Ramayana vignettes: Realisation through strong trait of each character

Ramayana is a story beyond time frame, regions and religions, touching the hearts of millions of people. Each character in Ramayana has got a strong trait, which somebody would love to adore, adopt or muse about. This character of Ramayana had made me take up this medium as the vessel to tell my own life philosophy in the form of a novel, ‘Ithihasathinte Ithalukal’.

I have tried to look at each character in Ramayana with equanimity in a very dispassionate manner, though my entire passion has gone into the process of reading all available versions of Ramayana, doing my homework, selecting themes and dreaming about each character, event and place and finally penning it down. But ever since my  childhood, from the time I first heard the Ramayana from my father, the character I had the most respect for was Bharata. Even now he could be emulated by any administrator. He made the kingdom ten times of what it was by the time Rama returned from his exile.

I just wonder at the character and strength of Mythilis, the daughters of Janaka. The amount of pain and suffering each one of them had to undergo after their re-plantation from their natural garden of Janaka into the Rajadhani of Dasaradha; though not touched by Valmiki, are probably puzzles he left for readers to ponder over.

How Sita might have brought up two babies in a vulnerable ashram in the forest, as a single mother? Her childhood training in the Janakasabha where even Yajnavatkya found it difficult to answer certain questions related to ‘Atmavidya’ by Mitreyi might have helped her to go through the hardships and bring up Luv and Kush up to teenage in no way less than if they had been brought up in a royal palace. If she had kept on weeping over her husband’s cruelty of abandoning her, she would not have succeeded in becoming a good mother.

In the absence of responsible persons in the palace, after Bharatha left for forest to bring his elder brother, Ramachandra, back to the palace, the three sisters of Sita, viz. Mandvi, Shrutha Keerthi and Urmila, might have shown their administrative capabilities to keep Kosala intact till the royal team returned to the palace.

After the Harappan (Harayu-Sarayu-Harappan) culture, we hear about the first university of the world, viz. Thakshasila, founded by the son of Bharatha –Thaksha. Bharatha and Mandvi might have travelled quite a distance and established kingdoms in far-away places - the present Tashkent is said to be Takshshila. Mandvi might have played a very important role in the life of Bharatha in the long journey of life.

Ravana a great scholar and musician, who made the prototype of violin, viz. ‘Ravana Hastha’, and a Jyothishi who wrote the ‘Red Book’ on astrology and a great devotee of Shiva who wrote ‘Shivthandavasthithi’ must be a person with deep insight and wisdom. Nowhere in Valmiki Ramayana, there is mention about the mundane wars he fought with anybody to make an empire.

Only celestial wars are mentioned. And he lived in an isolated self-contained island without disturbing any other cultures, civilizations or nature. He belonged  to the ‘Rakshakakul’ supposed to protect nature as per orders of Brahma. Can we imagine that such a person had lust towards somebody’s wife? So I depict Ravana as the biological father of Sita, as narrated in many Ramayanas like ‘Atbhutharamayana’ in my story too.

(ADGP B. Sandhya)