Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

Ramayana

APPROACHING THE ADI-KAVI

By

APPROACHING ADI-KAVI VALMIKI[i]

Pradip Bhattacharya

The Department of Comparative Literature of Jadavpur University founded by the litterateur Buddhadeb Bose in 1956 was the first such in India.  It has now embarked upon an ambitious project: a series of research publications in four categories, viz. Texts, Contexts, Methods; Indian and Asian Contexts; Literature and Other Knowledge Systems; and Lecture Series. The overpriced slim volume under review belongs to the last category. From the editors’ Introduction it seems that Goldman did not deliver this lecture but sent it as a written contribution. This is a pity, because documented interaction with an audience would have made it a far more significant publication. This extremely well-written “lecture” is not much more than an introduction for beginners, albeit a very competent one, to Valmiki’s work and hardly falls under the rubric of “research”.

The Ramayana (R) presents specific hurdles before the modern reader: it depicts a civilization of circa the first millennium BCE far removed from us; its language is ancient Sanskrit, which is not easily accessible. Further, Sanskrit did not have a principal script universally used. The R has spawned widely varying versions in almost all languages and different scripts of South and Southeast Asia “from Afghanistan to Bali” and is depicted in varied media. Surprisingly, Goldman makes no reference to the Belgian priest Camille Bulcke’s encyclopaedic Hindi study of these variations.[ii]

Adopting the linguist Kenneth Pike’s terms emic (subjective) and etic (objective), Goldman identifies two types of group-approaches to the R. In the former, fall variations in Indian languages and media. The latter is consists of scholarly studies in various disciplines world-wide, including translations in non-Indian languages.

Goldman asserts that the presumption of a single divinely inspired composer disseminating his composition through twin rhapsodes who recited it in toto before the public is a myth. The text would have undergone changes on the lips of differing bards and redacteurs owing to lapses in memory and improvisations responding to the changing audience and place. We can witness this phenomenon today in the “Pandavani” folk retellings of the Mahabharata (M) in Central India. Those Ramayana rhapsodes were given the collective name, “Valmiki”. Thus, like many Western Mahabharata scholars who dismiss Vyasa as a myth, Goldman denies the existence of Valmiki.

Further, he denies the possibility of so bulky a work being transmitted orally from Afghanistan to Bali without being reduced to writing, as evinced by innumerable manuscripts in circulation through South and Southeast Asia from about the end of the first millennium CE. Errors and changes occurred while copying a manuscript into different scripts. Thus, between the Northern and the Southern Indian script recensions only about one third are identical. Moreover, within each recension there are regional variations depending on the script in which the copies have been made.

A very important clarification Goldman provides is that the Baroda critical edition of “India’s National Epic” does not represent the original, but seeks to present an archetype constructed out of the best manuscripts that would be nearest to the period of the oldest available manuscripts. The abundance of textual variants poses a major problem in trying to assess the poem’s original form. Goldman hazards a guess that the R was produced around 500-100 BCE, while its oldest manuscripts go back only to the 12th or 13th centuries CE. So we have over 1700 years of no written record of the R. Therefore, “the etic reconstruction of the Ramayana’s genetic history is naturally going to be at odds with its emic receptive history of the work.” While to scholars it is a bardic poem orally performed and transmitted, to its audience it is the work of a single composer, the first poet (adi–kavi), who was a contemporary of Rama in mythical times. An avatar of Vishnu, he descended on earth to destroy demonic oppressors of sages and establish a golden age lasting millennia. Thus, according to the emic view, “it is a chapter of divine history rendered in a new form, that of poetry.” Raising the stimulating question, is the R “a poetic history or a historical poem”, Goldman leaves it hanging in the air. It would have been very interesting to study the reactions of the audience, had this been a live lecture.

Looking into the nature of the R vis-à-vis the M, Goldman notes that the former is far more poetic and emotional than the latter. The predominant emotion of the R is “karuna rasa”, pathos, whereas for the M a new emotion was added by the critic Anandavardhana (c. 9th century CE), “shanta rasa”, worldly-detachment or serenity. Earlier, the poet Bhavabhuti (c. 8th century CE), had asserted that “karuna” is the only rasa. However, in his last work Alf Hiltebeitel has argued very persuasively that the M’s rasa is “adbhuta-wonder”. Where the R holds up a mirror for rulers and families, the M portrays the incredibly complex ramifications of dharma in society and the individual.

Besides ignoring the story of Rama recounted in the M, Goldman has not noticed another structural similarity between the two mahakavyas that young Ramayana aficionado Saikat Mandal has pointed out. The Tilaka commentary on R by Nagoji Bhatta or Ramavarma (1730-1810) glosses the Uttarakanda as the “khila” (supplement) of the R just as the Harivamsha is of the M. The significance of this needs exploration.

Goldman expatiates at length on how the R records the inception of Valmiki’s composition, which is “a later addition to the fully developed work” for establishing it as the divinely inspired first poem. Its list of seven of the eight “rasas” shows it to be later than Bharata’s treatise, Natyashastra. Goldman goes on to show how the R differs from the Homeric epics in characteristics such as rapidity, being plain and direct in syntax, language and thought. He finds Valmiki hyperbolic, using rhetorical figuration aplenty, highly formulaic and repetitive, unlike Homer’s directness. The literary quality of the R is complicated, being a poem to delight while also being a chronicle. Goldman could have noted how, in all these features, the R is similar to the M and also different, as discussed at length by Sri Aurobindo in “Vyasa and Valmiki”.

Further, the R has grammatical forms that violate Panini’s rules and could be seen as poetic flaws. Its first and seventh books are of a later date, in less refined language. Goldman quotes at length from Homer and Valmiki to exemplify his arguments and to show how adept the latter is in portraying beauty in persons and in nature, including the frightful. Pursuing Abhinavagupta’s view of rasadhvani, Goldman analyses how the raw emotion of grief is sublimated by Valmiki to make karuna rasa the major aesthetic flavour of poetic composition, transmuting shoka (grief) to shloka (verse). The climax is reached in ending with Sita’s descent into the depths of the earth, leaving Rama desolate.

[i] Robert P. Goldman: Reading with the Rsi—a cross-cultural and comparative literary approach to Valmiki’s Ramayana. Orient BlackSwan, Hyderabad, 2023, pp. xvii+54, Rs.385/-

[ii] English translation The Rama Story by Pradip Bhattacharya published in 2022 by the Sahitya Akademi.

Book Review of Fr. Camille Bulcke’s THE RAMA STORY: ORIGINS AND GROWTH (2022)

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Trans. (from Hindi) by Pradip Bhattacharya. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Hardbound.

ISBN: 9789355481108

Oshin Vipra Sagar, Avinash Kumar

Kalākalpa, Vol. VII, No. 2(2023)

With some variation, the story of Rama is told not just across different parts of the Indian subcontinent but also in Southeast Asia with just as much fervour. Not to forget, Ram and his supposed birthplace have become a part of the politico-religious fabric of India over the last few decades. Therefore, a historical inquiry into the story of Rama is a pertinent endeavour now more than ever. However, no systematic historiographical work on Rama’s tales was available for general readers and academics alike until a Belgian Jesuit priest Father Camille Bulcke accomplished the task of comprehensively tracing the origin and development of the narratives around Rama in his magnum opus “Ramkatha: Utpatti Aur Vikas” published in 1950. The work, however, remained accessible only to readers and researchers proficient in Hindi. The translation by Pradip Bhattacharya bridges that gap for the anglophone public through his work ‘The Rama Story: Origins and Growth’, published by Sahitya Akademi in August 2022.

Pradip Bhattacharya’s ambitious translation has surveyed the major available editions of Father Bulcke’s original work. He has taken into cognisance the printer’s gremlins (in the 16th ed.) and tried his best to critically examine the errors and omissions before producing his translation based primarily on the third edition of Bulcke’s work published in 1971 by Hindi Parishad Prakashan, Allahabad University. Bhattacharya also acknowledges the original writer’s lack of awareness of his predecessors’ work relating to Ramayana at large such as those by Akshoy Kumar Maitreya, who, for example, has dealt with the subjects Bulcke deals with (say, Ramayana’s relationship with Greek and Buddhist stories) or Rajasekhara P.Basu’s ‘Surpanakha Reminiscences’ and ‘the Rule of Rama’ or Kumudini’s ‘Sita’s Letters.’

Father Bulcke’s omissions of the verse number and translation of Sanskrit verses too, have been supplemented in the translated work by Bhattacharya, making it fairly corroborated and accessible. Nonetheless, the translator has ensured that they stay true to the original and preserve its appearance while addressing the need to rectify some inconsistencies in referencing style.

‘The Rama Story: Origins and Growth’ wholeheartedly follows the structure of Bulcke’s “Ramkatha: Utpatti Aur Vikas”, wherein the work is divided into four main parts, each corresponding to the four major stages of the evolution and expansion of the Rama story. The first part (consisting of chapters 1 to 5) concerns itself with the extant ancient literature such as the Vedic, Buddhist and Jain corpus – scrutinising the references to the Rama story they present. The first chapter reviews the Vedic literature for the presence of characters like Iksvaku, Dasaratha, Janaka, and Sita as the presiding deity of agriculture while also presenting an apparent absence of Rama in the corpus. The second chapter examines the three recensions of Valmiki’s Ramayana and attempts to gauge the time of its composition historically. It also disambiguates the identity of the author of Ramayana, the poet Valmiki and sheds light on the various Valmikis. The third chapter brings some fascinating insights to the table regarding the timeline of Valmiki’s Ramayana with reference to the other epic of the subcontinent, i.e., the Mahabharata (hence, Mb). Verses from the primary text of Mb have been used to illustrate how the composers of Mb were aware of Valmiki and his work – while maintaining a distinction between the stories of Bharata and the Mahabharata. At the same time, the readers are also provided with quantitative cues to the popularity of the Rama story: for example, how approximately fifty references to Rama or characters related to his story are found in Mb.

In part two of the work, chapter 6 critically examines the origins of the story of Rama: addressing the problematic nature of “Dasaratha Jataka” and the question of the authenticity of the Pali “Jatakakathavannana.” In the consecutive chapter, the discussion follows through on the matter by taking into consideration the views of scholars such as Dr. Weber, Jacobi and Dineshchandra Sen. Chapter 8 and 9 remarks on the main interpolations in Valmiki’s Ramayana and how the concept of the ‘avatar’ contributed to its wide dispersal.

The third part of the book provides an overview of the wide and deep penetration of the Rama story across medieval literature from the subcontinent across Sanskrit, modern Indian languages, and other Asian languages. In this part, chapter 10 elucidates on the development of Rama-bhakti and the Rama stories in Puranic literature (Harivamsa, the Mahapuranas and the minor Purana) as well as the sectarian Ramayanas and other religious literature from the period. The subsequent chapter 11 traces and maps the Rama story across an elaborate list of Sanskrit belle letters beginning with Raghuvamsa, Setubandha and covering about 17 major works, including epic poetry and plays, while further covering some minor works. Chapter 12 of the work is divided into two parts: the first discusses the Ramayana across Southern languages of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada, including the tribal tales related to Rama from the region; the second discusses the Rama story in the literary works produced in northern Indian languages as well as Sinhalese. The two parts of this chapter correspond to Bulcke’s rough categorisation of linguistic groups as Dravidian and Aaryan, which could be better titled in the translation to be technically more accurate and not appear anachronistic. The last part, chapter 14, discusses the Rama story abroad in the Tibeto-Khotanese, Indonesian, Indo-Chinese (Vietnamese), Siamese and Burmese traditions while briefly touching upon the Western narratives.

The fourth and final part of the book expounds on the growth of the Rama story spread over seven Kandas (Bālakāṇḍa, Ayodhyakāṇḍa, Araṇyakāṇḍa, Kiṣkindakāṇḍa, Sundarākāṇḍa, Yuddhakāṇḍa, Uttarakāṇḍa) in chapters 14-20. It ends with concluding remarks in the 21st and the last chapter of the volume. This part of the book, from pg. 341 to pg. 892 amounts for the bulk of the volume that closely engages in dissecting the minutest details of themes and episodes of each Kanda and the variations of each, if any, across the three recensions of Valmiki’s Ramayana.

As for relevant original additions, Bhattacharya (supplementing Bulcke’s original list) brings to the readers an organised exhaustive bibliography comprising ancient texts as well as modern works across Indian and foreign languages in Appendix I. Appendix II sheds light on the story wherein Rama had to shoot an arrow at Hanuman on Viswamitra’s command, an intriguing episode relating to Rama that Bulcke skipped in his almost encyclopaedic work. In Appendix III, Bhattacharya elucidates on the large yet relatively less-known Ramayana frescoes in the Silver Pagoda at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, commissioned between 1903-04. The frescoes depict the Khmer story of Rama being abducted by Ravana’s nephew Waireab and his rescue by Hanuman. Finally, in Appendix IV, he reviews Paula Richman’s ‘Questioning Ramayana’ and Amreeta Syam’s ‘Kaikeyi.’

Overall, the book is worth all the attention at present and for times to come. Priced at INR 1500/- this 990-page book is a comprehensive wellspring of information on the narratives surrounding the character of Rama, which historically traces their antiquity while critically examining its growth through the ages.

The Rama Story

By

(Rama-Katha) by Padma Bhushan Camille Bulcke, S.J.

RemasterDirector_V0

Translated from Hindi by Pradip Bhattacharya

published by Sahitya Akademi

secretary@sahitya-akademi.gov.in

A Landmark in Indological Studies–Companions to Indian Epics

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Madhusraba Dasgupta: Samsad Companions to The Mahabharata and The Ramayana, Shishu Sahitya Samsad, Kolkata, Rs. 1200 and Rs.800; pp. (large size) 608 & 400
The sheer magnitude of India’s epics has proved a great challenge as much to the scholar as to the aficionado, besides putting off the common reader—but no longer. Thanks to the astonishing labour of Smt. Madhusraba Dasgupta, who has put together single-handedly everything there is to know about both epics, even the quizmaster will now have an easy time finding material to draw upon. For the Mahabharata, she has used the Pune Bhandarkar edition, the Bengal Asiatic Society edition, and its translation by K.M. Ganguli, which she unaccountably refers to as “P.C. Ray” although he was only the publisher. Every entry is referenced with respect to both editions—an extremely useful feature. The publisher, Debajyoti Dutta, deserves our gratitude for publishing these volumes with such excellent production values.
Long ago, Sorensen had compiled an index to the Mahabharata arranged in dictionary form. A Hindi version by Ramkumar Rai was published in several volumes in the Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series, with a parallel “kosha” for the Ramayana in the early 1980s. If, however, one wishes to find out what weapons were used, what the terms mean and what the army formations were, that information was not found there. Dasgupta groups the data under eight headings “to kindle enthusiasm and ease the exertion of the reader who wants to see beyond a mere account of facts.” These are: the parvas and sections; identities; the ancient world (then and now); races, tribes, castes; troop formations, weapons, accessories; specific terms; other names of characters; an appendix providing select genealogies, the last without providing any reference to the text. She has formulated her own pronunciation guide, departing from the internationally accepted diacriticals, finding that inadequate.
The introduction to the Mahabharata volume is rather slender. She makes the interesting point that no detailed physical description of any character is found—what we have is quite vague. Besides listing characters and places, she also provides the inhabitants of different regions, the social orders. She points out the lack of mention of any temple or idol. However, in Ganguli’s translation of the Sabha Parva section 79, we find Vidura telling Dhritarashtra, “And jackals and vultures and ravens and other carnivorous beasts and birds began to shriek and cry aloud from the temples of the gods and the tops of sacred trees and walls and house-tops.” In section 32, there is reference to temples of gods, and to a temple of Shiva in section 15 in which Jarasandha imprisoned princes. Dasgupta claims that there is archaeological evidence of the Kurukshetra battle. Actually, no such evidence has been found. Only pottery was dug up in the early 1950s, but nothing that connects to what we find in the Mahabharata. Strangely enough, there has been no excavation here since then, despite all the breast-beating about unearthing and preserving ancient Indian heritage. The astronomical evidence she refers to as fixing 1500 BC, as the time of the war is as dubious as the Yudhishthira Era of 3102 BC is. She refers to the epic having had 8,800 verses initially, an erroneous notion propagated by Weber. This is the number of verses that Sauti refers to as “knotted slokas,” very difficult to understand. Nor does the Mahabharata consist of one lakh slokas, but extends to over 90,000 verses.
Anyone wanting a list of all the pilgrimage spots mentioned will find it readily in this volume. The spots Balarama visits could have been mentioned in a cluster as has been done for the Pandavas. All forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, kingdoms, cities, villages and even steeds and standards are listed! Besides vyuhas (troop formations), parts of the chariot, the various modes of fighting, celestial weapons and normal ones are catalogued. She has tried to identify, as far as possible, the current names of the places mentioned, so that the geography comes alive to us today. Unfortunately, there is no map in both volumes, which would have enhanced their usefulness.
The entry on Shiva seems to contain a few errors. It was Agni, not Shiva, who gifted the Gandiva bow to Arjuna. Shiva’s pinaka is not a small drum but a pike or trident. What he holds is a dambaru which is an hour-glass shaped small drum. His going before Arjuna killing those whom his arrows later slay has been omitted.
Some of the entries could have been a little more informative. Where can we find the names of the eight sons of Kavi? Surya was named Martanda (dead-egg) because he was stillborn (like Parikshit). Also, as Martanda is also the name of Yama, it hints at why he was called lord of death. Again, Ekalavya is not the son of Nishada king Hiranyadhanu, but his adopted son, born to Krishna’s paternal uncle Devashrava who gave him away. He is, thus, Krishna’s agnate cousin whom he kills, as he does his aunt’s son Shishupala. Again, Jara, Krishna’s killer was his stepbrother, being Vasudeva’s son from a Shudra wife who became a Nishada chief (cf. Harivansha, Vishnu Parva, 103.27). In the genealogy provided in the Appendix, these relationships are not indicated, nor the fact that Pritha-Kunti was of Yadu’s lineage and the sister of Vasudeva, and names of the mothers of Balarama, Krishna and Subhadra. Balarama and Krishna’s wives are also missing. One would have thought that the very critical role women play in the Mahabharata would have motivated Smt. Dasgupta to include all the names of women in the genealogies. She overlooks references in the Ashramavasika Parva to two more wives: another wife of Bhima is the sister of Krishna’s inveterate foe (Shishupala/ Jarasandha/Dantavakra?) and a wife of Sahadeva is a daughter of Jarasandha. Their names and progeny are not mentioned. How many of us realise that when Abhimanyu killed Brihadbala, ruler of Kosala, it was in effect the Lunar Dynasty wiping out Ayodhya’s Solar Dynasty! In the genealogy, no link is shown between Pratipa (Paryashravas in a parallel version) and Shantanu, despite their being father and son. The fact that Bharata adopted Bhumanyu from Bharadvaja, disinheriting his nine sons, has not been indicated.
One misses a list of the partial descents (amshavatarana) of gods, demi-gods and anti-gods that is an important part of the framework of the epic, which is to relieve the earth of its burden of demonic rulers. Surya’s two wives, their progeny and how Surya was partly shorn of his blaze are missing. Though the names of Yayati’s disinherited sons are given, what happened to their lineages is missing. However, bhaktas will readily find here the 1008 names of Shiva and Vishnu conveniently grouped at one place.
The introduction to the Ramayana Companion is satisfyingly long, providing features of the three cities that are in conflict: Ayodhya, Kishkindha and Lanka, along with the living patterns, culture, and an overview of the characters and the pantheon. Unlike the other volume, this draws not upon the Baroda critical edition, but only on the vulgate, i.e. the Gita Press and the Calcutta edition of 1907. Besides the sectional headings of the preceding book, added here are creatures, heavenly bodies, flora-fauna, gems, musical instruments, food and drink, transport, units of measures and weights. These additional sections indicate that the society of the Ramayana is more developed than that of the ostensibly later Mahabharata which is quite Hobbesian in being nasty and brutish. Interestingly enough, there is no paean listing multiple names of any deity in Valmiki’s composition, which does suggest an earlier culture. The geographical section omits the name of Shravasti, the capital of Northern Kosala ruled by Lava. The unfortunate omission of an index in the Mahabharata volume has been remedied here so that one can easily locate the relevant entry.
No praise is adequate for the extraordinary work Smt. Dasgupta has done. Hers is a signal contribution to Indological studies. The publisher, too, richly deserves accolades from all readers.