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Neha Nidhi
In Bihar, I attended one of India’s top schools. The epics—the Ramayana and the Mahabharata—were
mythologies, which was just one of the many things they taught me. And I had this belief till I made the
decision to read Valmiki’s Ramayana in Sanskrit one day. There I discovered that Sage Bharadwaja had
advised the group to take precautions against lions and tigers as they approached Dandakaranya. We
had also been taught that lions and tigers don’t coexist in the same forest, so that was yet another myth
in the epic. Up until I visited Bhimbetka and came across a 10,000-year-old artwork of a lion and a tiger
lounging side by side. Could the other facts be similarly incorrect if my wonderful teachers presented
one thing so incorrectly?
Describe a myth. The definitions provided by the online dictionary are as follows: a) a widely believed
but incorrect belief or concept; and b) a traditional story, particularly one relating to a people’s early
history or explaining a natural or social phenomena. As a result, the Ramayana was forever condemned
as a fable.
We refer to the epics as itihasa, therefore that’s what happened. Hindus have no doubt that the events
described in the epic actually took place.
The Ramayana’s true plot is quite straightforward. The ascetic Valmiki asks Narada, the leader of the
hermits (and given name), who was the greatest guy who ever lived. The story of Rama, King of
Ayodhya, is told by Narada. Rama was a man of many virtues—all human—including virtue, intelligence,
prowess, righteousness, truthfulness, and resolve. He also had a good disposition and was nice to
everyone. Narada himself stated that Valmiki lived during Rama’s time.
Narada’s narrative is succinct and significant: Rama, the cherished son of King Dasharatha, was to serve
as regent. However, Queen Kaikeyi, who had previously received a blessing from the monarch, desired
Rama’s banishment and the coronation of her son Bharata. Rama, an honourable son, accompanied his
brother Lakshmana, the son of Sumitra, and Sita into the wilderness. Rama crosses the Ganga at
Sringaverapura, meets his companion Guha, the leader of the Nishadas, and travels through numerous
forests till they arrive at Chitrakoot. Bharata runs towards them and begs Rama to come back. In
response to Rama’s rejection, Bharata leaves Nandigrama and returns to Ayodhya.
Rama then enters the Dandaka jungle where he disfigures Shoorpanakha and kills a number of
rakshasas, including Khara, Trishira, and Dooshana. When Ravana learns of the mass executions of
14,000 of his kinsmen, he uses Maricha to divert the attention of the two brothers while stealing Rama’s
wife and murdering the vulture Jatayu. Rama encounters Sabari, a virtuous hermit, on the banks of the
Pampa River on the suggestion of Kabandha. Later, Rama befriends Sugriva and kills Vali, the brother of
the latter. Once in Lanka, where Sita is held captive in a grove of Ashoka trees, Hanuman traverses the
brackish sea on the advice of Sampati, king of the vulture people. He consents to being tied and brought
before Ravana. He returns to Rama to tell him that he actually met Sita after setting all of Lanka on fire
with the exception of Sita. After that, Rama commands Nala to build a bridge so that he might enter
Lanka and slay Ravana there. Rama, however, berates Sita in public because he is embarrassed to take
her back. Rama accepts her when she goes into the fire. After putting Vibhishana on the throne, Rama
takes the pushpaka to Ayodhya with his family and friends, including Sugriva and Hanuman, and takes
back control of his realm.
This is the historical biography of Rama that was originally told by Narada and used by Valmiki as the
prelude to his epic. Rama is unmistakably a man who is derived from Ikshvaku, according to Narada. The
pushpaka is its only notable feature.
There are numerous characters and incidents that are absent from Narada’s account, including Janaka of
Mithila, Sita’s swayamvara, Rama’s mother Kaushalya, Rama’s brother Shatrughna, the golden deer, the
lakshman rekha, Rama’s ring, Sita’s choodaman, Kumbhakarna, Indrajit, and Mandodari. Even
Lakshmana and Sita are small figures. It’s curious that only the rakshasas he encounters in
Dandaka—not those in Lanka—are mentioned. The Uttara Ramayana’s events are entirely absent.
Narada’s factual report and Valmiki’s poetic epic can be distinguished by their creativity. Neither Narada
nor Valmiki consider Rama to be a deity. Valmiki is a poet, nevertheless. He continues by expanding on
the narrative in poetry, partially elevating Rama, and conceiving of the Ramayana. In the modern era,
figures like the Shirdi and Sathya Sai Babas were deified during their lifetimes. Flying monkeys, a demon
with ten heads, and other strange creatures and occurrences abound in Valmiki’s epic. Why not,
though? His work needed to be readable after all.
The Ramayana has beautiful geography and is linear. Every location along Rama’s itinerary is still
recognisable and has temples or ongoing customs that honour Rama’s presence. Around 1,000 BCE, no
author had the resources to explore the nation, catalogue local plants and animals, create a tale, and
weave it into the mythology of the area, let alone construct a shrine to honour Rama’s arrival.
I sent two of my botanists to Bhimbetka after seeing the painted lion and tiger there in order to examine
the vegetation and animals in the four forests there: Chitrakuta, Dandaka, Panchavati, and Kishkinda.
Amazingly, these locations still have the same plants and creatures that the Valmiki described. Nothing
was made up. The epic, in my opinion, was confirmed when they published a book titled Plant and
Animal Diversity in Valmiki’s Ramayana (By M Amirthalingam and P Sudhakar).
In Sringaverapura (in Uttar Pradesh), Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita first encountered Guha the Nishada.
Fishermen and hunters, the Nishadas. The three then went through Dandakaranya in central India,
which is known as a place of rakshasas, or tribes that are hostile to outsiders encroaching on their
territory. In these forests, Munda tribes can still be discovered. Rama encounters the Sabari, a Munda
ethnic group that can be found in southern Odisha, northern coastal Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand,
Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Sabari also go by the names Saora, Saura, Savara, and Sabari. The
Saoras are mentioned in Megasthenes’ Indica. A female shaman serves as a bridge between the realms
of the living and the dead among the Saoras. The significance of the female Sabari in Narada’s story may
be due to this. The Nishadas and Saoras continue to assert that Rama went there.
The descriptions of Rama’s visit by Valmiki are still remembered in several locations. On the Godavari
River, the group arrived in Nasik, where Rama and Sita formerly bathed at Ramkund, Lakshmana at
Lakshmankund, and the area is known for its numerous caves that are connected to the local forest life.
After that, Rama relocated to Panchavati, where five banyan (vat) trees are kept alive as a reminder of
Rama’s wanderings. Sita was taken from Panchavati by Ravana. The brothers travel to Kishkinda on the
Pampa River, close to the present-day Hampi, when Rama first encountered Sugriva and Hanuman. It is
a significant Ramayana location where each rock and river has a connection to the story. Hanuman was
born at Anjanadri, a village close to Hospet; Sugriva resided in Rishyamukha, a village on the banks of
the Pampa (Tungabhadra); and Sabari most likely lived in a hermitage nearby.
Rama and the Vanara army left Kishkinda for Rameshwaram, where the Vanaras led by Nala constructed
a bridge connecting Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi on Rameshwaram Island. There are still
visible portions of the Nala sethu, as Rama called the bridge: A bridge connecting Dhanushkodi and
Talaimannar under the Palk Straits has been seen on camera by a NASA satellite. According to the
Mahabharata and a number of Chola and other rulers, it was guarded out of respect for Rama. The
National Remote Sensing Agency is one scientific organisation that has stated it was man-made. The
footbridge connected India and Sri Lanka until 1480 CE, when a severe storm caused several of the
bridge’s support columns to collapse (according to CD Maclean, Manual of Madras Presidency, 1902)
At Rameshwaram, where Sita had made a sand linga, Rama worshipped Shiva after his return from Sri
Lanka. It remains one of Hinduism’s holiest sites. Ramayana artefacts can also be found in Sri Lanka. To
keep Rama from discovering Sita, Ravana is thought to have hid her in a number of caves, including
Ravana Ella Falls. The Ashoka Vana, where Ravana once imprisoned her, is not far from the Sitai Amman
Temple in Nuwara Eliya.
Hanuman, the flying monkey from the Valmiki epic, has cast doubt on the epic’s veracity. Narada,
however, does not refer to the Vanaras as monkeys (kapi). According to the Jain Ramayana, which was
penned by Acharya Ravisen and published in the book Padam Puran, they were the vana naras (forest
people) or vanar vansh (monkey lineage), people of the forest. The totemic idea is supported by
references in the Jaina Ramayana to Hanuman as a vana nara and the vanaras’ banner as the vanara
dhvaja (monkey flag). The kings of the vulture-totem tribe, Jatayu, and the bear-totem tribe, Jambavan,
would have been similar. The strange combination of two dominant animals—langurs and
bears—continues to exist in Kishkinda, the region where Hanuman was born and where Jambavan (the
bear) resided. Given that the entire narrative takes place in tribal India, the bear and monkey people
were totemic tribes. The poet Valmiki, however, valued the exotic over the commonplace. He
transformed them into even more intriguing creatures than the vanara dhvajas, such as talking bears,
warring vultures, and flying monkeys!
The Ramayana was written during a time when tribal forest dwellers inhabited the majority of India.
There are still some tribes in India that have animal totems. We learn the intriguing fact that the Vanara
tribe once called the Bellary District (now in Karnataka) home in an early edition of the Bellary District
(now in Karnataka) Gazetteer.
Was Lanka Sri Lanka as it is today? One school of thought, given the few descriptions of the south in the
second half of the epic, places Lanka near the Godavari in central India. Narada jumps from the Pampa
river bank (Kishkinda) to Lanka without mentioning Panchavati or Rameshwaram. It seems improbable
that Valmiki had sufficient knowledge of the south to write about it given his residence in the north.
However, Lanka was 800 koshas across the brackish sea, according to both Narada and Valmiki. A river
couldn’t be it.
More than 30 locations on the island have been linked to the Ramayana by Sri Lankan folklore and
religious experts. Interesting enough, locals in these communities have a deep awareness of their local
history and tradition as well as a strong sense of ownership. Despite the fact that 90% of the population
in the Ramayana-related areas are Sinhalese Buddhists, S Kalaiselvan, director general of the Sri Lanka
Tourism Development Authority, claims that they are proud of their link with the Hindu epic. Sri Lanka’s
national heroine is Sita.
All of the sites Rama visited still had recollections of his presence, as if it had just happened. In India,
time is relative. Some locations have memorial temples, while others honour the visit in local legend.
But everyone concurs that Rama was travelling to or from Ayodhya. Why doubt connections when local
tradition, literature, and archaeology are all present? Given that no other person in Indian history or
tradition has claimed to have built the Nala-setu, why would anyone question its link to Rama? Why cast
doubt on Rama’s passage through Dandakaranya or Kishkinda, where local non-Vedic tribes continue to
tell Rama stories? Why would anyone question that he was born in and ruled over Ayodhya?
Temples and other significant buildings underwent numerous renovations during the 20th century. The
primary picture was changed from being made of fragile materials to stone. Because the previous image
is still preserved in a water tank, for instance, we know that the wooden figure of Varadaraja Perumal of
Kanchipuram was replaced by a stone image. The current building was constructed in the Vijayanagara
style popular in the sixteenth century. However, it was known that the temple existed before the Pallava
era (seventh century). This covers the history of many of India’s holy places. Several Rama temples were
also affected by this.
So how did myths about Indian history develop? Warren Hastings and other early East India Company
(EIC) officers were heavily inspired by Indian culture. Hastings’ conquest of India for the Company was
accompanied by a conquest of Hinduism, and the Board of Directors of the EIC referred to this
transformation as the “Brahminization of the Englishmen.” The Company sponsored a discussion on the
high moral standards of Hindus among the officers returning from India between 1806 and 1808 30
papers, each longer than 100 pages, were submitted. They were so shocked that they made the decision
to manipulate the situation by disparaging Indian history, culture, and spiritual influence. Thus, in 1813,
JS Mill and Charles Grant were chosen to pen the History of British India, in which nearly all of the
Sanskrit literature was characterised as legendary. The syllabus for English administrators who had to
graduate from East India College (formerly known as Haileybury and Imperial Service College) before
departing England was based on this book. It also made its way into the curricula of Indian institutions
and schools, where it was used to persuade students to detest their own history as mythology.
Additionally, the Reverend James Ussher, the Archbishop of Ireland, set the creation of the earth at
October 23, 4004 BCE. Anything that made the claim to be earlier had to be a fabrication.
Rama is frequently mentioned in the Tamil Sangam literature (200 BCE–200 CE) works Agaanuru,
Puranaanuru, and Silappadikaram, which draw parallels between diverse circumstances and Rama’s life.
Numerous inscriptions left by Tamil kings, including those of the Cholas, make a point of mentioning
Rama and the Nala setu. Rama is credited for building the dyke (setu) to Lanka, according to Al-Beruni,
an 11th-century traveller to India. That could have been done only by a mortal.
Existed Rama? Yes, I’m positive he did. A fact was Rama’s life. It takes faith to believe in His deity.
To question Rama’s existence is to question all of literature. For either Jesus Christ or Prophet
Muhammad, who are solely known from the Bible and Quran, there is no archaeological or epigraphic
evidence. Does that imply they never existed? If Rama works miracles, like freeing Ahalya, then
Muhammad’s flight to paradise on a horse in the Qur’an and the narrative of Jesus walking on water in
the Bible are also miraculous. These myths support divinity rather than reality.
Because of Rama’s unique life and demeanour, as well as the fact that his reign was unquestionably
marked by immense peace and prosperity, “Rama Rajya” has become a point of reference, his memory
endures today. Only the very best or the very worst are remembered. They only revere the finest, too. It
is fitting that a temple will soon be built to honour the life of this outstanding ruler of ancient India.
