Reading Ramayana in the Roaring (Twenty) Twenties

Ramayana and Mahabharata are two great epics from the Indian subcontinent. Many of the thirty three million Hindu gods and goddesses make guest appearances in these two epics. Some like Vishnu gets to play the main characters in his two popular avatars, Rama and Krishna, in these two mega mythological texts in Sanskrit. Bhagvad Gita, the best known Indian scripture, is a part of a section of Mahabharata called the Bhishma Parva.

In my mind Hinduism is the contemporary of Greek religion (Hellenism) and Indians worshipping the million gods is how West would have been, had it not been won over by the trinity of Jesus, Allah and Yhwh. Both Hinduism and Hellenism are polytheistic featuring their main players in two opposing teams - Devas and Asuras for Hinduism corresponding to Olympians and Titans for the Greeks. 

Like Hades, Zeus and Poseidon, Hinduism has Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer), a slightly different yet similar take as the Greeks' dividing the Big 3 by assigning them the three realms of the heavens, the oceans and the underworld. If the monotheistic Abrahamic religions had not overrun and relegated Greek and Roman gods to the mythical pavilion in the western world, I am sure we would have wished Zeusspeed instead of Godspeed.

Why are we talking about these epics now? Recently in my search for coffee-table books, (that is what I mainly use the local library for these days,) I chanced upon an illustrated Ramayana. The last time I heard Ramayana (def. Sanskrit: Rama's Journey) in full was when my mother narrated me the whole story every evening over several months during my grade school days. Two score years seemed to be the right interval for a refresher.

The Illustrated Ramayana published by DK is a well written, well put together, well illustrated book, suited for both the advanced Ramayana scholar, who can find plenty of things to nitpick or for a beginner like me.  The illustrations which range from Raja Ravi Varma to Pahadi to Mughal paintings to glorious temple art from South India or Angkor Wat to Indonesia to performances and native art forms by artists from Thailand or Rajasthan(India) or  Nepal, makes every page a visual treat leading the narration forward.

Like every great epic, there are thousands retellings of the epic in every region and every language South-East and East Asia. The book also draws from these alternate story paths and present them in conjunction with the original narrative, supposedly written in Sanskrit by sage Valmiki. Valmiki, known as the first poet (adi kavi), because Ramayana is the first poem, like Alfred Hitchcock, has a weakness for cameos. In Ramayana he is a an important character in the seventh and last canto (or kanda in Sanskrit) called Uttara Kanda and he is also present in Bala Kanda as the narrator and the live-in tutor for Rama's twin boys - Lava and Kusha.

The oldest retrieved manuscript of Ramayana only contains 5 kandas and are missing the first kanda - Bala Kanda and the last one, Uttara Kanda. Because of the stylistic differences and narrative contradictions many scholars believe that these two were later additions to the epic and therefore Valmiki didn't write himself into the story. The five kandas, excluding Bala Kanda (1st canto) and Uttara Kanda (7th and final canto) are Ayodhya Kanda, Aranya Kanda, Kishkinda Kanda, Sundara Kanda and Yudha Kanda. 

Almost every religion that started in India - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism have their versions of Ramayana. So does almost every country in South-East and East Asia, except perhaps Vietnam. Every one of them highlights the same ultimate and supreme ideal Rama stands for - "Dharma"  which is what every human being should try to achieve - the right way of living through moral and virtuous conduct. Practicing dharma is the only way to get rid of our karmic baggage and attain salvation. A heavy message, nevertheless, a beautiful book.