tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post1151887372812864894..comments2024-03-29T15:45:04.867+05:30Comments on Jabberwock: The mythologist's many heads: an encounter with Devdutt PattanaikJabberwockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-7829065692468215912017-08-04T22:38:27.508+05:302017-08-04T22:38:27.508+05:30"Personally, I have plenty of experience of p..."Personally, I have plenty of experience of people who, without having closely read the Ramayana, will reflexively make sweeping statements about Rama being a bad husband "<br /><br />Actually Rama is remarkably "progressive" for his time. <br /><br />The Ramayana text dates roughly to 300-400 BCE. That makes Valmiki a contemporary of Plato or Socrates. Now in Ancient Greece, at the time, women were not much better than slaves. And the idea of one man having just one wife and being devoted to her was bizarre! Plato himself finds the idea of romantic love very silly!<br /><br />Rama's monogamy was very very atypical for his time. And this man (i.e character) has done more for the cause of monogamy than anyone else in Indian history.<br /><br />In all of western literature, it is hard to find the kind of romantic love seen in Ramayana until Shakespeare came along with his Romeo and Juliet. Now Romeo and Juliet was a revolutionary work that changed conceptions of sexual love in the West. It is atleast some 2000 years younger than Valmiki Ramayana. That's how far ahead Valmiki was of his time.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-8584938806704364312017-08-04T18:16:55.133+05:302017-08-04T18:16:55.133+05:30Another point to note - The two kaandas that are m...Another point to note - The two kaandas that are most problematic to liberals of today are "Baala Kaanda" which is explicitly theistic and "Uttara Kanda" which has the narrative of Rama banishing Sita when she's pregnant fearing a Dhobi's rumour.<br /><br />Nearly all scholars today agree that both Bala Kaanda and Uttara Kaanda are later additions to the epic and the original Epic actually began with Ayodhya Kaanda and ended with the coronation of Rama!<br /><br />So you see.....going back to the source text (the earliest layer of it) alone will remove a lot of the uneasiness people have with this great epic!<br /><br />Another example of why the source text is superior - it includes passages where Rama is shown as totally human! Eg in Valmiki Ramayana - <br /><br />a) Rama curses Dasaratha and Keikeyi and even wishes he could kill them in the early days of his banishment! <br /><br />b) In the Sundara Kaanda, Hanuman tells Sita that "O Sita, Rama has stopped eating meat ever since you left him out of sorrow".<br /><br />Amazing! Stuff that Tulsi or Kamban would never have written because they were more brahminical in their orientation. ANd hence couldnt ascribe stuff like hate, spite or meat-eating to a God.<br /><br />Valmiki's Rama is a man! Full of faults and foibles. ANd yet, Great! No doubt about that. First among equals. A Purushottama.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-70932343969078997332017-08-04T17:56:40.904+05:302017-08-04T17:56:40.904+05:30"Shrikanth: before you post dozens more comme..."Shrikanth: before you post dozens more comments, let me caution you that you're already in straw-man territory. No one - least of all a prolific, verbose mythologist like DP - "just says, oh there are so many Ramayanas". There is plenty of explanation, analysis and contextualising that goes with it."<br /><br />Sure. But let's spend more time analyzing the "original"! It is well worth it. It's an original work for one thing and not merely a retelling. That in itself should greatly increase the interest in it.<br /><br />Srimad Valmiki Ramayanam is in my view the greatest work of literature to ever come out of India. The most influential book ever written in this land over the past 3000 years. shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-5925955299525156982017-08-04T17:53:14.640+05:302017-08-04T17:53:14.640+05:30"Okay. Accepted (with a few reservations). Bu..."Okay. Accepted (with a few reservations). But would you agree that the disproportion is much greater when comparing people like Dawkins and Hitchens (or Charlie Hebdo) with religious extremists of any stripe?"<br /><br />Sure. Agree. No fan of Hitchens or Dawkins or Danish cartoonists. But I do agree wholeheartedly the disproportion is greater in this example.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-16078985698016398362017-08-04T17:42:30.858+05:302017-08-04T17:42:30.858+05:30"Since you champion subjectivity, I ask him, ..."Since you champion subjectivity, I ask him, why are those readings any less valid than the benevolent, comforting ones? Why would the perspective of a marginalized, underprivileged character not be just as important? "<br /><br /><br />Well. For one thing, Ramayana and Mahabharata have the status of "Itihaasa" in the tradition. Sure, that doesn't make them "histories" in the strict sense. But even historians acknowledge that they atleast partly recall actual events. And that the source text is the one closest to the society / events described. For eg : If I have to know more about the society / milieu of Ramayana, I would read Valmiki! Not Kamban. Not Tulsi! Not Chakbast. Not RK Narayan. Not CR.<br /><br />For that reason atleast, the source text is indeed "more important" than successive retellings, which for one thing are not original. And secondly, are very remote from the original milieu of the legend / myth / history.<br /><br />Secondly the standard source text is indeed more "catholic" in its orientation, more accommodating of diverse viewpoints, than later renditions which always have a certain narrative.<br /><br />For eg : The Tamil version of Ramayana (Kamban's) written in 12th century is very very brahminical. Contrary to a lot of north indians who associate brahminism with north india. The Kamban version is also the first truly theistic Ramayana (far more theistic than Valmiki's). Tulsi's Ramayana is also a very theistic Ramayana.<br /><br />And yes, in our own times, we have these subaltern renderings which take up the cause of marginalized characters and groups like women and Dalits. This makes these renderings very narrow and less catholic.<br /><br />In sharp contrast, Valmiki Ramayana (being the source text) is least afflicted by any of these narratives! It is indeed the most balanced, and the most dispassionate of all major Ramayana versions. Partly because the poet is remembering facts (part-fact, part-legend) ofcourse with his memory and not embellishing it greatly with his own spin!<br /><br />For instance Valmiki Ramayana presents all the viewpoints quite fairly and the reader can make up his own mind, unlike Kamban or Tulsi or the subaltern versions of today, which carry their own baggage.<br /><br />Another reason why we should indeed value the source text more highly than we do! And stop valorising these umpteen versions.<br /><br />I value originals. It's not that hard to read by the way. Valmiki Ramayana is available online. And is an easy read.<br />shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-21201964678472617012017-08-04T17:38:52.160+05:302017-08-04T17:38:52.160+05:30instead of just saying - "oh there are so man...<i>instead of just saying - "oh there are so many ramayanas"</i><br /><br />Shrikanth: before you post dozens more comments, let me caution you that you're already in straw-man territory. No one - least of all a prolific, verbose mythologist like DP - "just says, oh there are so many Ramayanas". There is plenty of explanation, analysis and contextualising that goes with it.Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-62499708895745772452017-08-04T17:37:08.361+05:302017-08-04T17:37:08.361+05:30Okay. Accepted (with a few reservations). But woul...Okay. Accepted (with a few reservations). But would you agree that the disproportion is much greater when comparing people like Dawkins and Hitchens (or Charlie Hebdo) with religious extremists of any stripe?Jabberwockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10210195396120573794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-50761270315105386312017-08-04T17:30:33.968+05:302017-08-04T17:30:33.968+05:30"The ISIS and RSS, he says, very perplexingly..."The ISIS and RSS, he says, very perplexingly, “are engendered by atheists and secularists who deny the role of the sacred and the transcendental in the world"<br /><br />It's quite laughable to mention ISIS and RSS in the same sentence. I wonder what kind of a mind manages to do that. The only similarity I see is that both acronyms have two S's. <br /><br />No sense of proportion.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8204542.post-62453417344162027712017-08-04T17:28:54.749+05:302017-08-04T17:28:54.749+05:30"“The Ramayana is the Ramayana – it doesn’t c..."“The Ramayana is the Ramayana – it doesn’t change” someone scolds him on Twitter when he mentions that there are many versions of the epic apart from the mainstream one favoured by the Hindi-speaking belt"<br /><br />There is a source text. And that is Valmiki Ramayana. Sure, there may be any number of variations. But the source of the tradition has to be acknowledged instead of just saying - "oh there are so many ramayanas".<br /><br />And contrary to what many people think, the newer versions of Ramayana are more straitlaced (nothing wrong with that, but liberals do have a problem with that attribute), than Valmiki Ramayana.<br /><br />Kamba Ramayana (the standard Tamil version) is a lot more conservative than Valmiki Ramayana. So is Tulsi's Ramcharitmanas in some ways. But then, these newer versions are also more "progressive" than Valmiki's in ways that are not often acknowledged.<br /><br />For eg - In Valmiki Ramayana Rama indeed asks Sita to undertake Agni-Pariksha to prove her chastity. In Tulsi's Ramayan, he creates this concept of "Maya Sita" to make Rama's decision more palatable to the "progressives" of his day, who would otherwise have not liked Rama for his decision.shrikanthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03898755392584822638noreply@blogger.com