Musings on Uttara Kaanda Part 1
Rama as a King
The role of Rama as a king is only explored properly in the Uttara Kaanda. Ramayana ends with Rama being coronated as the king of Ayodhya. One of the more popular expositions of kingly duties is this: a King is one who treats his subjects as his own children. This is significant because it teaches an important precept: a king, as father should be a role model, a person whom people should look up to for advice, guidance, and wisdom (hence the corollary saying, Yatha Raja tatha Praja–as a King so the subjects). As father, the king should both love his subjects and discipline them when they err. This obviously places an enormous responsibility on the king: he should do no wrong, or simply speaking, his character should be flawless. In this, Rama was the personification of Character. Throughout Ramayana, Rama’s character is never called into question, even by his enemies. For instance, Maricha repeatedly warns Ravana not to mess with Rama because the sheer force of Rama’s character he says, is sufficient to ruin Ravana.
The Yatha Raja tatha Praja proverb has rung true in today’s India than any time before. We’re led by characterless people, and it reflects in the all-round decay of the country. Universities “sell” knowledge, public institutions practice open thuggery, and there’s no hope in the judiciary. The rot has percolated downwards: politicians need the “party fund,” and they order the bureaucracy to get them their “monthly quota of party fund, or else….”
As I mentioned in ” target=”_blank”>Part 1, people in Rama’s kingdom were never unhappy, had no cause for complaint, etc. Establishing “Rama Rajya” is one of the oft-quoted phrases in the VHP rhetoric, as also the famous saying which says, “only that country is truly free where a lady can walk in the night without fear.” All these were real in Rama’s kingdom.
To achieve this end, Rama naturally had to make lot of personal sacrifices: Kingship is a bed of thorns is another proverb that comes to mind. It should be remembered always that a King–or any public figure for that matter–doesn’t have the luxury of a personal life. He is king first and last. This is nowhere more applicable than in a democracy. A person who is responsible to shape and implement policy is put there owing to the confidence millions of people repose in him/her. In this sense, he/she lives for the public and is under constant scrutiny. Why does the Clinton-Monica affair generate trillions of newsbytes when you know for sure that Charles next door has been philandering away to glory for more than 15 years? Why does Cleopatra’s amorous exploits intrigue (excite, perhaps?) us while we pay no heed to the neighbourhood auntie who is equally adventurous?
Similarly with Rama. He interpreted the words of the washerman as a failure of his duties as King. Sita had to go. The feminist and other howlers’ version of this act of sacrifice depicts Rama as a heartless, cruel person who “abandoned his wife.” The primary source–Uttara Kaanda–depicts this sacrifice touchingly. It is worth recalling the episode of Sita’s golden idol, which Rama installed to be eligible for the Ashwamedha sacrifice instead of marrying another girl.
The act of Rama’s “abandoning” Sita should be viewed from this, and only this angle: as Rama’s response to the call of duty. Consider an alternative: Rama could’ve chided/punished the washerman for his rash words, etc, and none would’ve dared to question him. Yet, to keep him happy, Rama willingly punished himself. This incident also throws ample light on the fickleness (and cruelty, perhaps?) of public opinion. The other–and this is a favourite of mine–example is Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar where Caesar refuses to wear the crown offered to him thrice, and finally relents because the Romans have willed it.
Rama’s character also personifies the concept of duty. No sacrifice was great, no person was indispensable, and no road too tough to fulfill one’s duty. Rama unlike Arjuna, did not need a sermon on duty. He lived it. Recall also, what I had mentioned earlier: Ramayana’s narrative style is distinct from that of Mahabharata in that it doesn’t contain elaborate sermons. The difference, as I see it now, is the effect of what the scriptures call, the gradual diminishing of dharma with each yuga. Rama did not need to be reminded/motivated to do his duty whereas Arjuna needed the goading. Arjuna had to kill people whom he loved dearly but didn’t realize at first that it was in service of dharma. He was torn between attachment/affection and duty. Rama had none: he had to forsake his wife to fulfill his duty as a King.
He did it.
Tags: Indian Philosophy
On 02.24.05 praveen says:
Sandeep,
My quick thoughts about uttara ramayana.
Ramayana is a very powerful story indeed, and it does have a great influence on people who go through it. I have heard the stories from different sources. Occasionally from my grandmothers, sometimes in some prabhashanam, other times as stories in amarchitrakatha and other books.
There have been different variations of the same story, added and enhanced, but it never fails to captivate ones imagination. Sant valmiki has indeed given us an excellent literary work. Now I say literary, because I do think that it is mainly a literary work and not a historical document. The main characters and events based on which the epic ramayana is based could have been hisoric, but essentially ramayana is a literary work, which had had a profound impact on the social setup of the sub-continent.
From the way the ramayan happens, I believe that the story ends with Rama anointed as king of Ayodhya to the happiness of all his brothers and people of ayodhya. The Uttara Ramayana stands starkly in contrast with the main story of ramayana, making it possible that it had been a latter addition to the original text itself.
For example, the episode of sending Sita to Jungle, Killing of a shudra who does penance and mainly about the young Lava and Kusha, sons of Rama. Brought up in Valmiki’s ashram, these two boys provide the twist in uttara ramayana by seizing Rama’s ashwamedha horse, and defeating the whole rama’s army including the mighty hanuman. Then the kids sing the ramayana in front of rama himself, and to top it up, the mighty re-union, where sita is taken by mother earth after handing over the kids to Rama!
I feel the uttara ramayana does not do justice to the main poetry of ramayana and I do have serious doubts if valmiki himself was involved in creating it. The ramayana which brings of the different shades of emotions through its characters is lacking in the uttara ramayana.
I do think that the basis of ramayana whould have been some historical characters, but it remains a more literary work compared to mahabharata, which to me seems to be more close to history.
On 03.27.05 Mahadevan says:
Hi Sandeep, wonderfully meaningful and true to earth interpretation of Uttarakanda. I am a strong feminist myself and have read and re read the original epic several times to understand its message. My take on it and this comes from many studies on mythology itself, not just the Ramayan - the characters of Ram/Sita or anyone in the epic are not 21st century personalities or in other words they are not to be understood as human beings who walk the earth in the modern world. They are archetypes, or in other words, characters that carry a message or message(s), any story or sub story is to be viewed in context to the message, not the other way around.
When people say Ram ‘abandoned’ his wife for what a washerman said - as you so eloquently say it is for the call of duty, it is not for dumping her because she became a burden or he was not strong enough to stand up for her or on and on as modern day folks would like to believe, again all those actions are in tune with what a man would do in the present day world, and it is not about the message,which is that duty involves a huge amount of personal sacrifice,which is what was exemplified by Ram.
I also think the Uttar Kand ends with a very eloquent and strong message for women, Sita’s return to her home of origin embodies the feminine principle of strength and gentle assertiveness - the love is in the duty,which is in the return of her sons as prospective princes, she needed no verbal articulation or action to prove who she was and she was indeed evidence that contrary to popular belief feminine virtue is not in un ending patience or tolerance, it is for a purpose and when that purpose is no longer valid it goes back to where it belongs.
To anyone reading this including the author, i would recommend to watch the movie version of Uttarkand - Lavakusha with NTR and Anjali Devi, made in 1963, in Tamil or Telugu. It has been altered a bit from the original but is a wonderful m
and brings the message of Uttarkand home as nothing else has on the screen.
On 03.28.05 Sandeep says:
Mahadevan,
Very long, but interesting. Thanks for the kind words.
On 10.02.06 rsn says:
Sri Rama so humiliated Sita that she finally jumped off a hill.
Rama himself commits suicide by jumping into the Sarayu.
Ramayana is only a eulogised biography of an Aryan invader-king.
On 11.26.06 Srini says:
rsn,
It’s highly debatable whether Valimiki himself wrote Uttarakaanda because basic character of Rama doesn’t fit into the character depicted in previous kaandas. I also referred http://www.valmikiramayan.net recently, though it’s somewhat an abridged version, you can see that Rama gets into deeply pensive and suicidal moods just because of few months of separation from his ladylove. Valmiki captured these feelings very touchingly in aranya kaanda and kishkindha kaanda. It appears that his character as a lover puts even the best of lovers to shame. Few other inconsistent points which come to my mind regarding Uttara kaanda : when Rama could not bear few months of separation, how could he tolerate years of separation from her? Yes, ramayan indicates that he did not enjoy the kingdom pleasures during that time and psychologically he was as devastated as Sita was but based on his character represented in previous kaandas, he or lakhmana or hanuma would have attempted to find her welfare atleast through spies, especially knowing that she was pregnant ! How could he wait till Lava and Kusa were born and brought up to be great warriors and singers (child prodigies?) and their union with them only after fight with them? In this kaanda, I think he receives few positive points as a king but loses more points as a lover and husband but again gains few positive points by rejecting second marriage (very much prevailing system at that time) and kingdom pleasures in the absence of Seeta. Though I still very much like his character as an idealist, as an ordinary man with modern outlook, I strongly oppose his great misdeeds to Seeta and certainly add those points I deduct from Rama to Seeta.
An off-line thought from my side: I don’t think many Indians including myself accept the western inflamed Aryan theory. Sri Rama and Seeta were as much native Indians as we are ! And I also do not believe that the epic was based on historical facts because many of the psychological and physical feats depicted in the epic are very super-human. How do we reconcile these points - mystery of Seeta’s birth still un-resolved in the epic ? talking monkeys ? power of Rama’s arrows and lord of ocean’s personal appearance to him ? curses, one of which keeps Ravana away from abusing Seeta physically ? detailed description of the events as if Valmiki saw them all himself ? flying chariots ? demons with illusory powers ? monkey changing its size at will from thumb to mountain sizes ? lords, their boons and curses ? monkey crossing the great ocean in few jumps ? constructing a bridge across a great ocean in few months ? great power of Rama’s arrows, even ordinary arrows capable of piercing seven saala trees with mighty trunks and return to his quiver ? his ever-replenished quivers ? ideal king/husband/son/lover? ideal brother(s) ? ideal and perfect wife ? ideal devotee? adding characters in uttara kaanda, highly accomplished singer & warrior child prodigies ? and many more points. Valmiki’s imagination was too ideal, his quest for great ideals being served only in his epic. I believe that Ramayan was a great literary fiction, not anything historical except for possibly few things like names of the places.
On 12.24.06 Arjun says:
Uttar Ramayana brings out the picture of an ideal king… not an ideal husband because a person can give only secondary importance to his/her elations after he/she becomes a king/queen. As a king Rama banished Seeta. but as a husband he lived like a tapasvi(ascetic) in the palace for10 years, thus sharing the sorrws of his wife. He shunned the practice of remarriage even when he had to perfrom the Ashwamedha Yagna. here i would like to mentioned the male hypocrisy of our society, which lays stress on a woman being a ‘pati vrata’ like Seeta. The same people never higlight the fact that Ram was a follower of Patni Vrat- being loyal and devoted to one’s wife. A beautiful potrayal of uttar Ramayan (not perfect) is available in vijay Bhatt’s Ram Rajya and NTR’s Lav Kush. the former was the only movie to be watched by Mahatma Gandhi in his lifetime.
On 01.10.07 blackdatura says:
The vexed woman took her life in landscape terrains, and escaped further predation. And historians poetically drag out, ‘mother earth’- the Bhumi Devi. It is a tradition in India that one is not allowed to read Valmiki’s Uttara kanda in one’s home. One who wishes to read the text is required to hole himself in a temple for a few days and browse the sordid turn of events. He then has a cleansing, purificatory, ritual bath; feeds universal beings and the poor before turning
On 01.10.07 ramnath says:
Ram Rajya?
A ruler is prone to comments from all quarters.
And to react to comments is not intelligent action, for any human being; more so for a ruler!
To forsake the subjects and retreat to forests, itself was a callous move for any caring ruler.
Perhaps it is great move from the point of view of Rama, as a son of Dashrath. But he forfeits his responsibility to rule over Ayodhya simply by forsaking his city and its citizens.
And where does Ram Rajya and royal dharma fit within all this?
He was incapable of protecting his wife, knowing fully well about the magical deer that roamed and enticed her.
And to reclaim his one woman, he waged a battle that saw many women, become widows with broken homes.
And even after that his wife had to come through fire to prove her purity.
And in spite of all this, he again banished the pregnant woman and abandoned her in a forest.
To top it all, he again lost his sacrificial horse, waged a battle with his own sons, and saw his army decimated and defeated.
Upon knowing that the boys were his own progeny, he wanted the guys to leave their mother and accompany him home to live as his sons.
How much more can a sensible woman take from a husband?
The vexed woman took her life in landscape terrains, after the continued shoddy treatment.
And historians poetically brought in ‘mother earth’ the Bhumi Devi.
It is a tradition even today that Valmiki’s Uttara kanda is not to be read in homes.
One who wishes to browse Uttara kanda has to stay in a temple, finish reading, have a cleansing bath, feed the poor and only then return home.
So much for Ram and Maryada Purushottam’s intelligent, sensitive life!
On 08.07.07 A R MOHAN RAO says:
MY VIEW: RAMAYAN IS A MANTRA SHASTRA WHICH AROUSES KUNDALINI WITHN THOSE WHO READ IT REGULARLY. IT IS NOT A HISTORICAL INCIDENT BUT MORE TO AWAKEN SHAKTI. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK THAT A HUMAN BEING CAN LIVE FOR A PERIOD OF ELEVEN THOUSAND YEARS! AND THAT DASARATHA LIVED FOR 60,0000 YEARS! IT ALL OBVIOUSLY REFERS TO THE 72,000 ‘NADIS’ WHICH GET ACTIVATED WHEN KUNDALINI IS AROUSED. IT IS SAID THAT THE SETHU IS 10 YOJANAS WIDE AND HUNDRED YOJANAS IN LENGTH. THE AREA WORKS OUT TO 1000 SQ YOJANAS. THESE NUMBERS 60,000 + 11,000 + 10,000 = 72,000. THE ABOVE ARGUMENT IS AMPLY SUPPORTED BY THE FACT THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY HUMAN BEING TO LIVE FOR SUCH LONG PERIODS OF TIME. RAMA RAJJYA IS THAT AMICABLE ASTRONOMICAL CORRECTION MADE BY HIM THE EFFECT OF WHICH LASTED FOR 11,000 YEARS!
On 11.19.07 Vivek Iyer says:
My compliments on your post. Perhaps you are aware of- and as puzzled as I am about- a recent tendency amongst Western intellectuals (e.g. Fred halliday, Karen Armstrong, etc) to ascribe to the ‘Hindu fundamentalists’ (whatever those might be) a desire to ‘turn Lord Rama into a vengeful Father God’ - i.e. Yahweh- and thus impose an Abrahamic Monotheism on a previously heteronomously (ie. superstitiously) polytheistic populace. According to this view, the demand that India should be called ‘Bharat’is also a sinister part of the conspiracy because the Bharat after whom our country is named is not (as you and I innocently assumed) the son of Sakuntala but ‘the step-brother of Lord Rama’ (this last piece of idiocy from our own beloved Gayatri Spivak Chakroboty who claims to know Sanskrit and be of Brahmin caste! If you don’t believe me, check her ‘Critique of Post Colonial Reason)
Clearly these guys are getting their facts from some fatuous book our leftist Historians put out at the time of the Babri Masjid controversy. Indeed, the nonsense written and believed about Lord Rama is our rather than some foreigners fault.
The uttara kanda portion of the Ramayana is not really a puzzle. What is puzzling is how a previous generation of great Indians totally got it wrong. Thus Rajaji says that the Uttara Kanda is not canonical but perhaps an interpolation reflecting the tragic lives of our womenfolk- i.e. Rajaji is accepting the Colonialist view that Hinduism is basically about making women miserable, just as Gandhiji accepted Katherine Mayo’s view that India’s main problem- and the reason it could not legitimately take up arms to liberate itself- was MASTURBATION. Only the peasants toiling in the fields- she tells us- have not ruined themselves utterly through self-abuse- but only because the ryots under the benevolent British Raj are too emaciated and undernourished to muster up an ejaculation.
What is the key utterance of the uttara kanda? It is this. The barber says ‘I am not Rama’. But if the barber is not Rama then Ramrajya is just Rama’s Raj not democracy. So long as there are two moralities- one for the Ruler another for the Subjects- there is no democracy. True Ram’s throne was nothing but the love of the people. Tulsi tells us-
Danda jatinha kara bheda jahan nartaka nrtya samaaja
Jeetahu manahi sunia asa Raamacandra ken raaja!
(Much prattles the Machiavellian parrot of Stick & Carrot, Divide and Rule
But Love’s plural dance of Ego-conquest was Ramrajya’s only tool!)
How then could Lord Rama change the husband’s suspicious nature with respect to his wife?- i.e how stop the fool from destroying his own happiness? How change Society’s attitude to the return of the wandered wife? (What if it was not your sister-in-law but your sister who had been abducted or gone astray?) Since Lord Rama was the one most beloved, he had to inflict this pain on himself so that through anukrosha all beings could advance. This is the King as pharmakos- the scapegoat- who takes on all the evils of the realm so as to free his subjects from them. However the Greek and Hebrew pharmakos just ended with the slaughter of some dumb animal. The true pharmakos is to take on suffering not for death- death is easy, ask any suicide bomber- but for the sake of knowledge, for true knowledge- as Aeschylus saw- comes only through suffering.
But what is this saving knowledge? The answer addresses the most basic anxiety humans have- what Freud called the ‘fort da’ problem- object permanence & abandonment issues- the baby’s anxiety that the mother ceases to exist when not visible. Baby’s anger at the mother when she returns- baby’s refusal to play and turning angrily away for not having forgiven the mother for ceasing to exist.
Now Indian poets had long ago made the equation between the viyogini (woman separated from lover) and the yogini (woman in mystic trance) both do not eat, are turned away from the input of the senses, have single pointed concentration etc.
Thus emotional dualism is the same as intellectual monism. Puranic and Upanishadic Religion cash out as each other.
Why is this important? It means there is a bridge between absence and presence, existence and non-existence. Thus Ramrajya does not depend on whether Rama lives or dies, is exiled or enthroned. real or imaginary.
Uttara Kanda is political. Why? Because it prescribes absoulute reciprocity and symmetry between all agents. There are no priviliged frames of reference or points of view. To quote Brahma Sutra aphorism 3.3.37- vyatihaaraha, viśinşanthi hiitaravat- ‘Scripture prescribes reciprocity between worshipper and worshipped’
From the point of view of both information theory and our own mimamsa- memory, love, and ‘identity’ are disequilibrium phenomena- but this negentropy is life and so says Valmiki, though presently breath-blinded, the mirror of salvation.
To end let me quote Aziz Mian Qawwall’s ‘Ram tera gorakh dandha’- ‘Aaa Ram! Aaram.’
On 02.04.08 reason » Blog Archive » Re: ‘HONOR KILLING’ IS ABSOLUTELY ISLAMIC says:
[...] From: Wanderer tripurantaka@yahoo.com wrote: On Jan 25, 8:30 pm, ram19…@gmail.com wrote: Listen, Einstein: I am intimately familiar with Hinduism! So, please purge yourself of these tiresome assumptions. Yes, I am aware of tolerance within Hinduism. That tolerance is wholly lacking in your posts and those of your fellow Hindu fundamentalists. I am incredulous that you can even say “tolerance” without choking, given that in your previous message you advocated the extermination of Christianity and Islam!. Man, I am happy you studied Hinduism. Did you study Christianity also and find out Jeezuz was most probably the illegitimate son of teenage Mary, with either a relationship with a Roman soldier or raped by him. He also made statements advocating violence and killings of those who do not follow him or his disciples. Do you also know that Mohammad married his own daughter-in-law, had sex with nine year old Ayesha when he was 53, he thought of marrying her when she was a baby,, had sex with Marya the slave in Hafsa’s bed ( one of his several wives- he was permitted 11 by “allah” as an exception to four for all other men), advocated murder of those who disobeyed him etc etc. Do you think these are religions? Do not say Hinduism is also similar. If you do, I will challenge you and ask you to show scriptural evidence or disappear and study moreUmm….okay…..Rama was a minor princeling whose wife was abducted by a neighboring ruler and most probably serially raped over a period of months and years[going by your rules of evidence]. Rama set out to recover his wife, and was helped to do so by tribals who he then referred to as monkeys. He gets his wife back, but proceeds to isolate her, suspecting her fidelity in captivity, or maybe he just thought she was damaged goods. Then he actually banishes her to live in a forest like some homeless primitive. Unable to bear this punishment, she commits suicide by jumping into a nice big fire that his brother builds. Do you think a man who behaved in this dishonorable and cowardly manner is a god?You are right, hinduism is not similar. It is very puzzling to anyone who dispassionately looks at it.Here’s a comment from “Srini”, found at http://www.sandeepweb.com/2005/02/22/musings-on-uttara-kanda-part-2/”An off-line thought from my side: I don [...]