RECOGNISING THE REACH OF THE EPIC OF ASIA

ITH Pitr Paksh going on and millions of people remembering their ancestors, I am reminded of North Indians of diverse religious backgrounds saying, “Hum Ram ke vanshaj hain," meaning, 'We are descendants of Rama'.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

This did not mean they had abandoned their respective religions. It was an assertion of cultural belonging, transcending caste and creed. Indians seem to have three kinds of reactions to the Ramayana-faith, critique and political ploy, forgetting that beyond religion, it's about culture. The epics are so entrenched in language, literature, the arts that we would be cultural orphans without their shared heritage.

The critique part has been dinned in our ears via English for decades. But long before that, Sita's fate tortured even the most dedicated Ram-bhakts, including influential poets like Narayana Bhattadri of Kerala and the Telugu saint-composer Thyagaraja. It was the grain of sand in the story that chafed us down the ages and the biggest pearl it produced as the zeitgeist evolved was the Constitution of India, which enshrined equal rights and justice for women like never before.

The political part too has been analysed to shreds, but I submit that it's coming from the Ramcharitmanas of Goswami Tulsidas. Not that it is poor Tulsi's fault. Written at the height of Mughal rule, the Ramcharitmanas changed the history of religion in North India. Some Hindus in Kashi opposed Tulsi for daring to retell the epic in everyday speech. Ironically, it was fellow poet Abdur Rahim Khan-e-Khanan, then Mughal governor of Kashi, who protected Tulsi's spiritual and artistic freedom.