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He refuses his brother Bharatha's urgent entreaties to ascend the throne once their
father dies of grief. Bharatha rules as regent while Rama is in the forest. It is
very instructive however that when he returns, the wise Rama sends Hanuman ahead
to ascertain if fourteen years on the throne have corrupted Bharatha, and he is
disposed to hang onto the crown. This note of caution is amazing, flying as it does
in the face of the popular perception that the two brothers were bonded together
in a state of gooey sentimentality, rather like living in a tub of melted chocolate.
Rama's intelligence was only too aware of what can happen to people in changed circumstances,
and it is one of the more mature passages in the Ramayana.
The Shoorpanaka episode, is the first cloud on the idyllic forest life. Sita insists
on coming along, overruling Rama's objections, and even going to the extent of saying
that her father had married her to a woman by mistake when he tried to insist upon
his point of view. This should put paid to any lingering doubt that she was a doormat.
The forest life is one long uninterrupted romantic episode and there is nothing
like it in all literature. Since the Hero in Indian culture is expected to be an
expert in love too, Valmiki obliged. Rama's love for Sita is the real thing, strong
and fierce and touching. It is not a conventional romantic interaction that
so bedevils Sanskrit literature. Other heroes sigh and sob and declaim romantically
but Rama alone meant it and to this one woman alone. It is a constant source of
wonder, even now.
After the kidnapping of Sita, Rama makes an alliance with Sugriva, the younger brother
of the monkey king of Kishkinda, Vali. Rama promises to kill Vali and have Sugriva
crowned king, so that the royal forces could help in the search for Sita. This episode
has remained a controversial one, and there are many people who feel that it was
a great lapse of Rama's part to have so struck Vali down, who was after all not
a bad king. It was undoubtedly a regrettable action, but there was nothing in the
nature of a moral or ethical lapse in it. Vali tried repeatedly to murder
his younger brother over a genuine mistake, and he also forcibly dragged Ruma, wife
of Sugriva, in to his harem. His pride in his virtues and accomplishments had turned
rancid and he thought he was beyond any code. Rama struck him down from hiding with
his arrow, not in the back as many seem to think, and it was perfectly justified.
For in the days of his virtue, Vali had been granted the boon that anybody who walked
into his sight would instantly lose half their strength, which would be transferred
to Vali. He was therefore invincible, even for the gods. There was no other way
to kill him. Had Rama gone mano-a-mano against him in the stupidity that is sometimes
called bravery, he would have died a foolish death.It is one of the first principles
of Myth that a hero may sometimes act like a villain but never like a fool.
There is another aspect to this Vali killing that people in India do not realize,
used as they are to regarding childish and fantastic descriptions of battle as the
real thing. In that context Rama's killing of Vali is the best and most heroic thing
he ever did. This is my proposition. There is no moral, ethical, spirituality-inducing
or virtue-developing way to kill. The only question is whether it is right
to kill or not, and the usual answer to that is no. Some circumstances justify it
however, but the act of killing itself can never be sanitized. Killing therefore
is like excretion, a necessary evil to be got over with as efficiently and quietly
as possible, and not explored for its ethical potential. Once the decision to kill
Vali was taken - the moral imperative overruled for the sake of the ethical imperative
- it does not matter how it is done, except that it was done quickly and well. Rama's
choice of ambush therefore is a truly heroic choice, a refusal to flinch away from
unpleasant reality and larger obligations because of some specious notion of valor.
If India had fought its fights as Rama did Vali, the history of the country would
have been a lot healthier.
That Rama was not a coward or a lazy fighter is proved when he lets Ravana off later,
when the demon king was weaponless. This episode is much admired by the unthinking
as the real, generous Rama, unwilling to fight a foe who is disarmed. Actually,
Rama had a deeper agenda here. If he killed Ravana at that stage, enough powerful
demons would be left to recover and regroup at some later stage. His mission was
to forever remove the Rakshasha plague from the universe. He let Ravana off, and
the slaughter of demons continued until Ravana was the only one left! The surviving
Rakshashas were not of the same vicious propensities as their brethren and the Rakshasha
menace was finally crushed. Individual demons continued their bad ways till the
times of the Mahabharahta, but Rakshasha society would never again have the numbers
to become a nuisance to the world at large. It was a stroke of political genius,
not that of a pious softy, and it has gone totally unremarked till now.
The trial by fire episode, in which a suddenly grouchy Rama casts aspersions on
the chastity of Sita during her captivity, makes for painful reading. However, if
we accept the fundamental truth that nobody can be psychologically inconsistent,
we can understand his point of view. We may not agree with it, but it is valid.
Like Caesar's wife, Ikshavaku queens too had to be seen to be above suspicion. It
was the social imperative he was worried about, the same reason why he accepted
his father's insane promise - the people had certain expectations from their ruler
and that could not be set aside. In one case his action wins him admiration, in the
other it generates condemnation, - but he was operating from the same set of premises
in both circumstances. In Valmiki, the fire vindicates Sita and that is
the end of it. Rama returns to Ayodhaya and rules in what is nostalgically remembered
as the Perfect Age, Rama Rajya - the Rule of Rama.
The Uttara Kanda with its banishment of a pregnant Sita is not the work of Valmiki.
Even worse was the subversion of India's national hero to caste agendas by later
interpolators. There is a repulsive episode involving the killing of a shudra named
Shambuka, for the 'sin' of learning the Vedas and practicing austerities. Rama was
used in every age to serve the needs of the time and this nasty little tale was
foisted upon him by an India in deep intellectual and spiritual decline.
Rama, who was the friend of boatmen and tribals, who actually ate and slept with
them, would not have done such a vile action, but some people felt that his prestige
was a useful stalking horse for their casteist agendas.
These apparent blemishes have only served to illuminate the bright spots of Rama
even further. He is without doubt the Pre-eminent Hero of the nation, Best Amongst
Men. It is interesting to note that in the Valmiki version, he is fundamentally
a Great Hero, he is not aware of his avatar status. No matter how many times it
is pointed out to him he never acts like god on earth. The later regional variations
make him out to be a fully aware Avatar. The most important of these texts is the
Ramacharitmanas of Tulsidasa, which has literally displaced the Valmiki version
as the story of Rama in the Hindi speaking areas of India. Kalidasa wrote a Rama
story too, the Raghuvamasham. Strangest of all Rama stories in Sanskrit is a long
palindrome of a poem by an unknown author. When read forward it tells the story
of Rama. When read backwards it recounts the Mahabharatha! There is a Sanskrit spiritual
version of the Ramayana popular in Kerala, called the Ramaneeyam, which eliminates
all but the spiritual aspects of the story of Rama. Many English versions have been
written this century. The hold of Rama over India's imagination is not likely to
dim any time soon.
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