Dharma in Valmiki Ramayana (Set of 2 Books)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

`Maryada' is the Sanskrit word for 'boundary' and also means 'propriety of conduct'. In the Ramayana, the word carries special weight because it comes to be used as the defining virtue of Rama. the ‘maryada purushottama' or Ideal man'.

But even though Rama is regarded as the epitome of dharma in his thoughts and deeds, the Ramayana does not provide us with one single template for what is right. Nor does it tell us that dharma is beyond the reach of human understanding and action. On the contrary, it holds out the promise that everyone can search for a dharma they believe in, one that is all the more precious because it has been sought and found rather than given and received.

In her thought-provoking new book, Arshia Sattar writes with compassion, tenderness and understanding about dharma as a multiplicity of appropriate choices, showing us that when we choose one way of being and doing over another, we will as often be wrong as we are right.

While we are accustomed to acknowledging that the Mahabharata does not provide us with either a consistent or a coherent idea of what dharma is, we look to the Ramayana with great hope to resolve the most fundamental of human questions: What does it mean to be good? The Mahabharata tells us over and over again that dharma is ‘sukshma' - subtle, elusive, hard to know. It is a refrain, almost, in this rich and complex Sanskrit text of one hundred thousand verses, attributed to Vyasa but composed over centuries, which folds within itself many and different ideas of dharma. The Ramayana, however, composed alongside the Mahabharata over the same centuries and in the same political and social milieu, subject to the same influences and tensions, never tells us that dharma is beyond the reach of human understanding, and therefore, of human action. On the contrary, each of the Ramayana's principal characters believes that it is possible, and that it is necessary that they act on the basis of this slippery code which governs each and every aspect of an individual's life.

Rather than provide a conclusive definition of dharma in the Ramayana, the essays in this book seek the various boundaries that different ideas of dharma come up against, boundaries beyond which actions become transgressive and deserving of punishment.’Maryada' is a commonly used word for 'boundary' in Sanskrit. It also means 'propriety of conduct', and with this additional connotation, it holds within itself the idea that the boundary it refers to cannot be crossed without some kind of retributive action. In the context of the Ramayana tradition, the word maryada carries a special weight precisely because the word comes to be used as Rama's defining virtue. Within the tradition, and especially after the later Ramayanas, Rama becomes known as the ‘maryada purushottama', the ideal man. In fact, it could well be that the meaning of ‘maryada' as 'good conduct' comes from Rama's essential association with the concept of propriety itself.

Despite the fact that the Ramayana's hero, Rama, is regarded as the epitome of dharma in his thoughts and deeds, the Ramayana cannot provide us with a single template for right action. Unlike the Mahabharata, the Ramayana shows us, with compassion and tenderness, that whoever we are, dharma is always and everywhere about a multiplicity of appropriate choices, that when we choose one way of being and doing over another, we will as often be wrong as we are right. When Rama tells his mother Kaushalya that he will obey his father's wish and go into the forest for fourteen years, her anguished question to him is why he privileges his duty as a son to his father over his obligations to her as a mother. When Vibhishana decides to do what he believes to be right, his alliance with Rama is predicated on the betrayal which leads to the killing of his brother. When Kaikeyi deprives Rama of his right to be king, she acts for the benefit of her son and legitimately asks for the redemption of boons she was given as well as for the fulfilment of a promise made to her father. But she humiliates her husband and makes a mockery of Kosala's widely held reputation as a kingdom of righteousness. The actors in the Ramayana can see all the choices before them; their problem is not that dharma is sukshma, it is that dharma presents the individual with more than one equal and legitimate choice.

In her book The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), Wendy Doniger brings to our notice the fact that, until the bhakti period, there are multiple dharmas that impinge upon an individual's conscience as the possible bases of action. There is the dharma of the self, svadharma, determined by who one is; there is varnashrama dharma depending on one's caste and station in life; there is samanya dharma, or general principles that apply to everyone; and there is, over and above all of these, sanatana dharma which is eternal, and one imagines, immutable. Each additional articulation of dharma represents an increasingly complex ontology in the development of Hinduism. As schools of Hindu thought explore their understanding of the individual self in relation to perceived and ultimate realities, their ideas of what underpins individual ethics and moral action, too, become more expansive. Ancient rituals and social segregation are maintained as the self is placed in an increasingly interconnected world, and theories of action begin to respond to more sophisticated metaphysics and theologies.

**Contents and Sample Pages**

**Maryada- Searching For Dharma in The Ramayana**

Preface

The Greatness of Valmiki Ramayana

The Ramayana of Valmiki is called the Adi kavya and the emphasis has been on 'kavya' as much, if not more than, as it is on Adi. It has been the source and treasure house of all Indian literature. The gem of Sanskrit literature, Mahakavi Kalidasa, humbly confessed that he was but a dwarf compared to Valmiki. There is humility in his confession but there is also perfect truth. And his is a justifiable confession. Any poet, including the best, is but a dwarf in comparison with the creator of this epic poem. Theorists of literature, down from Anandavardhana, have based their theory of poetry on and formulated the principles of poetics from the Adi kavya. It remains the guiding star, itself unreachable but always helping one not to lose one's way in the wilderness of literary output. Valmiki Ramayana is not only a kavya par excellence but a holy text of unmatched reputation. We know that the work has been considered for ages as a spiritual text that could deliver a person from the bonds of sin Statements like these stand out as testimony if testimony is called for that the Ramayana of Valmiki has been considered as the religious text, not merely the first but the foremost, that has been worshiped by millions of people not only in India but all over the world.

Introduction

As lasting as the hills and rivers:

Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe, assured Valmiki, the creator of the poetic universe, namely the Ramayana, that his work would be as lasting as the hills and rivers.

What he meant was that the message of the Ramayana would be as solid as the rocks and as fluid as the flow, down the ages, of the river waters. This assurance was well founded on the indubitable merits of Valmiki's work: the brilliance of its poetry, before which the best of world's poetry pales, its structural solidity, its enduring moral influence, its everlasting religious inspiration and its abiding spiritual sustenance. Rama as a religious figure, has a rival in Krishna, who seems to claim sometimes a greater share of the people's admiration and adoration. But the VR has had no competitor. Its sway on the minds of millions continues through the ages.

However, it is necessary to examine what kind of sway it continues to have. It is also necessary not to ignore the fact that the VR is being criticized today by large sections of people as outdated and irrelevant. Lord Brahma's assurance seems to have expired. No wonder, since "hills and rivers" are no longer inviolable, and are no longer symbols of solidity or of fertility. Hills are being denuded and destroyed and rivers are damned and polluted. Lord Brahma anticipated this threat to the hills and the rivers. His anticipation is implicit in his corollary assurance to Valmiki. The verse... is widely quoted and quite well known. The verse immediately following it is not so often referred to. In that verse, Lord Brahma grants residential rights to the author in any of the world's of his creation, including the earth, "as long as" his work remains popular. The lord in his expression "as long as" was clearly anticipating times when there would be an assault on Nature and on the holistic message of the VR the message based on the realization of the essential oneness of "all existence", the message of "Man one with Nature" as against "Man versus Nature".