21. ITIHASA AND EPIC

WITH  THE  GREAT

Route taken by Rama and the places associated.
Jijithnr at English Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons via Wikimedia commons.

21.  ITIHASA  AND EPIC

 Unique among the ancient literature of the world,, Ramayana is preserved intact for thousands of years. For it has been considered a religious text, and used for daily personal  devotions and  periodical group recitation and exposition, for millennia. And unlike other religions, Hinduism did not destroy anything. Nor was there a Pope or Emperor to change the calendar or refix the dates, or dictate what should be included or kept out!

Adi  kavya- the chronology

Valmiki's Ramayana is called Adi Kavya- the first or original. It is a straightforward story, narrated simply. It deals with how a prince was exiled from his kingdom for fourteen years, how his wife was kidnapped, how he travelled tracing his wife and how he recovered her. All the places, rivers, hills mentioned still exist and the route can be traced today, after thousands of years. Please see the map provided above. The religious unity of India has preserved the landmarks, no matter who ruled where. People have been coming to Rameshwaram for ages. The temple there belongs to Hindus of India, not to any non-believing secular govt.

The dates of the events have also been fixed by our scholars.  Anna Subrahmanya Iyer has given a detailed chronology of Rama's life, based on Valmiki Ramayana.This is printed as Appendix 1 to his edition of a summary version of the Valmiki Ramayana (Srimad Valmiki Ramayana Saram.)The main events took place as under:

1.Bala Kandam: 
Rama's age: up to 12 years.
On completion of 12th year, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with Vishwamitra.  On the 29th day, Rama marries Sita. On the 33rd day, they return to Ayodhya.

2. Ayodhya Kandam:
Rama's age : 13 to 25 years.
Rama proceeds on vanavasa  on Shukla Panchami in the month of Mesha.
Reaches Chitrakoota on Shukla Trayodasi in the month of Vrashaba.

3.Aranya Kandam.

Rama leaves Chitrakoot on Shukla Panchami in the month of Kataka.
For about 10 years, up to his 35th year, Rama lives in Dandakaranya.

At the end of the 10th year, reaches Panchavati, as directed by Agastya. It is on Krishna Panchami in the month of Vrishaba. Rama spends over 2 years and 10 months there.In the 14th year, on Shukla  Panchami in the month of  Mesha, Sita is kidnapped.

12thcentury stone sculpture of Agastya, Bihar.
By Wikipedia Loves Art participant "team a" CC BY-SA 2.5 creativecommons via Wikimedia commons.


4. Kishkinda Kandam.
  
14th year of Vanavas.
Rama's age :  39+

In the month of Vrischika, vanaras start in search of Sita.

5.Sundara Kanda:  

14th year, month of  Meena.
Hanuman flies over the sea on Shukla Ekadasi.Meets Sita on the next day. Returns on the Paurnami.

6.Yuddha   Kandam.

After the vanara armies arrive, building the Sethu from Krishna Chaturthi. Ashtami- crossing into Lanka.
War starts on Navami. Ravana is killed on Amavasya.

Month of Mesha:
Starting from Lanka by Pushpaka Vimana on Shukla Tritiyai.Reaching Nandigrama on Sashti, and joining Bharata at the end of the 14th year.
Rama Pattabhishekam on Saptami.

7, Uttara Kandam. 
Rama's age:  40 to 110.
Sita goes to the forest in the month of Meena.

41st year of Rama: Shatrughna sent to Mathupuri
53rd year : Shatrughna returns and listens to the recital of Lava-Kusa on the way.
53rd Year: Rajasuya yajna. Sita is absorbed by Earth.

 Rama lives up to110 years. He enthrones Lava in Ayodhya and Kusa in Uttara. Rama reaches His Paramapada.

(The names of the months are given as per the standard Panchangams followed in Tamil Nadu.)

It is said that Rama ruled for 11,000 years. What is this nonsense?
This is no nonsense. 11,000 is  10x 1000+ 10x100. According to Siddha Sankhet, this amounts to 10x4+ 10x3 = 70.
As Rama was crowned in his 40th year, it means he ruled for 70 years, up to his 110th year.
Remember India invented the Decimal system too!

(This book is published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai.  1 Edition: 1987.)

I have given these details because even the so called Astikas are not aware of the dates of the various events. We need not bother about the non-believers. Light will always cast its shadow. The believers should know the facts. Valmiki has furnished the specifics. He has given astronomical (not astrological) indications.These can be , and have been, verified. There is nothing extraordinary or unusual here, because it is how we reckoned, and orthodox people still reckon, the events. This is how our religious events are still celebrated. No one has altered the birthdays of Rama and Krishna all these thousands of years.

Historical understanding- distorted by colonial and Christian elements

Our present idea of history and methods of studying it are of recent and western origin. One complication here has been that wherever western nations established colonies, they destroyed the old civilisations without trying to understand them (as the Spaniards or Portuguese did in America). Or they tried to misinterpret them, as the British did in India. Another factor has been the Christian interest to promote their view, and suppress and discredit  others. In India, the missionary and colonial motives blended well and effectively. While the East India company commissioned a Max Muller, who did not understand spoken Sanskrit, to translate with the deliberate intent to misinterpret our sacred scriptures which were mainly sruti (ie to be heard), the educational system of Macaulay effectively propagated the views through the govt controlled educational system as the truth. Most Indian scholars, aspiring after govt. patronage and position, and taking everything western as the standard, have tended to follow the line uncritically. This has continued even after Independence. Most of us, including some orthodox elements, have been taken in by this development. We do not realise that history can be different from what the white skinner (வெள்ளைக்காரன்) says it is!

India is not Greece!

Indian civilisation is a living civilisation. Our religion is still practised. The Greek and Roman , Celtic or other civilisations are dead- they are not practised.The old Greek or Roman gods are only names now, not living realities. But our Varuna and Agni are still invoked! So the Greek and Roman material can be conveniently "studied" through artefacts or other material in the museums. But the same method cannot apply to a living civilisation. This has to be "lived" to be understood, not 'studied'. Those Westerners who sincerely tried to understand it have practised and understood-  like Sir John Woodroffe or Krishna Prem (Ronald Nixon).Indian religion and philosophy are not arm-chair stuff, meant for academic idlers. The old Greek or Roman philosophical ideas are only of academic interest now- they are not practised. But our different philosophical systems are still practised! So, when the worship of Rama or Krishna has persisted through millennia, there must be something to it.

There are certainly interpolations in our Itihas. Additions have surely been made from time to time. This happens in any living tradition- it lives because it grows.But in both Ramayana and Mahabharata, the main story can be clearly delineated. And it would stand even if the so called mythological portions are removed. 

During the time of Gandhi, there were attempts by some artists like Kothamangalam Subbu and others to present his life in folk form- like Villu Pattu, with simple lyrics in half-colloquial language and local tunes. But because of the growing attractions of cinema and the waning interest in Gandhi, such efforts did not succeed and stay. Those who talk of Ramayana and Mahabharata as mere stories should pause and think whether there has been any parallel to them in the whole world, and whether they could have spread and stayed through millennia, without any central authority to enforce, unless they had some inner truth in it? 

Epic in the Western tradition

Those secular, rationalistic and leftist elements who criticise Ramayana as being an imaginary story are so short of sense that one is aghast at their crass stupidity. In the Western tradition, they don't have 'Itihas', but a category called 'Epic'. M.H.Abrams, a highly respected scholar states about the epic:

......the epic or heroic poem...meets at least the following criteria: it is a long verse narrative on a serious subject,told in a formal and elevated style, and centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe,a nation, or the human race.

There is a standard distinction between traditional and literary epics. "Traditional epics" were written versions of what had  originally been oral poems about a tribal or national hero during a warlike age.

An epic poem is a ceremonial performance, and is narrated in a ceremonial style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary speech . 

From: A Glossary of Literary Terms.Wadsworth.

From:publishingperspectives.com.



We get these comments from another authoritative source about epic which is also called heroic poetry:

......heroic poetry- a long ,narrative celebration of a military ethos, and of courageous individuals who risk life and limb to protect both their own honour and that of their people..

..heroic literature was a living tradition for Normans as well as for Anglo-Saxons, and its heroes offered immediate ethical models.

 Late heroic poetry, historical chronicle, and early English romance overlap variously. Chronicle was connected to the mathematical art of  computing years and setting dates for moveable feasts.

.. an age in which the very elements were called on to "witness' to the guilt or innocence of a person through the ordeals by fire and water.

 These affirmations of manly prowess connect directly to the question of good rulership. A king must be as brave as the best of his men, yet also be something more, the repository of justice, administrator of law,mediator between warring factions and peace-maker, despite his fighting renown...

..poetic composition was a spontaneous, communal production, and poetic performance frequent...... 

What made the...verse so easy to extemporise was its alliterative quality, with its formulaic phrases, compound- words and circumlocutions- all flexible units of thought, capable of endless variation, which the poet recited from memory..repetition through alternative epithets, adaptable line-length with its unfixed syllabic count, and unalliterated last stress, which gives a conversational quality- all such made poetry come 'naturally' to an essentially  oral community; and in each recitation the poem changed subtly, an endlessly mobile expression of the mood of the moment.

From: English Literature in Context. Ed. Paul Poplawski. Cambridge University Press,2008. Chap 1.

What any intelligent and reasonable gent will understand from this is that celebrating its heroes in song, poetry and dance, and art has been a universal trait of mankind everywhere.The events celebrated in the epics may be exaggerated, but not entirely imaginary. The epic hero is always a real person, magnified and divinised may be, but not wholly invented. No poet could make a hero out of a straw.  So called progress has brought about a change in our 'psychic topography' and intellectual (?) perception, and we are no more able to understand or appreciate those sentiments, actions,characters. For that matter, how many can believe today that a Gandhi lived and did what he did? Our youngsters today cannot remember their school lessons beyond the semester test, and the grown-ups cannot remember  a day's headlines the next day. How can they ever know how thousands of these lines were committed to memory and recited at will?  That the Ramayana and other Hindu works have survived so long in the oral tradition is a tribute to the vitality of the culture.

Ramayana and Mahabharata have remained with us because people can learn and relive those truths, live with those characters and experience them in life now! It is this renewed personal experience which is the basis of their power and persistence. Every Saint singer of India has sung about them and employed those themes and characters in their works. If Arunagirinatha has sung about them, it is because he has experienced those truths in his own life. 

Valmiki and Vyasa- unparallelled.

The Kavi or Vates, poet and seer, is not the manīṣī; he is not the logical thinker, scientific analyser or metaphysical reasoner; his knowledge is one not with his thought, but with his being; he has not arrived at it but has it in himself by virtue of his power to become one with all that is around him. By some form of spiritual, vital and emotional oneness he is what he sees; he is the hero thundering in the forefront of the battle, the mother weeping over her dead, the tree trembling violently in the storm, the flower warmly penetrated with the sunshine. And because he is these things, therefore he knows them; because he knows thus, spiritually and not rationally, he can write of them. He feels their delight and pain, he shares their virtue and sin, he enjoys their reward or bears their punishment. It is for this reason that poetry written out of the intellect is so inferior to poetry written out of the soul, is, — even as poetical thinking, — so inferior to the thought that comes formed by inscrutable means out of the soul. For this reason, too, poets of otherwise great faculty have failed to give us living men and women or really to show to our inner vision even the things of which they write eloquently 
or sweetly because they are content to write about them after having seen them with the mind only, and have not been able or have not taken care first to be the things of which they would write and then not so much write about them as let them pour out in speech¹ that is an image of the soul.

Sri Aurobindo in The Harmony of Virtue.

'His (Valmiki's) picture of an ideal imperialism is sound and noble and the spirit of the Koshalan Ikshwakus that monarchy must be broad-based on the people's will and yet broad-based on justice, truth and good government is admirably developed as an undertone of the poem.' 

unlike Vyasa for whom in Mahabharata good government is the 'uppermost and weightiest drift'. He (Valmiki) is a poet who makes occasional use of public affairs as part of his wide human subject' (Sri Aurobindo).     

  - See more at: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=3919#sthash.Y0XyjIqE.dpuf

This is how Sri Aurobindo expresses it! Valmiki saw what he wrote about. Vyasa too had that inner vision. Our terms for it may vary- in fact, the modern academic moron has no word for it. He has not experienced it-therefore he does not know it. Therefore he cannot understand if others have experienced it.

Is Sangam poetry historical?

The Tamil Sangam literature belongs to such a heroic age, but much later. While some kings are mentioned by name, many others remain in the background.While some events are contemporary, many others are much older, ancient. And many other lesser heroes and events are celebrated. Yet none of these characters or events have been or can be established "historically". How can we ever prove historically that Adhiyaman gave the unique Amla fruit to Avvai? How can we prove that Paari gave his chariot to a jasmine creeper? Or Began gave his shawl to a shivering peacock? Purely rationalist view would consider them to be wild imagination, or utterly silly! Yet, the literary record is the only evidence. If it was not extraordinary, why should a poet sing about it?

Truth about historical figures

Kamban and Tulsidas recreated Rama as an Avatar. But for Valmiki, he was an ideal man and king. Rama that we now know is certainly a far greater figure than the historical Rama. For that matter, which historical figure today is known as he exactly was- Gandhi, Kennedy, Churchill, or  Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon, ?  So called admirers and detractors have always differed; devotees and academics have differed. No two commentators or biographers have chosen the same facts for comment, or agreed in their comments. Every one has indulged in selective projection or selective suppression. As new archival material becomes available, our views of even recent historical figures have to be revised. Yet, who and how many have mastered them all? What then can we say of those who lived thousands of years ago?

In respect of our itihasic figures (in contrast to puranic characters), we have exact astronomical clues. This is something unique about us.  Christmas is celebrated on December 25, but this is not the birthday of Christ- which they all know! No one knows when Christ was born-if at all! But why should we question their belief if they want to commemorate something which gives them peace of mind? Has the academic, historian or scientist anything better to offer? The date of Rama's birth and the constellation of the planets on that day are given.(See my previous posts.)They actually relate to definite dates in the past.No critic has so far disproved it- though they have blindly disputed it.


NOTE: 

Kalidasa and other poets have also composed fine poetry on the themes covered by Ramayana and Mahabharata. But they are not accorded the status of Itihas. Indians knew what was what.

The modern age, for all its claims to the scientific spirit and temper, is still puerile in its attitude to heroes! It still celebrates its heroes- a football or cine star, a pop singer, a novelist, a wily politician who can manage things, while real scholars and savants, or statesmen, who 'scorn delights and live laborious days' to advance our knowledge and promote understanding go unsung. We create heroes of convenience, and as easily dethrone them. How can we appreciate heroes who endure through millennia?