Three Hundred Ramayana- Essay by A.K. Ramanujan

 I started re-reading this essay after the Nepal Prime Minister declared that Rama was born in Nepal.

Ramayana, one of the two epics, shorn of all the adornments, tells the story of Rama, the son of Dasharatha, King of Ayodhya.  Rama is the ideal man.  Thygaraja sings rAma Ni samAnamevaru or who is equal to you, O Rama.  He was a man, who, as Vishaka Hari tells in her discourse, lives by Dharma.  I do not know how to explain Dharma in English.  Appa once told me that it is not duty.  May be it is Principles? Morals?  I do not know how to say it in English.

To continue:

The people of Ayodhya adore him and want to see him as their King.  However, he is exiled to the forest for 14 years.  Obeying his father's command, Rama goes to the forest with his wife, Sita, and his brother Lakshmana.  In the forest, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the King of Lanka.  Rama wages war to get his wife back.  Ravana is killed.  Rama and Sita are reunited.  This coincides with the end of the exile period. Rama comes back to Ayodhya and is crowned the King.  The happiness does not last long.  Hearing slanderous statements about Sita, Rama orders his brother to kill his wife.  Lakshmana takes pity on Sita and leaves her in the forest where she gives birth to twin sons.  Later, his sons come to his court, and without knowing he is their father, sing the Ramayana before them. 

Ramayana is both a story and a religious text for Rama is seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu God.

The earliest written version is the Valmiki's Ramayana.  But as, A.K. Ramanujan, expounds in his essay, there are many versions (we cannot call it mere re-telling or translation) for each version is different in how it presents the story.  Each part of the country has its own version of Ramayana, incorporating in the local legends, motifs, and folk tales. In Tamil, we have Kamban's Ramayanam.  Amma used to say that her father would have tears streaming when he read the Sundara Kandam (the fifth book) of Kamban's Ramayanam.  My friend reads Tulsidas' Rama charitmanas.  In addition, there is also Jain version of Ramayana. As there is a Buddhist version.  Ramayana traveled to South Asia.  So the story is told in Bali, Java, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia.   The Thai Kings have written their own version of Ramayana.  Incidentally, there is a Ayuthya in Thailand and the King is styled as King Rama.

The essay, however, was an eye opener for it opened me to a world of different versions of the story.  Each one engaging, each one providing a different perspective, each one making me think.

Reading the essay, I asked myself, how did I hear the story first?  I have no recollection.  What I do recollect is that we had to read the entire Ramayana as part of course work in school. It was a prescribed text book, taught to us as such.  This story was based on Valmiki's Ramayana and I read it in Hindi.  Later, I read C. Rajagopalachari's Ramayana which was based Kamban Ramayana.  Many of my generation would have read the story as told in comic form- Amar Chitra Katha.  Though to be fair, I recollect only The Story of Krishna (the eighth incarnation of Vishnu) and Krishna and Rukmani.  In fact the images of  Krishna and Rukmani story printed in Amar Chitra Katha is still imprinted in my mind.  But I think Amar Chitra Katha printed the story of Ahalya and Sabari (both stories within Ramayana).

I also remember by Bharatanatyam dance master taught couple of pieces based on Ramayana.  I also remember my master teaching a senior student Bhavayami raghuramam, a song composed by Swati Tirunal telling the story of Ramayana.  And there was of course M.S. Subbalakshmi's rendering of Namaramayanam.  Appa used to put this recording in the morning.

During the enforced Covid break, I watched Sita Kalayanam, a dance drama choreographed by Rukmini Devi Arundale and performed Kalakshetra dancers. It was available on You Tube.

The Ramayana, therefore, that I know is a mishmash of all these sources. It is my own version. 

The essay, unfortunately, was banned by Delhi University in 2012 because of protest by a vociferous group.  They said the examples that A.K. Ramanujan chose to explain in his essay hurt their sentiment.

I did not understand and still do not understand the protest.  In a country where multiple languages exist, where cuisine changes every few hundred miles, where the same 6-yard long cloth called saree can be tied in many different ways, where the same festival can be celebrated for different reasons (classic example being Deepavali which North India celebrates because Rama comes back to Ayodhya after 14 years exile while Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra, and Telengana celebrate it because Krishna killed the demon Narakasura, and Kerala along with most of the North East States do not celebrate), I wonder why only one  Ramayana is or should be deemed to be correct.