So Many Ramayanas, So Many Ramas
Malayalam short story writer V P Sivakumar once said that life teaches every individual to read the Ramayana. It took me a long while to understand what he meant. Now I wonder. does every individual write his own Ramayana? Valmiki's Ramkatha lives off the limits of space and time. The story was there before the sage, and after him. The itihasa kavya continues to live in many forms, many tongues; each actually narrating a new story. How many Ramayanas are there? A K Ramanujan once attempted to answer the question. He first counted 300, added another 100, only to be told by a Kannada writer that there are over 1,000 of them in his language alone. Ramanujan summed up the count by recounting a Hindi folk tale: Once, Rama lost his ring. Hanuman was told to look for it. He travelled the worlds in search of the lost ring. At last, he reached the netherworld, where he was taken to the King of the Spirits who showed him a platter of rings. There were thou sands of them, all belonging to Rama. Take your pick, Hanuman was told. When he pleaded for help since all of them looked the same, the king said: There have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter. When you return to earth, you will not find Rama. This incarnation of Rama is now over. Whenever an incarnation of Rama is about to be over, his ring falls down. I collect them and keep them. For each Rama, there is a Ramayana. Since there are many Ramas, there are many Ramayanas; each reflecting the age in which it is narrated. In the centuries when the Bhakti movement flourished across India, Valmiki's maryada purusha made way for the divine philosopher king of Kamban and Ezhuthachhan. For Kabir and Thyagaraja, who followed them, Rama was an abstract ideal. So was it for Gandhi who weaved in an ethical concept of Ramrajya into his narrative of a free India. Is the Ramayana, then, a mere story or an allegory on the struggle between good and evil? Or is it a chunk of history elaborated as a narrative of a nation? Ramayana is all these, and perhaps more. It is history, a story, an allegory; more than anything it is a tradition of narratives. Every individual continues to author it throughout his life to make it his own tale. As a child, the Ramayana is a bedtime story: Once upon a time in a faraway land called Ayodhya, there was a king called Dasharatha... Here Rama is the obedient son, the aspiration of every father and mother. In adulthood, you are initiated into Rama the sthithaprgnya, who would explain to Lakshmana the ways of the world as paandhar peruvazhiyambalam thannile/ thantarai koodi vivogum varumbole -"tired people arriving in rest houses, only to depart soon". The text grows on you with time. Life, indeed, teaches you to read it And, in many ways. The narrative reaches a dead end the minute it is historicised. Constrained to the co-ordinates of space and time, it ceases to be a story, an idea. The itihasa as a narrative of nation drops out of the realm of imagination. The Rama of Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa is a marching hero; the marauding empire builder of orthodoxy sweeping the plains of Aryavarta. In the 20th century, he was bundled into a rath to take on the imagined Other of the 'defeated Hindu'. History repeats itself as farce, shorn of poetry. The yoke of history is a burden to the story. It demeans the soul of the narrative. Return Rama to the story. Let it be, as the Yoga Vasishta says, "the raft with which men will cross the ocean of samsara". As Kabir put it: "Ram's pass is a high one/ Kabir keeps climbing..."
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Amrith Lal personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Amrith Lal and Speaking Tree,Times of India
So Many Ramayanas, So Many Ramas
Malayalam short story writer V P Sivakumar once said that life teaches every individual to read the Ramayana. It took me a long while to understand what he meant. Now I wonder. does every individual write his own Ramayana? Valmiki's Ramkatha lives off the limits of space and time. The story was there before the sage, and after him. The itihasa kavya continues to live in many forms, many tongues; each actually narrating a new story. How many Ramayanas are there? A K Ramanujan once attempted to answer the question. He first counted 300, added another 100, only to be told by a Kannada writer that there are over 1,000 of them in his language alone. Ramanujan summed up the count by recounting a Hindi folk tale: Once, Rama lost his ring. Hanuman was told to look for it. He travelled the worlds in search of the lost ring. At last, he reached the netherworld, where he was taken to the King of the Spirits who showed him a platter of rings. There were thou sands of them, all belonging to Rama. Take your pick, Hanuman was told. When he pleaded for help since all of them looked the same, the king said: There have been as many Ramas as there are rings on this platter. When you return to earth, you will not find Rama. This incarnation of Rama is now over. Whenever an incarnation of Rama is about to be over, his ring falls down. I collect them and keep them. For each Rama, there is a Ramayana. Since there are many Ramas, there are many Ramayanas; each reflecting the age in which it is narrated. In the centuries when the Bhakti movement flourished across India, Valmiki's maryada purusha made way for the divine philosopher king of Kamban and Ezhuthachhan. For Kabir and Thyagaraja, who followed them, Rama was an abstract ideal. So was it for Gandhi who weaved in an ethical concept of Ramrajya into his narrative of a free India. Is the Ramayana, then, a mere story or an allegory on the struggle between good and evil? Or is it a chunk of history elaborated as a narrative of a nation? Ramayana is all these, and perhaps more. It is history, a story, an allegory; more than anything it is a tradition of narratives. Every individual continues to author it throughout his life to make it his own tale. As a child, the Ramayana is a bedtime story: Once upon a time in a faraway land called Ayodhya, there was a king called Dasharatha... Here Rama is the obedient son, the aspiration of every father and mother. In adulthood, you are initiated into Rama the sthithaprgnya, who would explain to Lakshmana the ways of the world as paandhar peruvazhiyambalam thannile/ thantarai koodi vivogum varumbole -"tired people arriving in rest houses, only to depart soon". The text grows on you with time. Life, indeed, teaches you to read it And, in many ways. The narrative reaches a dead end the minute it is historicised. Constrained to the co-ordinates of space and time, it ceases to be a story, an idea. The itihasa as a narrative of nation drops out of the realm of imagination. The Rama of Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa is a marching hero; the marauding empire builder of orthodoxy sweeping the plains of Aryavarta. In the 20th century, he was bundled into a rath to take on the imagined Other of the 'defeated Hindu'. History repeats itself as farce, shorn of poetry. The yoke of history is a burden to the story. It demeans the soul of the narrative. Return Rama to the story. Let it be, as the Yoga Vasishta says, "the raft with which men will cross the ocean of samsara". As Kabir put it: "Ram's pass is a high one/ Kabir keeps climbing..."
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Amrith Lal personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy: Amrith Lal and Speaking Tree,Times of India