Rama and Stuff...

The Radha painting mentioned in the last post isn't ready as yet. It shall be put up here if and when circumstances permit.

Rama and Ramayana have featured here quite a few times. Time for a bit more of em. Let me record two stories about Rama's 'performance' as an ideal King:

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Rama is king and all is well in Ayodhya. One fine day, a dog came to him with a serious complaint - he had been badly beaten and injured by a brahmin. Rama sent his men to fetch the brahmin for a trial at his darbar.

The brahmin promptly owned up: "In a narrow galli, this dog came in my way and was a bit tardy in getting out of my way and in a sudden rage, I gave it a hard whack with my stick!".

The courtiers said the brahmin couldn't be punished - he had legal immunity simply due to his being a brahmin. But Rama asked for the dog's opinion. The dog said: "Let this brahmin be immediately installed as the 'kulapati' at Kalanjar ( a plum posting that put him in charge of several temples and religious institutions)". Rama immediately did so and sent the much surprised brahmin away with great ceremony. Then he asked the dog to explain to the darbaris the reason behind his demanding such a 'punishment' for the brahmin.

And the dog said: "In my last incarnation, I was the kulapati at Kalanjar. The job involved discharging several delicate responsibilities; I did my best without fear or favor but some errors crept in and so as penalty, I have had to put up with this dog-birth with occasional whacks on the head! And this chap you have installed there, he is quite a bully and am sure is going to bungle big time and so he is gonna really get it next time!"

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A brahmin's child dies in Ayodhya - something considered a calamity in a well-governed kingdom. Rama investigates and finds that a certain Shudra by name Shambuka is performing 'tapas'. Now, Shudras, the most basic of the 4 varnas, are not allowed to do 'tapas'. Rama immediately seeks out the offender.

"I am practising austerities to attain Moksha, salvation, my Lord!" says Shambuka. Now, that was real easy - death by the hand of a divine being is the quickest and surest way to Moksha. Rama promptly dispatches Shambuka and the dead child comes back to life!

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Modern Rama Bhaktas find the Shambuka story hard to explain away - even harder than the Sita-abandonment episode. Of course, Rama-bashers love it.

Wiki says: "scholars say the Shambuka episode is a late interpolation into the Ramayana". Eminent Keralan scholar and critic M Leelavathi argues: "Logically speaking, the dog and Shambuka episodes featuring in close succession in the narrative is inconsistent - indeed, the same Rama who asks a mere dog to judge his tormentor going on to behead a Shudra who has harmed no one is quite odd. So one of the stories ought to be a later interpolation. We also know, even Rama's father Dasharatha receives a curse from a non Brahmin Rishi. So, if a 'low-born' man could do 'tapas' when Rama's father ruled, how can it be that just one generation later, the Shastras suddenly banned it? So, one concludes that the Shambuka story was inserted later into the Ramayana - by some brahmin poet who wanted to emphasize the paramount importance of Brahmins and their exclusive right to knowledge."

Aside: Ezhuthassan's clsssic Malayalam rendering of the Ramayana leaves out the dog but retains Shambuka - to me, this is remarkable because Ezhuthassan was Shudra himself; indeed, when he retold the Mahabharata later, he respectfully left out the Gita (orthodoxy did not permit Shudras to learn Vedanta - the Gita is a foundational text thereof). No, Ezhuthassan's body of work is too varied and rich and important for some interloper to accuse him of 'Uncle Tom' behaviour!

My own two cents: Both stories being in the Ramayana only makes it richer. As P K Balakrishnan has observed (my understanding of his writings), an epic is not meant to be consistent; like the river Ganga, it sweeps along - at times placid and lucid, at times turbulent and murky and flotsam-laden, receiving tributaries, shifting courses and breaking into multiple channels ….- but with a grand unified dynamic that inexorably leads to a dissolution into the infinite(*). And Ramayana is not one of the very greatest of epics for nothing - indeed, even its core story hinges on noble Rama and Laxmana's gratuitously mean-minded (and later violent) behavior towards Surpanakha (Leelavathi herself has elsewhere excoriated Rama for this act).

Moreover, the earlier episode of Dasharatha receiving a curse cannot really be invoked in this context. The Rishi who cursed him was a Vaishya - and hence member of a twice-born 'dwija' caste (albeit a 'low grade' twice-born!) - and not a Shudra like poor Shambuka; the existence of a Vaishya Rishi is not quite enough to make Shambuka's tapas kosher.

And the basic incongruity between "respect for a dog and contempt for a fellow human" is indeed (sadly) a very real and integral part of our tradition. As Ambedkar said (I quote from memory): "It is a terrible irony that those who see the whole Universe to be permeated by the One Supreme Being are only too willing to segregate and marginalize members of their own species!"

My guess is that Shambuka's spirit will continue to haunt all discussions on Ramayana for a long time to come. But, from a 21st century bourgeois, corporate standpoint, the Dog story is a lot easier to bottle up and even ascribe a moral to. Here goes: If karma and afterlife (eternal or otherwise) are objectively real, it is dangerous for a Manager to get drunk on and monkey around with Power while in authority - severe retribution is guaranteed. However, if none of these has any reality, then, he can pretty much do as he pleases! I don't claim to have discovered this principle or anything - indeed, I know many bosses who follow it to the T!

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There is a grand story making its rounds in social media. Here is its gist:

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Edison invented the gramophone. He wanted a great scholar's voice to be the first to be recorded on his device and chose Max Muller. The latter was pleased to invite Edison to travel to London for a function to be attended by a galaxy of scholars - in front of the gathering, Muller would get himself recorded.

When Mullers voice was recorded and played back, nobody could make out what he had said - it sounded very strange and incoherent. And the great man explained:

It is the first verse of the Rig Veda, the oldest text of the human race. When the rest of the world was mired in savagery, Indians possessed a high culture and this is its pinnacle.

"agnimeeLe purohitaM yajnasya devam Rutvijam hotAraM ratnadhAtamam "

The verse means: "O Agni, who gleams in darkness, to you we come day by day, with devotion and bearing homage. So be of easy access to us, Agni as a father to his son, abide with us for our well being"(sic)

In Muller's voice, "agni meele" (sic) was played once more and the entire audience stood up in silence as a mark of respect.
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Most of this story is plain fake - although Max Muller's chanting of the first verse of the Rigveda was indeed an early recorded audio piece - as several web pages have explained.

But what bothers me most in this pathetic stab at cultural nationalism is the 'translation' given above. As per most proper Veda experts, it ought to be: "I glorify Agni, the priest, the divine ministrant of the sacrifice, the bestower of treasures!" - at least nothing whatsoever like the one being circulated. And most basically, the parsing of the hymn should begin "agnim eele" and not "agni meele"!

I sign off with a picture that fills me with deep concern for Rama and his legacy:


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(*) And it is also to be noted that just as in Ganga's case, one can never be sure where the Epic begins and where it ends - it latches on to the narrative in media res and lets go of it without closure.