Ramayana vignettes: Cult woven around Uthama Purush

Ramayana must be the most popular Indian myth on idealistic democracy. Rama earned his popularity by accomplishing two difficult tasks – to lead the life of a family man controlling the urge to seek power, and to perform the duties of a ruler by sacrificing the blessings of family life—and became the uthama purush or ‘ideal man’. This essentially afforded Ramayana the universality and timelessness it enjoys now. However, as Camille Bulcke points out, the translations and new renderings of Valmiki’s Ramayana in the 15th century and afterwards point to the transformation of ‘Rama’s story’ to a ‘Rama cult’.

Bulcke says Rama’s story existed even before Valmiki, and that he joined them on a single thread and cretaed Ramayana.  It was through his disciples who went around the towns singing Ramayana that Valmiki and his version of Rama story became popular.  Ramayana, like Mahabharata, too had a prominent place in the Buddhist traditions; however, its latest versions attained the glory by rejecting and blackening out its Buddhist and Jain traditions.

Ramayana has consistently exhorted people on three values. First, the confrontational value system that Rama created between man and god as an avatar; second, the just nature of his relations, as a son to Dasaratha; as a son to Kaikeyi and other mothers, as a bother to Lakshamana and others, as husband to Sita, as father to Lava and Kusa and as disciple to Hanuman; and three, the majestic detachment he showed to power while being king. They are majestic, and has no parallels in human or literary history.

I can’t help also point out a decline the book suffered in recent times. The television serial of the same name created a wave of polarity and it accorded legitimacy to the Hindutwa politics in our country. It has become the most powerful metaphor in the hands of the ardent Hindutwa forces, relegating the sanctity of the Ramayanas of Valmiki, Tulasi Das and Kamber to the background.

It helped subvert the liberal democratic and secular credentials this nation followed since independence and enabled its practitioners stand history on its head. The question whether the increasing popularity and sales of Ramayana the book offer us solace and reassurance or fear about our future becomes all the more relevant in this context.

(Shaji Jacob teaches at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady)