The Ram Myth: shedding new light
By Romilla Thapar

A seminal essay by Professor Thapar, A Historical Perspective on the
Story of Ram, makes, the following points:

The original epic attributed to the sage, Valmiki, was recited by
bards as part of the oral tradition. Each generation of bards made
their own changes but in all, "Ram is the personification of the
ideal Kshatriya. He is referred to as a human hero and in these
references there is no question of his being identified with Vishnu",
Thapar writes.

The popularity of the oral epic of Valmiki's Ramayan was gradually
converted to a religious text by Brahmin authors. Slowly the ideal
man, Ram, began to be see as an incarnation of Vishnu. Moreover, in
this version, Sita's chastity is once again called into question upon
her return to Ayodhya and this time she is banished forever to
Valmiki's hermitage where she gives birth to twin sons, Lav and Kush.

The multiple versions of Ramayan include a Buddhist version (dating
to anywhere between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC) in which Sita is
the sister of Ram. When Ram was crowned king on his return to Ayodhya
after his exile, Sita was made queen consort and they ruled jointly
for 16,000 years, and became the originators of the royal clan. There
is also a Jain version
(the Paumacharyam) at the end of which the main protagonists become
Jain ascetics. According to this version, far from being a villian,
Ravan is a devoted Jain.

The story of Ram also finds itself in popular literature: there is
Kalidas'narative poem, the Raghuvamsham, Bhasas's play,
Pratimanataka, and Bhavabhuti's highly critical Uttararamcharita. It
has a place in the literature of regional languages too A- in Tamil,
Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Marathi. Each of these
contain minor variations.

The story of Ram continued to grow in popularity more because it was
a tale well told and less because of its merits as a religious text.
By the
8thcentury AD there was a corresponding growth of small kingdoms as
waste lands were brought under cultivation and forest tribes (the
rakshasas of the Ramayan) were subjugated by the new rulers of these
small kingdoms.

The early second millennium AD saw the rise of the Ramanandins, a
specific sect focussing on the worship of Ram. For them, Ram bhakti
was the most effective form of devotional worship and ensured the
salvation of the individual. The focus shifted from Vishnu back to
Ram. And for the first time, the city of Ayodhya became the centre of
attention.

In the 16th century, Tulsidas, a Ram bhakt, composed the
Ramcharitmanas in Hindu, opening up the text to a larger audience.
For Tulsidas, Ram was a divine being amongst humans. He believed that
the worship of Ram could bring back the Utopian society once ruled
over by Ram. RSS historians believe that Tulsidas' version was
written out of a need to find warrior gods in an age of Mughal rule.
But Romila Thapar points out that India under Muslim rule witnessed
the vibrancy of a large number of Hindu sects, rather than the
decline of Hinduism.

In Uttar Pradesh, Baba Ram Chander used the story to mobilise
peasants and selected verses of Tulsidas' tale were popularised to
depict resistance to colonial rule.(The British were seen as the
rakshasas.)

The rise of cinema in this century found mythologicval films being
made on the Ramayan. The culmination of this trend was Ramanand
Sagar's serialised version on television, which sought to project the
notion that there is only one version of the Ramayan in the culture
of the country. Only the versions, which did not go against the
portrayal of Ram as an idealised hero and an incarnation of Vishnu
were mentioned. The multiple versions of regional literature,
Buddhist and Jain sources, which told a different story, were totally
ignored.

"The political exploitation of the worship of Ram has not only been
visible but has been forced to the forefront in recent months",
writes Thapar. "This has added yet another dimension to the ways in
which the Ramkatha has been used", In this context the television
serial, Ramayan, has had an important role to
play. "Inevitably, "writes Thapar, "this is also part of the attempt
to redefine Hinduism as an ideology for modernisation by the middle
class".

Unlike the relatively newer religions, Islam and Christianity,
Hinduism has often been described as a way of life rather than a
formal doctrine. It has no definite Holy book like the Koran and the
Bible. It has no single prophet like Mohammed and Jesus. It doesn't
even have a holy land to which it traces its origins.

Hinduism, as we have known it, is an amorphous religion. The ways to
salvation are many. Although the religion identifies various gods and
holy centres of pilgrimage there is no obligation on anyone to visit
these.

In recent years the emphasis on the worship of Ram has been
politically motivated. The VHP and its allies have been working
overtime to forge a national and international unity amongst those it
defines as Hindus. Without unification there can be no awakening of
the public face of the Hindu spirit and, ergo, no political power for
the VHP's pals, the BJP.

Now how do you go about uniting the Hindus? In one area of the
country there is the worship of Ayyappa, in another the regning deity
is Venkateswara and in a third it is Jagannath. All of them are gods
and all will help their devotees attain salvation. Enter, the VHP. In
recent times we have witnessed two simultaneous developments. To
start with, the votaries of Hindutva have set about remoulding and
redefining Hinduism.

Since Hinduism has neither a single prophet nor a holy book, the VHP
has stumbled upon the need to define all the characteristics of a
formal religion. In the new Hinduism (Thapar refers to it as a
Syndicated Hinduism) Ram is the Prophet, the Ramayan is the holy book
and Ayodhya is the Vatican city of Hindus.

And who are the popes? The ruling elite of the proposed Hindu rashtra
A- the BJP-VHP-RSS brotherhood, of course.

At the same time, the VHP and its partners have been whipping up a
quite unfounded sense of having been wronged by centuries of foreign
rule. The Hindus have no land of their own, they shout. The careful
cultivation of this sense of injustice is crucial to the VHP's plans
because without it there can be no demand for Hindu Rashtra.

For Hindus who have always believed that their religion has a
different meaning for different people, this is a hard new reality to
be swallowed. And this is perhaps why the Hindutva votaries are not
converted to The Cause, they must be won over by the presentation
of "facts" and "documentary evidence".

Who can resist the appeal to basic religious sentiments legitimised
by the language of history and archaeological evidence. Presented
with hard evidence that the mosque in Ayodhya (the Vatican city of
the future) was in fact built over the site of a temple, very few
Hindus will be able to resist the BJP's argument that all it is
asking for is a temple to be built to honour the ruling deity of the
Hindu people.

And so we find that the VHP's need to pack lies upon lies in their
quest for a new religion. Suddenly, Hindus are told their identity
and maryada (self respect) rest on the building of a temple to Ram in
a dusty town in Uttar Pradesh. In a country where the majority of the
people are illiterate, the VHP obviously believes that if you repeat
a lie often enough it will become the truth.

And the beauty of the whole plan is that while the ultimate defence
is that Ram is a matter of faith, there is ample 'evidence' to
justify the temple in his name.

What exactly is the VHP's evidence to support the existence of a
temple at Ayodhya which was destroyed to build mosque? According to
VHP, Babar's officers converted several Hindu temples into mosques.
Writing for the organiser's Republic Day edition in 1989, Lal
declares that, "Ayodhya was a centre of pilgrimage for the Hindus as
the birthplace of Lord Ram. As was customary with Muslim conquerors
and rulers, Babar ordered the destruction of the temple of Ram
Janmabhoomi and erected a mosque in its stead.

But even Lal has to concede that Babar makes no reference to this in
his memoris. So what is the evidence the Lal relies on? He points to
two inscriptions in Persian inside and outside the mosque.

But there is more evidence that makes nonsense of the VHP's claims.
Tulsidas' Ramayan was written in the 1570s and at no point makes a
reference to the demolition of a temple in the birthplace of Ram.

If Babar had, in fact, ordered it to be destroyed wouldn't Tulsidas,
a great devotee of Ram, who was writing only a few decades later,
have mentioned this?

Moreover, in 1695, Sujar Rai Bahadur, author of the Khulast-ul-
Tawarikh, gives a longish account of the city of Ayodhya. There is no
reference to a demolished temple. The first evidence that the VHP
presents dates back to no further than 1748 A. C., 220 years after
the mosque was constructed.

And what is this evidence? A book written by one Nasaiah Bhadur Shahi
who RSS historians claim, is the granddaughter of Aurangzeb, declares
that Muslims should not be allowed to worship at mosques built on the
sites of the Rasoi-e-Sita and Qaragah-e-Hanuman. Who exactly was this
princess? Her name is not given and she is referred to simply as
Bahadur Shah Alamgir ki beti. And who is Bahadur Shah Alamgir?
History records a Mohiuddin Aurangzeb, but no one of the title of
Bahadur Shah Alamgir. Worse still, points out Professor Irfan Habib,
the original source from which the VHP extracts this evidence, has
disappeared.

It is only in the 19th century that the demolition of the temple
followed by the construction of the mosque actually enters the
records. Suddenly there are several references to this theory A- P.
Carnegy's Historical Sketch of Faizabad (1870), HR. Nevill's Faizabad
District Gazetteer and A. S. Beveridge's English translation of
Babar's memoirs(1992).

This brings us to the trump card of the VHP's evidence: an
archaeological report prepared by the formed director general of the
Archaeological Survey of India, B. B. Lal. Since Valmiki's Ramayan is
set in the treta yuga or several thousand years before the onset of
the Kalyug, it is believed to have begun in 3102 BC. Lal's
excavations, however, establish that there is no evidence of any kind
of habitation in Ayodhya before the 8th century BC when the first
sign of a primitive settlement appear.

Confronted with evidence of the non-existence of a Ram temple the VHP
conveniently shifted its stand. The original temple was not dedicated
specifically to Ram, but was a general Vaishnav temple, it argued.

To back its theory, the VHP began harping on the issue of the 14
black pillars of the Babri Masjid. As Irfan Habib points out, it was
common practice to use old pillars not just for mosques but also for
the construction of temples. The presence of pillars in the former
mosques does not suggest that it ha been built on the site of an
existing temple, let alone a Ram temple.

Based on the archaeological evidence presented before it, a team of
historian comprising R. S. Sharma, M. Athar Ali, D. N. Jha and Suraj
Bhan reached the following conclusions:

* There is no evidence to suggest that prior to the 16th century was
there any veneration attached to Ayodhya as the birthplace of Ram.

* There is no evidence to support the theory that a Ram temple
existed at the site where the Babri Masjid was built in 1528-29.

* The legend that the Babri Masjid occupied the site of Ram's
birthplace did not arise until the late 18th century. The theory that
a temple had been demolished to pave way for a mosque was first
asserted in the 19th century.

The simple truth is that it is impossible to identify a particular
site as the place where Ram was born. As for the question of faith,
there is no evidence to suggest that a popular belief of a religious
community suggested that Ram was born in Ayodhya. The faith that
Ashok Singhal and Co. talk of is a relatively new found one, propped
up by the propaganda machinery of the Hindutva brigade. Repetition,
believes this gang, will bring veracity in its wake.

What we are witnessing today is a parrot A- like recitation of RSS A-
conjured slogans: "Garva se kaho hum Hindu hain (Say with pride, we
are Hindus) and "Kasam Ram ki khaate hain, mandir wahin banayenge (We
swear on Ram that we'll build the temple on that site)". The new
Hinduism is like Coca-Cola and in their cynical quest for votes and
power, Advani and his colleagues are no better than yuppy marketing
men.

Far from ushering in a golden mythical age of Ram Rajya, the BJP's
policies seek to take us back to the medieval age to the politics of
repression
(of the minorities), violence and revenge (against the Muslims). Is
this the Hindu Rashtra of the future? The Hindu Rashtra, as
visualised by the visionaries of the new Hinduism will necessitate
not only the rewriting of the Constitution and the renaming of cities
but a reworking of the history, myths and cultural fabric of this
country. It is Ramanand Sagar's pop Ramayan, rather than Valmiki's
epic poem, which will be the reigning literature.

Since a mythic hero, a man amongst men rather than a divine being on
earth, will be the unifying god the Hindu state will have to invent
new religious festivals, (significantly) the two festivals associated
with the Ramayan. Dusschra and Diwali, do not propagate the worship
of Ram. While the former signifies the victory of good over evil and
involves the veneration of the family weapons by Kshatriyas, Diwali
is dedicated to the worship of Lakshmi and Ganesh, the gods of
prosperity. It is not without design that Ramanaumi, a comparatively
minor festival, has been gaining in popularity in recent years.

And, of course, the Hindu Rashtra will have no place for the
minorities, or for that matter, the Hindus who do not accept Advani
and Co. as their leaders. The Hindu Rashtra will, in fact, have
little to do with Hinduism as we have known it. There will be no
place for questioning, little patience for tolerance and absulutely
no role for moderation.

http://www.geocities.com/indiafas/Hindu/ram_myth.htm