Author:
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 21, 2002
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=11656
Paula Richman has studied the Ramayana
for the last 15 years. She is a Professor of Religion at Oberlin University
in the USA and put together the book Many Ramayanas about the diversity
of this narrative tradition. Currently on research leave, Richman lectured
on her subject at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi last weekend. Excerpts
from an interview with Renuka Narayanan.
Q.: What drew you to Indology?
A.: Professor A K Ramanujan at
Chicago University. I met my husband (Persian scholar and author Michael
Fisher) there. We were both attracted by the sparkle in Ramanujan's eye,
his enthusiasm, the way he made classical Indian literature come alive
for us.
Q.: With such a wide choice of subjects
in ancient India, what attracted you to the Ramayana, a text with which
many modern people have huge problems?
A.: There is no other story on
earth that comes close to the Ramayana in the extraordinary way it is lives
as a vital, fluid, narrative tradition. I'm sure everyone knows that there
are many Ramayanas. It is important to go through these many versions to
understand the problems others had with it in the past and how they retold
the tale.
Q.: Did they too have problems,
like we do today, about the ambivalences- the less-than-perfect behaviour
of Lord Ram in the episodes of Vali, Surpanakha and Sita's Agnipariksha?
A.: Yes, absolutely. But that is
the marvellous thing in the Ramayana. These issues are present in the very
first Ramayana, by Valmiki. They were not edited out but allowed to stay
and yet, unlike the Vedas which had to be memorised exactly so, with not
a word that could be changed, the Ramayana was treated as a beloved epic
open to re-interpretation in regional texts and in the oral tradition.
Q.: Why do you suppose it was so
important to somehow make sense of the Ramayana and hang on to it, despite
the grey areas?
A.: I love what Telugu scholar
Narayana Rao once said, which sums up this situation. He said, ''Fiction
has only one form; truth has many''. The Ramayana is so tied up with truth
that it is important to people. A novel by Jane Austen is just one text.
The Ramayana is less a single text than a tradition of tellings. It reflects
the concerns of people at different stages in time, in different places.
The Ramayana your grandmother heard will be different from her granddaughter's,
but all the stories of the past will be in it.
Q.: How many Ramayanas are there
exactly?
A.: There are over 300 traditional
versions and I've read (in English translation) more than 200, not counting
the hundreds of oral narratives.
Q.: Are there any patterns discernible
in these 'types'?
A.: I think there are two strands
visible-Ramayanas which deal with happiness in union and those which deal
with the sorrow of separation.
Q.: That sounds like the emotional
dynamics of classical dance-the counter- pull between vipralamba (separation)
and sambhoga (union).
A.: Exactly. Sita's either banished
or there's a mangalam ending. There are more Ramayanas that favour a happy
ending, in fact, as many know, there's this theory that the Uttara Kandam
(Agnipariksha) was added later. But sadness is truer to life, perhaps?
Ram is never happy after Sita's banishment.
Q.: Does anyone have a theory on
why Lord Ram really sent her away?
A.: I can tell you it's upset lots
of people in the past! In fact, some of the best stories relate to Lakshman's
wife, Urmila. In the modern Malayalam play Kanchana Sita by Srikantan Nair
(made into a film by Aravindan), Urmila whiles away her separation by going
to college! She sits with the most learned pundits to study the Dharma
Shastras and by the time the 14 years are up, she's an expert. So when
Rama banishes Sita, she has a big debate with him. He justifies the banishment
as ''the will of the people'' and not his own dharma as a husband. But
then, says Urmila, what about your own banishment? That was against the
will of the people. But you insisted on upholding the king's personal commitment.
Q.: What kind of happy ending could
there be?
A.: Bhavabhuti has them meet and
forgive each other. Ku Vem Pu's Kannada story has Rama and Sita both going
into the fire to purify themselves, because who is really free in human
birth from mistakes?
Q.: What other patterns do you see
in the tradition?
A.: The regional influences are
very interesting. In the Eastern areas the Shakta Ramayanas have Sita going
in to battle to kill off a hundred-headed cousin of Ravana's who suddenly
shows up after the battle, when Rama is too exhausted to fight. The South
Indian Ramayanas like Kambar's or Ezhuthacchan's tend to be more lyrical
and poetic. Kerala and Karnataka, because of Kathakali and Yakshagana,
have the most talented Ramayana actors. Ravana gets a lot of respect in
South India as a warrior, scholar, veena player and devotee of Shiva. No
way is he demonised, in fact he tells Vibhishan, ''I know Rama is a good
person, but I have to avenge my sister Surpanakha.''
In the north, there is an anthology
of devotees' questions to Tulsidas called the Sankhavali which asks things
like ''What did they eat in the forest,'', ''Which mother did they bow
to first?'' Every region has some format in which the complexities of this
epic are repeatedly raised.
