The History of Indian Literature c9.46

Language: English

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As the second group of Epic Poetry we designated the *Kávyas*, which are ascribed to certain definite poets (*kavis*); whereas the Itihásas and Puráṇas are attributed to a mythical personage, Vyása, who is simply Διασκευή (Redaction) personified.∗ At the head of these poems stands the *Rámáyaṇa* of Válmíki, whose name we found cited among the teachers of the Taittiríya-Prátiśákhya.† In respect of language, this work is closely related to the war-portion of the Mahá-Bhárata, although in individual cases, where the poet displays his full elegance, it bears plainly enough on its surface, in rhyme and metre, the traces of a later date. In regard to contents, on the contrary, the difference between it and this portion of the Mahá-Bhárata is an important one. In the latter human interest everywhere preponderates, and a number of well-defined personages are introduced, to whom the possibility of historical existence cannot be denied, and who were only at a later stage associated with the myths about the gods. But in the Rámáyaṇa we find ourselves from the very outset in the region of allegory; and we only move upon historical ground in so far as the allegory is applied to an historical fact, namely, to the spread of Aryan civilisation towards the south, more especially to Ceylon. The characters are not real historic figures, but merely personifications of certain occurrences and situations.

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Sítá, in the first place, whose abduction by a giant demon, and subsequent recovery by her husband Ráma, constitute the plot of the entire poem, is but the field-furrow, to which we find divine honours paid in the songs of the Ṛik, and still more in the Gṛihya ritual. She accordingly represents Aryan husbandry, which has to be protected by Ráma—whom I regard as originally identical with Balaráma "halabhṛit," "the plough-bearer," though the two were afterwards separated—against the attacks of the predatory aborigines. These latter appear as demons and giants; whereas those natives who were well disposed towards the Aryan civilisation are represented as monkeys,—a comparison which was doubtless not exactly intended to be flattering, and which rests on the striking ugliness of the Indian aborigines as compared with the Aryan race. Now this allegorical form of the Rámáyaṇa certainly indicates, *à priori*, that this poem is later than the war-part of the Mahá-Bhárata; and we might fairly assume, further, that the historical events upon which the two works are respectively based stand to each other in a similar relation. For the colonisation of Southern India could hardly begin until the settlement of Hindustán by the Aryans had been completed, and the feuds that arose there had been fought out. It is not, however, altogether necessary to suppose the latter;

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and the warfare at least which forms the basis of the Mahá-Bhárata might have been waged concurrently with expeditions of other Aryan tribes to the south. Whether it was really the Kośalas, as whose chief Ráma appears in the Rámáyaṇa, who effected the colonisation of the south,∗ as stated in the poem; or whether the poet merely was a Kośala, who claimed this honour for his people and royal house, is a point upon which it is not yet possible to form a judgment. He actually represents Sítá as the daughter of Janaka, king of the Videhas, a tribe contiguous to the Kośalas, and renowned for his piety. The scanty knowledge of South India displayed in the Rámáyaṇa has been urged as proving its antiquity; since in the Mahá-Bhárata this region appears as far more advanced in civilisation, and as enjoying ample direct communication with the rest of India. But in this circumstance I can only see evidence of one of two things: either that the poet did not possess the best geographical knowledge; whereas many generations have worked at the Mahá-Bhárata, and made it their aim to magnify the importance of the conflict by grouping round it as many elements as possible: or else—and this is the point I would particularly emphasise—that the poet rightly apprehended and performed the task he had set himself, and so did not mix up later conditions, although familiar to him, with the earlier state of things.

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The whole plan of the Rámáyaṇa favours the assumption that we have here to do with the work, the poetical creation, of one man. Considering the extent of the work, which now numbers some 24,000 *ślokas*, this is saying a great deal; and before epic poetry could have attained to such a degree of perfection, it must already have passed through many phases of development.† Still, it is by no means implied that the poem was of these dimensions from the first: here, too, many parts are certainly later additions; for example, all those portions in which Ráma is represented as an incarnation of Vishṇu, all the episodes in the first book, the whole of the seventh book, &c. The poem was originally handed down orally, and was not fixed in writing until afterwards, precisely like the Mahá-Bhárata. But here we encounter the further peculiar circumstance—which has not yet been shown to apply, in the same way at all events, to the latter work—namely, that the text has come down to us in several distinct recensions, which, while they agree for the most part as to contents, yet either follow a different arrangement, or else vary throughout, and often materially, in the expression. This is hardly to be explained save on the theory that this fixing of the text in writing took place independently in different localities. We possess a complete edition of the text by G.

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Gorresio, containing the so-called Bengálí recension, and also two earlier editions which break off with the second book, the one published at Serampore by Carey and Marshman, the other at Bonn by A. W. von Schlegel. The manuscripts of the Berlin library contain, it would seem, a fourth recension.∗