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Sita avoids Hanuman because she assumes that he is an agent of Ravan
A page from a mediæval, Persian manuscript of The Ramayan

The Ramayan

Regional traditions

The Times of India

Sri Ram hits Khar with an arrow
A page from a mediæval, Persian manuscript of The Ramayan

The Authorised Ramayana

At the root of the censorship issue is a refusal to accept that our gods might be fallible

Nilofer Kaul

In Satyajit Ray’s Samapti, Amulya, the well brought-up city-educated man, visits his prospective bride who sits delicately next to the tanpura. By conventional standards, she is most suitable. Suddenly, from behind her, framed by the window, emerges a wild, untamed Mrinmoyee (Aparna Sen) who unleashes chaos with her mocking laughter. Amulya, till now reluctant to get married, returns home, smitten by the charms of this capricious, uncivilised woman. The scene may be read allegorically – Mrinmoyee represents the repressed; her behaviour is inappropriate both because of the overt aggression and the barely concealed sexuality.

The scene seems to say: there is little we can do with the repressed, because it returns, as indeed, it must. The mother realises this and so gives in to this rather wayward marriage. But the forces of Hindutva do not, as they clamp down on A K Ramanujan’s Three Hundred Ramayanas. Much has been written on this. I don’t want to either mock or condemn the ban, but i do want to understand the anxieties that underlie the obvious irrationality of such censoring. What does Valmiki get which is so right, that others seem to have missed? From the rich repertoire of tellings that Ramanujan brings together, i have picked four instances of ‘wrongness’.

In Kampan’s Ramayana, Indra is punished for having adulterous sex with Ahalya. His body will be covered with vaginas – for that is what he violated. Ahalya is turned to stone, she will never feel anything, for she has indulged in an excess of pleasure. This episode is missing from Valmiki. Why? When we reject this, perhaps we do not want to admit adultery existed, at least not in the realm of our gods, because when you say it is in our sacred epic, it feels as if you are attacking our parents. For after all, gods are mostly imagined as our idealised parents, upholding a fragile fiction. This is what i understand to be at the heart of this censorship panic. It echoes what every child feels – yes, unfortunately people do have sex, but not my parents.

In the Kannada folk tradition, Ravana appears as the father of Sita (as also in some Southeast Asian and Jain tellings). Ramanujan reads this as a recurrent figure in myths, i.e., the incestuous father who pursues his daughter. Interestingly, this demonic version of Ravana also becomes a source of anxiety. Must being the object of desire taint the object? Or is it a cross that all raped and abused women must bear? By being the object of her father’s desire, does Sita also get defiled? Or do we seek to find purity in our family tree which is denied by the lurking incestuous desire?

Interestingly, the Jains represent evolved versions of Ravana and Rama. Given their distaste for aggression, there is a denial of flesh and violence. And yet, we who follow Valmiki’s Ramayana are not enamoured by the purging of violence. The narrative exudes greyness – there is no clear demarcation of good and evil; our bloodthirsty instincts are simply not met! So after all, such a narrative seems to say, my parents are not that much better than the enemy!

In several Rama tales, in Sanskrit and other languages, Sita and Rama are not reconciled. There is a brief reunion followed by separation. Sita returns to the forest with her sons and finally vanishes from the earth into a fissure. This one has all the disadvantages of a tragedy. The reasons for rejecting this are all too obvious. We want our parents to have emerged omnipotent. We also love happy endings, happy families, reconciliation and restoration of order. At least for our families. Never mind if the enemy ends up in flames, or loses her nose. By depriving us of a happy ending, these alternative Rama stories fail to console us.

I have looked very briefly at just a few anxieties linked to some of the existing tales. There must be a good deal more, no doubt. But Valmiki’s Ramayana seems to have struck the right balance in that it keeps good and evil far apart, it doles out a happy ending, it steers clear of insinuating that our parents were mortal and fallible.

In all fairness, one must admit, these childlike wishes to hear, believe and propagate only what is ‘good’ about our parents (and by extension ourselves), is not limited to the Hindutva forces, but is evident in other dominant religions as well. Christianity offers a sanitised mythology, shorn of the body except as a medium for self-flagellation. The Virgin Mother is the obvious embodiment of the childhood fantasy that my father is an absent god and my mother immaculate. The hold of this powerful wish can be seen in the way Christianity wiped out traces of so many ‘strange gods’ of pagan mythology and made the Greek pantheon sound aberrant and monstrous.

Islamic insistence on maintaining a distance between the sacred and the profane is also not discontinuous with this strand of sanitised religions. So is this ‘sanitising’ an inevitable movement, an ineluctable step towards ‘civilising’? To return from where i started, the ‘uncivilised’ Mrinmoyee in Ray’s film must be brought into the fold of civilisation, through the taming of her instincts. Indeed, how precarious must we feel with the dark stranger that resides within us?

The writer is a psychoanalyst.

Ayodhya

Swami Swaroopananda, Ayodhya Means Free Of All Conflicts , April 5, 2017: The Times of India

The Rakshas leader begins the battle
A page from a mediæval, Persian manuscript of The Ramayan

The Ramayana, a fascinating and enthralling epic, is not just a story that has been passed through generations; it has hidden treasures of deep mystical knowledge.

King Dasharatha lived in the kingdom of Ayodhya. Ayodhya is made up of the letters `a-yudh'. `Yudh' means battle or conflict. In our lives, conflicts seem to be all-pervading: disputes in the family; wars in the world; and incessant discord within ­ in our own minds. King Dasharatha had his `ratha' under his mastery .

Our body is a ratha (chariot) with 10 sense organs ­ five of perception and five of action. A person who has mastery over this ratha lives in peace and harmony .

The king had three beautiful and virtuous wives ­ Kaushalya, Sumitra and Kaikeyi. These represent different virtues within us. Kaushalya, means well-being or prosperity . Sumitra signifies friendship and Kaikeyi is one who has both compassion and passion.When the queen showered kindness, she was a wonderful person but, later, overcome with selfish obsession, she became the conniving Kaikeyi.

With such a ruler, wedded to the welfare of his people, the kingdom enjoys peace and prosperity . Similarly, when our mind becomes a Dasharatha ­ a master of the 10 senses ­ and the intellect develops goodwill and kindness with the goal of helping others, our heart will be free from all conflicts ­ Ayodhya.

The birth of the Lord takes place in such an integrated personality that is dedicated to the service of the world. The word Rama means one who delights everybody; what truly delights us is happiness and this happiness is Rama. It is the Supreme Lord, the Infinite Reality that is revelling in everyone's heart; this Rama is the Atma within all and manifests in the heart.

Why does the Lord take avatar? He can easily use anyone as an instrument to vanquish evil. He takes avatar to establish righteousness, when the good are being tyrannised by the wicked; when the Ravanas and Kumbhakarans of the world oppress the virtuous. This is in the macrocosm, but the Supreme also manifests in our hearts.

How do we experience the Infinite, All-pervading Lord within ourselves?

The key element is devotion. The Atma, the Atmarama, is present within us; it is that because of which we see, hear, smell and taste; it is because of which we are alive. Yet, we do not know Him; we remain unaware of His presence. When the mind, like King Dasharatha, is full of devotion, a certain dispassion develops. The king is wedded to Kaushalya ­ one who represents a brilliant and bright intellect free from all selfishness and negativities. When the mind and intellect are focussed on the Lord and we call out to Him by His name ­ Sri Rama ­ He reveals Himself. The Antakaran is the inner equipment, the inner city, the inner space where Rama is experienced as a mass of inexplicable, unlimited happiness and bliss.

Rama is accompanied by his three brothers. Bharata indicates one who is full of love and ready to sacrifice.Lakshmana is a life of dedicated service, and the silent brother, Shatrughana, destroys our greatest enemy ­ the ego.When Rama enters, love and sacrifice, service and dispassion, selflessness and humility , will also emerge. Our heart, Ayodhya, becomes full of peace and joy .

Jatayu’s inspiring determination

Arvind Sharma, A Bird Inspired Hanuman To Look For Sita, March 24, 2018: The Times of India

This story pertains to the period in the Ramayana, after the abduction of Sita when Rama and Lakshmana go out in search of Sita and encounter Hanuman.

Rama promises to help Hanuman’s master regain his lost kingdom and wife, and Hanuman promises to help them find Sita. Once Rama succeeds in fulfilling his part of the bargain, Hanuman sets out to find Sita in the south of India. By now the needle of suspicion was pointing strongly in the direction of Ravana. When Ravana abducted Sita and was carrying her off in his aerial car, he was spotted by an old vulture who, recognising Ravana’s evil intent, challenged him to a fight. The vulture, unable to deter Ravana, lay fatally wounded on the ground when Rama and Lakshmana arrived on the scene. Before they performed his final rites, the dying vulture disclosed to the two that a demon had carried her away in a southerly direction.

Hanuman’s first search for Sita ends in failure. The Sanskrit epic depicts him in a crestfallen mood on the island, reflecting on what to do next. Hanuman, disheartened by failure, is now standing on the shore of the ocean and reasons that perhaps it is best for him to commit suicide. He thinks as follows: if I go back without locating Sita and tell Rama that I have not succeeded in finding her, he will die from the shock. If he dies, Lakshmana will die from the shock of Rama’s death. With Rama and Lakshmana dead, his own master, Sugriva, will die from the shock of their deaths. And if all of them die in this way then I will die from the shock of the death of my master. So perhaps it is best to abbreviate the whole process and commit suicide right now.

While he was contemplating suicide, his attention was diverted by the activity of a small bird, which seemed to dive from the sky, collect the water of the ocean in her beak, and fly away. The frequent repetition of this act by the little bird aroused his curiosity and he asked the bird what it was up to. The bird replied: “My nest has fallen into the ocean and I am trying to dry up the ocean to recover it.” Hanuman was taken aback by the resolve of the little bird, and asked, full of surprise, how she hoped to empty the ocean to recover her nest (in the face of the obvious mismatch between her and the ocean). Thereupon the bird replied: Days and nights are long; My beak is strong as iron.

Indefatigability is the root of success.

Why will the ocean not dry up?

Hanuman was astounded by the determination of the little bird and thought to himself: if this little bird can display such courage and determination then surely I should not give up on my goal and at least make one more attempt to find Sita.

Hanuman did, indeed, succeed in his mission the second time. The little verse uttered by the little bird in the epic which so inspired Hanuman has become a famous saying and its message – “Give up giving up” – has perhaps inspired many more, just as it inspired Hanuman. (The author is Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, McGill University).

Lakshman Rekha: what it symbolises

Madan Mohan Mathur, The Symbolism In Lakshmana Rekha, September 27, 2017: The Times of India  

Acrucial episode in the Ramayana is Ravana's abduction of Sita when she crosses the Lakshmana Rekha, the line drawn by Lakshmana with his arrow, around their cottage in the Dandakaranya forest, before he set out to look for his brother and Sita's spouse, Rama. He draws the line to ensure her safety , and tells her that she should not step outside of it in case any stranger comes there. And if a stranger tries to cross the line and enter the cottage or its precincts, he would be immediately burnt to ashes.

Once Lakshmana leaves, Ravana disguises himself as a sanyasi and appears before the cottage, begging for alms. Since it is obligatory to feed a sadhu who comes to one's door, Sita asks him to come in. Ravana, however, refuses, saying it is not proper for him to enter when she is alone in the house and requests her to come out and give the food to him. The moment she does that, Ravana assumes his real form and forcibly carries Sita away to Lanka.This kidnapping of Sita by Ravana leads to the epic war between Rama and Ravana, with Rama emerging triumphant.

Curiously , there is no specific mention of Lakshmana Rekha either in the original Sanskrit Ramayana by Valmiki or the later Ramcharitra Manas in Hindi, by Tulsidas. The relevant verse of Ramcharitra Manas states that while going into the forest in search of Rama, Lakshmana leaves Sita “in the care of the gods of the forest and environment“. In the Aranya Kanda, there is no mention of Lakshmana drawing a line to protect Sita. Only later, in Lanka Kanda, we find an oblique reference, when Mandodari ridicules Ravana on his boisterous claims of valour by hinting that he could not cross even a small line drawn by Rama's younger brother! Perhaps the episode of Lakshmana Rekha was a later interpolation used as a theatrical device to make the story more interesting for public performances of Ramlila.

Whatever may be the case, undeniably , over the centuries, Lakshmana Rekha has be come a universally accepted idiom to denote the ethical limits of any action, travers ing which may lead to drastic consequences. Even today , the term is being used while referring to violation of traditional conventions or rules. In Parliament, former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is reported to have said “Constitution is very clear on the roles of the Judiciary and Legislature. Both should not cross the Lakshmana Rekha!“ So, whether it existed in the original Ramayana or not, Lakshmana Rekha has now become part of popular parlance.

In present times, public actions and conduct are governed by the Constitution and the laws enacted by our law-making bodies. And even in our personal relationships and daily activities, we follow some rules, conventions and codes of conduct which we have come to accept as the norm, as they contribute to an orderly life at home and in the community and society .

Ultimately , in the personal sphere, it is for each one of us to draw our own Lakshmana Rekha based on personal and collective wisdom, in keeping with the times, and decide whether we want to remain safe and secure within the line drawn by our own moral conscience or act out of bounds, facing whatever consequences lie in store for us.

Sabhari (Shabari) moksh

October 21, 2017: The Hindu

The one chapter devoted to Sabhari moksha in the Valmiki Ramayana might not contribute to the plot of the story, but it brings out the efficacy of the sacred mantra, the Rama Nama, said Sri Sankararama Dikshitar in a discourse. Rama Nama is a universal mantra that has no restrictions, regulations or reservations and all can chant it to gain untold benefits.

In the case of Sabhari, the very deity who is invoked in the mantra comes to grace her, validating her faith in the mantra and in her guru’s words. Rama and Lakshmana enter the idyllic ashram of Sage Matanga and are filled with a rare sense of peace and tranquility. As soon as Sabhari sees them she welcomes them with folded palms and is speechless in their presence.

Rama, known to be a ‘poorva bhashi,’ and very well aware of Sabhari’s saintly habits and realised state, begins the conversation by asking her about those matters close to her heart, her penance, faith, service to her guru, etc. The exchange between them does not touch on worldly matters.

Sabhari intuitively realises that the purpose of her life has gained fulfilment on seeing Rama, who she knows to be the Supreme Lord incarnate and not just the prince of Ayodhya who in search of Sita. She is grateful that His kataksha has blessed and purified her. She is overwhelmed that despite her birth and lack of learning, it is her simple faith and a life of penance that has conferred the jnana that liberates. She takes them around the ashram that reflects the austere life of the sage and his disciples even in their absence. She offers them the best of fruits she had carefully and painstakingly hand picked for Rama.

Rama accepts her hospitality. She then enters the fire in Rama’s presence, attains a divine form and proceeds to reach the highest goal from which there is no return.

Vasisht, sage, and Sri Ram

Raghunandan, Dialogue Between Prince Rama & Sage Vasishta, April 6, 2018: The Times of India

On his return to Ayodhya after a pilgrimage, Prince Rama is possessed with questions on the purpose of life, and the meaning of existence. He becomes totally disinterested in day-to-day activities. Alarmed, his attendants report this to his father, King Dasaratha. Just then, Sage Vishwamitra visits with a request that Rama accompany him to the forest to contain the demons disturbing his penance. When Dasaratha informs Vishwamitra of Rama’s state of mind, Vishwamitra asks Rama to make a clean breast of what disturbs him, and the prince speaks in detail. So begins the ‘Yoga Vasistha’. Rama speaks about the repetitiveness of life, insatiability of desires, limitations of life and the world. This section is the ‘Vairagya Prakarana’, Divine Disinterest.

After listening to the prince, Vishwamitra requests Sage Vasishtha to enlighten him with stories on Vedanta. The dialogue between Rama and Vasishta forms an instructive and useful narrative to all seekers in every stage of growth. It is not enough to ask questions and seek answers intellectually; we have to turn these questions into a quest. For the quest, one has to make prayatna, effort, and have paurusha, grit, to pursue the path and have total trust in self. The greatest impediments are our vasanas, tendencies which give way to stubborn habits.

The seeker is asked to develop shubha vasanas, such tendencies that free us, in turn dissolving ashubha vasanas, negative tendencies. The first quality a seeker should have is, shama, sweet patience, as one can never be in a hurry to achieve. The second is santosha, contentment in what one has, but discontent in what one is. With these, the seeker develops vichara, the capacity to contemplate, analyse and discriminate. These are possible with sadhusanga, association of the wise, in person or through scriptures. This mumukshu prakarana, divine longing, describes the qualities of a seeker.

The paradox called life, governed as it is by the dualities of pleasure-pain and happiness-misery, confuses us. The sage makes it bold to state that the origin of existence is the “i” or the entity behind every action (i-act), experience (i-experience) and knowledge (i-know). He tells Rama that the tendency to experience, bhoga vasana, is gross, while bheda vasana or the tendency to differentiate is basic to this “i” which is the root cause of mind.

These principles are illustrated via stories in the section titled Srishti Prakarana – Origin. For most of us this “i” has become our master! Factors empowering this servant are dealt with in the next section titled Sthiti Prakarana – Sustenance. Involvement at the mental level and indulgence at the sense level; pride, and fear strengthen the “i”.

Controlling mind and ego forms the subject matter of the fifth portion entitled Upashama Prakarana – Quiescence. The Yoga Vasishta recommends methods to pacify the mind through understanding, by defining Yoga as a technique for quietening the mind. It states Yoga and Samyagavekshanam as the two broad methods. Yoga quietens mental activity, while Samyagavekshanam is the art of witnessing inner transactions of mind, intellect, memory and ego.

The most sublime portion is Nirvana Prakarana – Transcendence, wherein stories narrate the transcendence of time, space; practical method of contemplation; real renunciation; chittashuddhi, purity of mind, and the seven stages a seeker passes through on his pilgrimage towards enlightenment. Yoga Vasishtha is a user’s manual for utilising the great body-mind complex we are endowed with by the Existence for identifying and merging with It.

See also

Sri Ram

The Ramayan

Ram Charit Manas

Shanta, sister of Sri Ram

Ramleela, Ram Leela, Ramlila

Ayodhya

Hanuman Chalisa