devas, Indra places a big question mark on the deities on our spiritual platter.
Phrases like Lakshman Rekha, Chaya Sita (Lakshmana’s Line, culturally related to sequestering of women and Shadow Sita) are found for the first time in the Bhusundi Ramayana (12th century CE) which also gives dietary details of Rama and family. Thus, this new comparative study from the eminent scholar Prof Manavalan brings to readers an intriguing account of the dispersion of Rama’s story, an eye opener as far as sociological portrayals through centuries go.