The Ramayana
Beyond the pages of the Ramayana are more Ramayanas still.
There’s the Ramayana of comic books and temple shrines, TV dramas and gold-crusted Tanjore paintings.
There’s the Ramayana danced in Bali, written in Thai, and sung when couples tie the knot at some Hindu weddings.
Famous across Southeast Asia, the Ramayana is the story of an exiled prince who rescues his wife from a demonic kidnapper with the help of his stalwart brother, a loyal monkey, and a host of creatures who sense that he is no ordinary mortal.
According to translator R.K. Narayan, “Rama’s whole purpose of incarnation was ultimately to destroy Ravana, the chief of the asuras, abolish fear from the hearts of men and gods, and establish peace, gentleness, and justice in the world.”
Written in Sanskrit around the 4th century BCE*, the immensely popular epic is available in a number of abridged retellings, as well as multi-volume unabridged translations that are still in the works.
I chose the 1972 retelling by Narayan, a novelist known for his dry wit and simple prose style. What he retells is not the Sanskrit original, credited to Valmiki, but a Tamil retelling of the 11th century by the poet Kamban. That is, he retells a retelling.
Guiding us through ancient India is an author who is both storyteller and fellow reader. Narayan tells us about Kamban’s beautiful descriptions of landscapes and warns us that the Vali episode is particularly controversial. He shows us what a bit of Kamban’s Tamil text looked like and lets us know that other versions of the epic end differently.
The sense of distance from the actual events of the Ramayana might put off readers who simply want a gripping story, but I rather liked the gentle authorial voice. I prefer my translations undomesticated: that is to say, their distance in time and space maintained as much as possible. Those who are looking for in-depth cultural or textual footnotes might want to find a scholarly translation. This text is often used in undergraduate survey classes, perhaps because it is clear and relatively brief.
If Narayan falls into summarizing at times, it is perhaps only natural for a 171-page version of a seven-book original. (The three-page episode in which Hanuman finds the kidnapped Sita is a book in its own right in full translation.) Space notwithstanding, the details of character and scene-setting are evocative, from Rama’s troubled visions when Sita is kidnapped to the shadowy “anger room” where the king’s wife plots Rama’s exile.
I missed the epic feeling that innumerable subplots and sheer length can give. But if you’re looking for a shorter read, this retelling captures the key episodes: Rama winning the hand of Sita by drawing (and breaking) Shiva’s bow; the building of the great land bridge from India to Sri Lanka by a host of animals; and the death of the hubristic Ravana who recognizes, in the end, the true identity of his opponent.
From the Reader’s Notebook
* The dating of the Ramayana is a source of much dispute. While Narayan gives the 4th century BCE in his introduction, I’ve heard years as various as 1500 BCE, 750 BCE, and so on.
* The title is pronounced “ra-MA-ya-na.” (I’m slowly learning how to pronounce the names in the books listed on this site, if only so they sound correct in my head as I read.)
* Rama is, for the most part, serenely good. When his behavior seems questionable, as when he shoots Vali in the back, he defends himself and the challenger is honored to have been enlightened.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with goodness. Still, I found Rama less easy to relate to than a later incarnation of the god Vishnu, Krishna. Krishna is pictured in the old stories as an adorable, naughty boy (Bhagavatam); an amorous young cowherd (Gitagovinda); and a wise elder-brother figure (Bhagavad Gita). All these faces evoke an emotional response, or, for someone reading for religious purposes, a sense of connection to the divine. The Mahabharata’s semi-divine heroes struggle with everything from gambling problems to the morality of war.
Perhaps it is overly secular and modern to prefer heroes with human foibles.
* If you read other Ramayanas, take note of the ending. Some versions find Rama challenging Sita to prove her chastity at the end, since she had been abducted by a lusty rakshasa. Depending on which version you read, Sita either walks into a fire, which does not burn her, or is swallowed up by the earth from which she came. (She had been found as a baby in the furrow of a ploughed field.) Narayan, like Kamban, avoids the problem ending altogether and concludes with the couple’s triumphant return to the royal city of Ayodhya.
