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Valmiki's Ramayana
Valmiki's Ramayana, composed as early as 500 BCE, remains a story that speaks to every generation and continues to enthral millions of people in the Subcontinent and beyond.The noble prince Rama is exiled from Ayodhya on his stepmother's whim, and his loyal brother Lakshmana and beautiful wife, Sita, follow him into the forest despite the many dangers it holds. But when Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, king of the rakshasas, Rama must go deep into himself to find the physical and emotional resources he needs to rescue her.Apart from exploring the fundamental human question of how to be good, the Ramayana is also the story of a god who comes to earth to establish righteousness. The tension between Rama's essentially divine nature and his all too human trials makes this one of the most compelling epics in world literature.
563 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 5, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 31, 2024
This is a readable and accurate translation. I compared a few passages to the Goldman translation, which is more complete. Both are similarly readable, with the latter primarily adding more content in the Utttarakhand chapter.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the broad contours of this story: it’s told and retold very frequently. But this is my first time reading it (outside of maybe a children’s book) and my first time reading it as an adult.
As is well known, there isn’t one Ramayana. There isn’t even one version of the Valmiki Ramayana: we have many different texts and fragments of texts in many languages that are all from well past when the epic was composed. The oldest extant manuscript dates from around 1100AD when the story was likely composed around 500BC and committed to text sometime around 200BC to 200 AD. There is no original text: any version you read is already a translation and a creation of multiple, often contradictory authors. This is important: it means the text is not, and cannot be, divine revelation as it is manifestly the work of humans.
Consistent with this origin, the text is a mishmash of contradictions. These contradictions reflect the various authors, their differing perspectives on various moral, political, and philosophical debates, and the layering of these perspectives atop each other. The contradictions, then, are illuminating as to the humans who created and contested this story.
The feminine erotic. The central theme of the text pertains to the inability of men to control or tame the feminine erotic. Sita controls her eroticism and whom to bestow it upon. She does so with Rama when, by all accounts, he is a kind and attentive husband. She warns him when they enter the forest not to turn to cruelty and to not follow the way of the Kshatriya while in the forest (to impose a particular order through violence). Rama does not listen, and mutilates Shuparnaka, a wilder form of the feminine erotic. This sets in motion events by which Rama forever loses his wife. Ravana too seeks to compel Sita to give him the type of devotional love and eroticism that she gave to Rama but cannot do so. Indeed, as the portents of Lanka’s fall gather, Ravana’s ministers warn him that Sita’s power would be Lanka’s downfall. When Rama then rejects Sita (twice), she reminds him that she is of the Earth (feminine, wild) and returns to the earth of her own power, reclaiming the erotic that she bestowed on him.
While various male, Brahmin narrators have sought to overlay on this theme and text to weaken/control Sita (eg the various passages about not listening to women), the basic contours of the plot points and Sita’s words to Rama cannot be erased. Indeed, the text itself contradicts those passages about not listening to women: Sita, Tara, and Mandodari all give their husbands wise counsel, their husbands do not listen, and then meet their doom. I read this contradiction as reflecting rewrites/overwriting of an older story by later narrators. This is no different than what you see in texts like the Nibelungenlied where an earlier text with more powerful female characters is overlaid by later texts that try to suborn women but the plot points contradict that project manifestly.
The noose of dharma. Dharma is contested. This is true even in this text, which purports to hold Rama up as a paragon of dharma but nonetheless describes it in negative terms, with everyone appealing to dharma for different purposes. As far as I can tell, the version of dharma that is advanced here is one that prioritizes integrity in interpersonal relationship which, in turn, provides the sovereignty afforded to kings and the welfare of society. Of course, the text also describes unethical actions as filled with dharma (e.g., Sugrive and Vibhishan conspiring for the throne of their brothers), so who knows.
Geography/time: because of the process of Sanskritization of South Asia between 500 BC and 1000 AD, texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata became a common narrative frame throughout the subcontinent, with people naming or renaming geographies based on these stories. In some ways this is a human way of creating a sacred geography. But that means it is incorrect to use present day geography to draw inference about places in the Ramayana in any way. Our best guess today is that events upon which the Ramayana are based likely took place sometime in Iron Age India around or just before 500 BC in and around the eastern gangetic plain and central India. This reflects the prominent mentioning of iron for weapons and tools. Note that versions of the text that mention silk or regions and products well beyond what Iron Age Indian societies would have known (eg China) reflect later authors.
I’ll try reading the Goldman translation the next time I swing through the Ramayana and see if that changes my mind on anything.
I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know the broad contours of this story: it’s told and retold very frequently. But this is my first time reading it (outside of maybe a children’s book) and my first time reading it as an adult.
As is well known, there isn’t one Ramayana. There isn’t even one version of the Valmiki Ramayana: we have many different texts and fragments of texts in many languages that are all from well past when the epic was composed. The oldest extant manuscript dates from around 1100AD when the story was likely composed around 500BC and committed to text sometime around 200BC to 200 AD. There is no original text: any version you read is already a translation and a creation of multiple, often contradictory authors. This is important: it means the text is not, and cannot be, divine revelation as it is manifestly the work of humans.
Consistent with this origin, the text is a mishmash of contradictions. These contradictions reflect the various authors, their differing perspectives on various moral, political, and philosophical debates, and the layering of these perspectives atop each other. The contradictions, then, are illuminating as to the humans who created and contested this story.
The feminine erotic. The central theme of the text pertains to the inability of men to control or tame the feminine erotic. Sita controls her eroticism and whom to bestow it upon. She does so with Rama when, by all accounts, he is a kind and attentive husband. She warns him when they enter the forest not to turn to cruelty and to not follow the way of the Kshatriya while in the forest (to impose a particular order through violence). Rama does not listen, and mutilates Shuparnaka, a wilder form of the feminine erotic. This sets in motion events by which Rama forever loses his wife. Ravana too seeks to compel Sita to give him the type of devotional love and eroticism that she gave to Rama but cannot do so. Indeed, as the portents of Lanka’s fall gather, Ravana’s ministers warn him that Sita’s power would be Lanka’s downfall. When Rama then rejects Sita (twice), she reminds him that she is of the Earth (feminine, wild) and returns to the earth of her own power, reclaiming the erotic that she bestowed on him.
While various male, Brahmin narrators have sought to overlay on this theme and text to weaken/control Sita (eg the various passages about not listening to women), the basic contours of the plot points and Sita’s words to Rama cannot be erased. Indeed, the text itself contradicts those passages about not listening to women: Sita, Tara, and Mandodari all give their husbands wise counsel, their husbands do not listen, and then meet their doom. I read this contradiction as reflecting rewrites/overwriting of an older story by later narrators. This is no different than what you see in texts like the Nibelungenlied where an earlier text with more powerful female characters is overlaid by later texts that try to suborn women but the plot points contradict that project manifestly.
The noose of dharma. Dharma is contested. This is true even in this text, which purports to hold Rama up as a paragon of dharma but nonetheless describes it in negative terms, with everyone appealing to dharma for different purposes. As far as I can tell, the version of dharma that is advanced here is one that prioritizes integrity in interpersonal relationship which, in turn, provides the sovereignty afforded to kings and the welfare of society. Of course, the text also describes unethical actions as filled with dharma (e.g., Sugrive and Vibhishan conspiring for the throne of their brothers), so who knows.
Geography/time: because of the process of Sanskritization of South Asia between 500 BC and 1000 AD, texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata became a common narrative frame throughout the subcontinent, with people naming or renaming geographies based on these stories. In some ways this is a human way of creating a sacred geography. But that means it is incorrect to use present day geography to draw inference about places in the Ramayana in any way. Our best guess today is that events upon which the Ramayana are based likely took place sometime in Iron Age India around or just before 500 BC in and around the eastern gangetic plain and central India. This reflects the prominent mentioning of iron for weapons and tools. Note that versions of the text that mention silk or regions and products well beyond what Iron Age Indian societies would have known (eg China) reflect later authors.
I’ll try reading the Goldman translation the next time I swing through the Ramayana and see if that changes my mind on anything.
April 22, 2023
I have been born into the Hindu tradition, and this tale. Not new for me, though this is different from Ranacharitmanas of Tulasidas. But that assumption of prior knowledge may not be appropriate for everyone.
The language is fluid enough. And the tale rendered enjoyably .
The language is fluid enough. And the tale rendered enjoyably .
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews