The New International Encyclopædia/Rāmāyana

RĀMĀYANA, rȧ-mä′yȧ-nȧ (Skt., story of Rama). The second of the two great epic poems of mediæval India. It is in the main the work of a single author, Valmiki. Herein lies the important distinction between it and the Mahābhārata (q.v.). Though all its parts are not from the same hand, and though it is not entirely free from digressions or episodes, the poem tells a connected story of great interest in epic diction of the highest order; it ranks with the great epics of the world, and is even to this day the favorite poem of the Hindus.

The central figures in the epic are Rama and his devoted wife, Sita; the main event, the conquest of Lanka (probably Ceylon). Daśaratha, the mighty King of Oudh (Ayōdhyā), having grown old, announces in open assembly that he has decided to consecrate his oldest son, Rama, as his successor, and Rama is accordingly acclaimed joyously. But the intriguing second Queen of Daśaratha, Kaikeyi by name, induces her husband to change his resolution in favor of her son Bharata and to banish Rama for fourteen years. Rama accepts his fate with great dignity, and retires with Sita to the forest Dandaka. When King Daśaratha dies, his son Bharata is called to the succession, but he refuses to usurp Rama's throne, and seeks him out in the wilderness in order to conduct him back to the throne in his capital city. Rama in his turn refuses to cross his father's decision; he removes his gold-embroidered shoes, and presents them to Bharata as an outer token of his resignation of the throne. But Bharata on returning places Rama's shoes upon the throne and holds over them the yellow parasol, the sign of royalty; he himself stands by and acts as the King's plenipotentiary. Now Rama continues in the wilderness, and makes it his mission to fight the demons who molest the ascetics of the forest in their holy practices. Ravana, the king of the demons, who lives in Lanka, plans revenge. One of his demons, in the guise of a golden gazelle, places himself in sight of Sita, who, eager to possess it, sends Rama to hunt it. During his absence Ravana, in the garb of an ascetic, is admitted to Rama's dwelling, and kidnaps Sita. On returning Rama gives himself over to despair, until a mysterious voice tells him the way to overcome his enemies and to rescue Sita. He allies himself with Hanuman (q.v.) and Sugriva, kings of the monkeys. Hanuman succeeds in finding Sita in Lanka, and the monkeys build a wonderful bridge from the mainland. Rama leads his army across, slays Ravana, and is reunited with Sita. They return home, and Rama, conjointly with Bharata, rules his happy people, so that the golden age has again come upon the earth.

The Ramayana consists of seven books in about 24,000 verses. Notwithstanding the essential unity of the entire epic, the first and last books are in a certain sense secondary. The first deals with Rama's youth up to his marriage with Sita; the last with Rama's life from his restoration to his death. In these Rama is apotheosized and identified with the god Vishnu (q.v.) as one of his incarnations. The main body of the epic (books ii.-vi.) deals with Rama as a national hero, the embodiment especially of the ethical ideals of the people. But the Rama-Sita story itself, notwithstanding that it presents itself outwardly as an heroic legend, is justly under the suspicion of containing one or more mythic roots, though the exact formulation and explanation of them is perplexing. In the Veda Sita (q.v.) is the personified furrow of the plowed field, the beautiful wife of Indra or Parjanya. Hence Rama has been identified with Indra (q.v.), the slayer of demons, especially of the demon Vritra. In the epos Ravana is supposed to have taken the place of Vritra. According to another interpretation, the legend is a mixture of culture and nature myth, typifying the spread southward toward Ceylon of Brahmanical civilization. The demons who disturb the ascetics in their holy practices are the barbarous tribes who oppose Aryan culture. In any case, these mythical and other motives cannot have served as more than mere suggestions for the great story.

The Ramayana exists in three recensions which differ from one another in their reading, in the order of their verses, and in having each more or less lengthy passages that are wanting in the others. The best known and most popular of these is also the most original version of the poem. Its home is in the northwest and south of India; it has been edited a number of times in India, and is most accessible in the second Bombay edition of 1888. The second recension is at home in Bengal; it has been edited by the Italian scholar Gaspare Gorressio, who added to his edition a somewhat free Italian translation in poetical prose (Paris, 1843-70). The third recension apparently at home in the west of India is as yet unpublished, but is accessible in manuscripts at Berlin and Bonn. The poetic translation of the Anglo-Indian scholar Griffith in five volumes (Benares (1870-75) is based upon the first recension. Consult: Weber, Ueber das Rāmāyaṇa (Berlin, 1870); Jacobi, Das Rāmāyaṇa (Bonn, 1893); Ludwig, Ueber das Rāmāyaṇa und die Beziehungen desselben zum Mahābhārata (Prague, 1894).