Reading Update: Ramayana Edition

[jaggedwolf]

After the Bible-venture of 2016-2020, for 2021 I read something I had a fair bit more context on, namely the Ramayana. I read a more-literal less-abridged translation, which I wouldn’t recommend for someone who didn’t already know the story.

It had a lot of footnotes, which was useful given the epic’s fondness for epithets (a non-exhaustive list of the non-exclusive ways Rama is referred to: Raghava, Kakutstha’s descendant, lion among men, tiger among men) and that every god has a billion names. The introduction offered more context. I hadn’t known that while the Ramayana is set before the Mahabharata, there’s evidence suggesting the latter was composed first. Nor did I know that the first and last kandas were thought to be much later additions, which explains the crammed-in-worldbuilding energy of those sections.

Before we progress to the flippantly earnest/earnestly flippant reactions of an atheist who had some context, enjoy this god family tree. It might help.

My Prior Ramayana-related knowledge:

• An animated movie that covers the story from Rama’s marriage to Sita, to Sita’s rescue, that I watched multiple times as a kid
• Various comic books covering the above and Hindu mythology in general, read and reread as a kid
• An illustrated version aimed at teens that I indeed read as a teen, that went up to Sita getting swallowed by the earth

The story of the Ramayana is as follows: Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, is a terror to people everywhere, but the gods are powerless to stop him since Ravana obtained a boon that makes it so only a human can kill him. Why the gods would give such a boon is unclear, but I digress. In classic rules-lawyering fashion, the god Vishnu reincarnates himself as the human Rama, the eldest prince of Ayodhya. Rama’s wife Sita is abducted by Ravana. Rama spins up an army to get her back, kills Ravana, gets Sita back, they live happily ever after. (Except jk, the last book happens and Sita is exiled by Rama because one washerman says taking back an abducted wife looks bad.)

Stuff I didn’t pay attention to/know as a kid

The footnotes led me on a number of googling sprees. When I was raised in it, I don’t think I fully appreciated how many different variations there were of any given tale, much like with any mythology.

Gender stuff

About as wack about women as I expected. “For all respectable men who are fathers, a daughter is always the source of unhappiness” kinda says it all.

Austerities as power boosts and the bad guys caring about dharma

Lots of people in this epic do austerities (like starve themselves on a mountain for 1000 years) and then get powers in return. This leads to shenanigans like Ravana gaining human-exempt immortality and an army-generating cow defeating Rama’s mentor. Bala Kanda, the first book, covers a power struggle where the sages kept gaining too much powers via austerities, and so Indra, worried they’d dislodge the gods, would keep disrupting them. The sages can also have their austerity power consumed by cursing people.

The bad guys care a lot about following dharma. Ravana’s worship is what gets him his immortality boon, and he doesn’t kill Sita when she refuses to marry him, again because of dharma. Ravana and his ministers often talk to each other about dharma as well, such as when they discuss the treatment of messengers upon Hanuman’s (fake) capture. Brahma himself even interferes on Ravana’s behalf multiple times when it looks like other gods might succeed in killing Ravana.

Caste stuff

Yeah, none of the other versions included much mention of caste. Some notable moments:

• Rama’s father accidentally kills a young man when shooting based on sound in the forest (trigger discipline, it’s not just for guns). While dying, the young man is kind enough to reassure Dasharatha that it’s okay, he’s not a brahmin, and he lists his parents’ castes.
• Rama’s mentor, Vishwamitra, levels up from kshatriya to brahmin by performing that many austerities
• In the final book, Rama kills a man for performing austerities, because the man is of the shudra caste, not a kshatriya or a brahmin.

I feel like there were other occurrences that simply went over my head, given my unfamiliarity with the caste system.

Sex

Unsurprisingly, the kid versions leave out the sex. Of which there are some memorable moments.

Namely, the part where the gods and the sages plead for Shiva and Parvati to stop fucking, because with all their power, who knows what the consequences of their child could be? Shiva agrees, instead spilling his seed on the ground, which creates a new god. Parvati is so pissed at this that she curses the sages' wives with infertility.

Also, a different god sleeps with the Ganges River after she takes human form for a bit, resulting in a new god there too.

Stuff I liked

When I was a kid, the aspect of this epic I liked most was the badassery of Hanuman, Rama and Lakshmana. That still holds up - there’s plenty of detail lavished on just how badass these three are, or how many weapons/abilities they have at their disposal, or how they dispatch 14000 foes with fiery arrows. The war itself is on a ridiculous high fantasy scale, with flying chariots, “copious amounts of blood” filling the battlefield, our heroes getting pierced by a lot of arrows and Hanuman overturning mountains to get an antidote to cure mid-battle poisoning. It really did feel like reading a fantasy novel, complete with wild tangential lore dumps and a whole page listing all the weapons Rama gained proficiency in.)

(This and the Mahabharata and the Hindu comic books in general were heavily responsible for how cool I thought archers were back then.)

I didn’t expect any of the characters to be particular favorites or anything. I believe Hanuman was my favourite as a kid, with the shapeshifting and the solo-tanking Lanka.

Yet, on this readthrough I really felt for Lakshmana. It’s probably the loyalty kink of it all, the younger brother who would do anything for his future king. From his desperate attempt to persuade Rama to disobey their father’s command to exile him, to leaving with Rama and Sita on said exile when that was never asked/expected of him, to being so hurt when Sita accuses him of not really caring about Rama.

He’s even the one who tells Sita of her exile and enacts it, sobbing regretfully the whole time, because IDK, Rama felt too bad to do it himself. There’s a lot of crying in this story (sometimes to the point of humour, such as when Rama tells everyone that crying over a king’s death is foolish right when he himself fell to the ground sobbing over the same), but that’s the one time it stuck with me.

And then there’s the way he dies. Yama, the god of death, comes to Ayodhya to have a private conversation with Rama, and tells him that if anyone walked into the room, Rama would have to kill them. Rama agrees, and asks Lakshmana to guard the door outside. A sage comes to the door, demanding to speak to Rama, and threatening to curse the kingdom if Rama isn’t retrieved immediately. Lakshamana thinks to himself, better I die than the entire kingdom cursed, so he interrupts the meeting.

Rama’s at a loss after, because how can he kill his brother, but Lakshamana tells him it’s okay, he should fulfil his promise and slay him. Damn dude.

Other Comments

Uttara Kanda, the final book that was likely a later addition, really has the energy of post-canon fic that is desperate to fill in possible plot holes and cover anyone we might’ve missed. It has a long backstory on Ravana that I didn’t retain much of, other than Ravana getting cursed that he’ll die if he assaults a woman. Shatrughna, the least relevant brother, gets a subplot where he goes off to get his own kingdom by defeating a demon. There’s a weird amnesia plot line added to Hanuman’s backstory to explain why he didn’t overthrow Vali himself.

I did not fully register until this reading that the story was supposed to take place on the real-world subcontinent and that Lanka is indeed Sri Lanka. Must’ve thought it just took place in Fantasy!India or something.

It is really funny that the monkeys find where Sita is held captive but they delay returning to Rama to get drunk in a grove and tear it up. Before they found her, they considered committing suicide instead of returning to Rama empty-handed.

This remains a very entertaining pantheon. Would 100% play a Hades-style game or visual novel or whatever with these guys, though I guess that would likely piss off too many people to ever happen.

Comments

[queenlua]

Rama’s at a loss after, because how can he kill his brother, but Lakshamana tells him it’s okay, he should fulfil his promise and slay him. Damn dude.

;___;

also

Uttara Kanda, the final book that was likely a later addition, really has the energy of post-canon fic that is desperate to fill in possible plot holes and cover anyone we might’ve missed. It has a long backstory on Ravana that I didn’t retain much of, other than Ravana getting cursed that he’ll die if he assaults a woman. Shatrughna, the least relevant brother, gets a subplot where he goes off to get his own kingdom by defeating a demon. There’s a weird amnesia plot line added to Hanuman’s backstory to explain why he didn’t overthrow Vali himself.

ha.... that all sounds kind of delightful in its own weird way. i'm amused to see how old the awkward-amnesia-plot-to-deal-with-stuff is :P

i only know a very bit about the Mahabharata and, prior to this post, nothing about the Ramayana, but i very much enjoyed reading your impressions of the latter!

[jaggedwolf]

They truly delivered on the brotherly loyalty front.

Yeah, the fanfic energy was unexpected. The Ramayana is a far more straightforward and shorter (1/4 the length) story than the Mahabharata, but I think the latter gets more worldwide play.