Ramayana: An Illustrated Description (Photostat)

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The book is an illustrated documentation of all the major events in the making of Ramayana. This is a major epic of Hinduism. The epic, is traditionally ascribed to Maharishi Valmiki who narrates the life of Rama, a prince of Ayodhya in the kingdom of Kosala. The epic follows his fourteen-years exile to the forest urged by his fourteen year exile to the forest urged b his father King Dashratha, on the request of Rama's stepmother Kaikeyi; his travels across forests in the Indian subcontinent with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. The kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, the king of Lanka, that resulted in war; and Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya along with Sita to be crowned king amidst jubilation and celebration.

I esteem it a great honour that my old and valued friend the Chief of Aundh should have asked me to write a preface to his Illustrated Ramayana. And I shall do my utmost to introduce his book of beautiful pictures to Western readers by trying to place the Ramayana before them from a western point of view.

Classical students will remember that even so late as the silver age of Greece the Epics of Homer were still regarded as the great store-house of religion, precept and history. To them turned every perplexed Greek, no matter what his difficulty was in order to find a solution of it. A well-known instance of this occurred when Ptolemy Philadelphos, King of Egypt, sent Sostratos as his ambassador to the camp of Antigonos Gonatas, king of Macedonia. Antigonos had just won a decisive naval battle against the Egyptians and it seemed as if Antigonos and his allies would soon overwhelm the house of Ptolemy. The Egyptian king, therefore, sent Sostratos with instructions to detach, if pos- sible, Antigonos from the other allies by offering him any reasonable terms of peace. The Macedonian king at first refused Sostratos' offers. In despair the envoy thought of his Iliad and quoted the passage (Iliad, 15, 1. 201) wherein Iris Zeus' messenger reminded Poseidon that a noble heart did not fear to relent. The quotation at the same time conveyed to king Antigonos a hint that although he had won a sea fight he was merely Lord of the Ocean and, there- fore, inferior to Ptolemy whose armies like Zeus were still masters of the land. Antigonos charmed with the envoy's ready wit abandoned his allies and made peace with Egypt.

Our own old legends have faded into the mists of the past, or linger only in fragmentary forms in valleys and moorlands remote from the din and stress of modern industrial life. The West has lost that to which the East fondly clings. We analyse the Homeric Epics and seek to draw from them the secrets of the dim ages that have gone the history, the arts, and the psychology of the peoples of antiquity. Our interest may be aroused, or our sense of beauty may be touched. Our poets may still make drafts on Greece and Rome, though less and less as the years pass on. But, between us and the heroes of the Iliad or of the Sagas, a gulf is fixed ever broadening as modern knowledge flows in a bewildering torrent and science makes havoc with the imaginings of the old world. We know nothing of the Gods of our ancestors whose names are enshrined in our week day names.

In India, all is different. There is no breach of continuity, and the heroic ages link themselves with the life of to-day. The later theories of the origin of the Aryan race assign to it a home in Europe, and the germs of the Great Indian Epics-the Ramayana and the Mahabharata-may have been carried Eastwards to assume form in the plains of the Ganges. As Mr. Kincaid points out, the former appeals most to the Indian mind, and to millions of Hindus who own no Aryan blood, its principal figures are real and inspiring. He has given the story in outline; but only those who have read Mr. Dutt's translation can realize the wealth and the variety of matter which the Ramayana embodies. The narrative is richly inwoven with legendary lore, with philosophy, and with religion. The subtle wisdom of the East is enshrined in its verse, and we can learn from it something of the politics, the arts and the social conditions of ancient India. It enables us to understand the verdict of Professor Max Muller that the Old Aryans were "in many respects the most wonderful race that ever lived on the Earth.