Exploration of Consciousness: Contemplating Rama and Hanuman

Home

Search By

Back to Article List

by Achintyachintaka

on 09 Apr 2018

Rama the observing ego, or Atman, is given his name to signify his enjoyment in getting to experience the world through the body he resides in. The Sanskrit root “rama” means to play and enjoy. This is the divine component in each individual and He also is simultaneously the Paramatman, the Universal Consciousness. The very fact that he is all “human” is because during his human role Rama has amnesia of his true divine nature. This is like all humans.

This sets the unique stage of Ramayana to make it a human drama with a plot to weave a story of a King called Dasharatha, symbolically driven by ten chariots. The symbolism of ten chariots is the human being driven by five senses and five action drives. The same ten becoming aberrant and wild, greedy for power, wealth, invincibility, etc. are depicted in the symbolism of ten heads or mouths (Dashamukha) in the image of Ravana.

After many years of longing for a son to continue the dynasty of Raghuvansha, Dasharatha’s wives bear Rama and his brothers with divine intervention. Here again there is a suggestion that though a human being with all human attributes, this all-pervading Rama, the divine in all human beings, remains innocent and oblivious of his true identity as nothing but the Universal Consciousness, the Paramatman. Hence, though showing the ideal image of a mature human being, human Rama has the same suffering as the other human beings around him with the sway of all emotions common to mankind.

The following equation is the beginning:

Rama (the divine Self) + Sita (the elements of the Earth) = Basic infrastructure for all living beings.

The divine Self is inert and dispassionate in the original form (Nirguna Brahman) and acquires the qualities or Gunas becoming Saguna Brahman, creating another essential entity for life to exist. Living beings are not a cocktail and cannot be created with a recipe of different chemical molecules including DNA in any special proportions. Saguna Brahman has to create a primordial life giving force in the form of Prana. If Prana or Rama are taken away from the living being, the living being is deemed deceased.

Rama + Sita + Prana = Living being

This is the holy trinity of Ramayana, with the addition of Lakshman we see the Ram Parivar. This imagery is very sacred to all Hindus.

This third essential divinity is Hanuman, Pavanasuta or Son of Prana. Prana is traditionally compared to Vayu which is loosely translated as air or wind. Thus Hanuman is capable of bringing life to a person on the verge of losing his life (Prana). Hanuman brings Lakshman back to life when on his death bed, by bringing the life sustaining Sanjivani to revive him.

Rama needs to unite inseparably with Sita, the daughter of the earth, and suffer the pangs of separation from her also. He is totally left to be in the darkness of the Unconscious in close association with the primitive instincts and impulses represented by vaanaras as well as many evil forces. He has to overcome Ravana, the ten-headed one, representing the caricature of unrestrained five senses and five karmendriyas (drives) gone wild, before he can reunite with Sita in a harmonious manner.

In this journey, he discovers many themes in the Unconscious like fratricide, (story of Vali), primitive punishment fantasies for expressions of female sexuality with disfigurement (Shoorpanakha), delayed expressions of infanticidal impulses in his stepmother (Kaikeyi), etc. This journey and experiencing these themes dispassionately and accepting these as ubiquitous or universal in human psyche makes him set an example for all humans as to how humans can expect to encounter these in their unconscious and cope with them.

The genius of the poet Valmiki and later Tulsidas, is to make Rama the ideal human who can be resilient. Their creativity is in desensitizing the readers to the affects connected with these horrible themes by projecting them on to “others” while life takes unexpected turns with fate and good fortune, both in Rama’s and Sita’s lives.

Banishment and abandonment are painful but are accepted as if they are not uncommon plights. Not all human weaknesses are spared in the character of Rama as he indeed is all human. There is a constant effort to overcome the conflicts, instincts, and drives in the Unconscious with equanimity, to emerge victorious.

Reading Ramayana and emotionally resonating with it provides a profound psychotherapeutic treatment to the human mind, unwittingly subjecting it to a form of psychoanalysis at an unconscious level for those who read Ramayana during the season around Rama-navami. This touch and go method is far more effective for the comfort of the human mind rather than the clinical psychoanalysis that squarely and sometimes painfully uncovers everything in the individual Unconscious.

Psychoanalysis tries to make all the repressed traumatic memories, conflicts, and fantasies conscious by lifting the repression. It goes without saying psychoanalysis was not the goal of the poets and neither is it available to larger masses even in modern times. This en passant interpretation of Ramayana is intended to bring to light yet another added value of the Ramayana for devotees or other readers.

Ramayana is a science of Adhyatma (Adhi+Atma) or science of what is beyond the visible or perceivable Atma in the narrow sense of “Me”. Adhyatma Shastra or the science of the domain of Adhyatma is made digestibly easy through the poetic talents of Valmiki and Tulsidas. We are all wrapped up in “Me” for most of our life and are lost in the darkness of unresolved conflicts, “dandakaranya”, like Rama was for fourteen years. To emerge victorious like Rama in the psychological and Adhyatmic struggle, we have to successfully negotiate through the Unconscious of Dandakaranya of our own, each one facing his/her own challenges while maturing.

The ideal of Hanuman, who stays close to Rama, Prana devoted to Rama that offers the strength and courage to every human being on his/her path on his/her journey through the Unconscious to reach the goal of ultimately experiencing the true nature of Paramatman to transcend the “Me.” A form of psychological growth to maturity from the toddler years of Rama and accepting the reality that the earthly elements have to return to the earth (Sita has to be engulfed into the lap of Mother Earth) that makes the end of Rama more comprehensible. He is then ready to merge into Paramatman with ease. It is all about accepting life and death with exemplary grace. So Rama attains the status of Purushottam or the ideal (Adarsh) “man,” that was an ordinary and simultaneously an extraordinary human being traveling gracefully from the Unconscious to the Supraconscious. Understood in this light, Ramayana is a delightful exploration of Consciousness.

User Comments Post a Comment

"with the addition of Lakshman "

In your columnist's frame of reference, why is he being added? And then what does his ardhangini Urmila (whom he abandons) represent that she is being excluded?

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Urmila abandoned? Which Ramayana is that?

Adi
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

@Adi
All of them. Where was she during the 14 years that her husband chose his brother and brother's wife over her? Certainly not with him. If that is not abandonment, what is it?
The brother is part of the "Ram Parivar" but not the brother's ardhangini? So, why is he there and not she?

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Lakshmana (Na+Lakshma) is the blemish-less. Lakshmana had a conflict to stay with Rama and protect him and Seeta devi or stay with his family. If his act of leaving Urmila is seen as heartless abondonment of his wife then he is far from being blemishless even with all his virtues.

Rama and Lakshmana are a pair that goes back to Vishnu and Shesha. Wherever Vishnu goes Shesha follows. He is represented as Balaraama Krishna's brother. Always in the background, not very prominent in exhibiting his power, Shesha is the enormous amount of potential energy. Coiled Shesha is symbolic of that. However, this article focuses not on cosmology or cosmogony. Reading Ramayana is likely to lead to deepest understanding of human condition and help cultivate empathy for the "human" existence that is challenged by various forces throughout the life cycle.

Achintyachintaka
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Thank you for the clarification.

You may have read "Yes to Sita, No to Ram!" by Madhu Kishwar.

What is clear too is that, whatever the other virtues of Srirama and (by extension of Kishwar's data and argument) Srilakshmana, "not just modern day Sitas but even traditional women and men reject Ram as an appropriate husband", and so (again, by extension of her data and argument) would reject his brother too as an appropriate husband.

We need to cultivate `deepest understanding of female condition and help cultivate empathy for the "female" existence' too.

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

What commie claptrap. thought we would be spared on this website at least

Nirash
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Firstly the author deserves immense respect and appreciation for attempting to present the study of the Ramayana as an exercise in psychoanalysis. Such interpretations and the ceaseless grappling with the issues contained in the Ramayana and Mahabharatha keeps our Ithihasa ever relevant and fresh.

Gandhi had a problem with Srirama the son of Dasaratha; with Srirama the man. Gandhi preferred Ramanama which he said made Srirama an abstract without the problematic questions about why Rama did this, why he did not do that. Gandhi also rejected historicity to the Mahabharata war and said Pandavas and Kauravas are the good and bad impulses within every individual. This is escapism.

Pl let me share my thoughts on the issue and specify the areas where I have problems with the author's interpretation. Srirama, Lakshmana Bharata and Shatrughna are Mahavishnu, Adisesha, Shanku and Chakra. I havent come across any treatise which can tell me why Gadaa and Padma did not take human form in this avatar.

As always the dharma is defined and decided by the man. The wife's dharma is not her own - she has to help her husband fulfill his dharma. And that is the very root of my problems with the Ramayana. As one reader pointed out very correctly - Lakshmana understood his dharma as being his elder brother's inseparable companion. But did he have a dharma towards his wife? What is the role, place and value of Urmila in the Ramayana except as the invisible, voiceless woman whose loneliness, abandonment are not even an issue. But we are all looking at where the men are pointing - all men from when someone wrote the history to the man who has interpreted it for thousands of years - that we women are obediently looking only at men. The two women whom we look at are Kaikeyi and Surpanakha - as lessons to us all - about what women shouldnt be. These are the two important women in the Ramayana who teach the lesson implicitly about who is a good or ideal woman.

Then let us take Sita. what Srirama did to her violates all norms of all categories of dharma. Her husband was king, who forgot he was king but dealt with her only as husband. He asked his pregnant wife to get out of his house and asked his brother to take her away. Rama did not tell his brother where he should take Sita. Now let us weigh all the platitudes we parrot about the place of women in our culture and tradition and place Sita's abandonment against this backdrop.

Would Rama have ordered the same punishment if it were another woman who was also his praja. Would Rama have ordered this punishment had he not been king. But king or husband - who asks a pregnant wife to go away and leaves her alone in the forest?

Why did Srirama man or god, physical or metaphysical, literal or figurative, not make proper arrangements for Sita? Rama could have explained to Janaka and Janaka the philosopjher would have understood at once and taken Sita back to Mithila. Rama could have approached Gautama muni and made the prarthana to the rishi to take care of Sita.

Rama did none of this - he asked his brother to take her away - and the brother left her alone in the forest. I am afraid Rama's sorrow or his loneliness mean nothing. However one looks at the Ramayana the issues raised in them make it the most relevant, stunningly beautiful chapter of Hindi history. Like Gandhi I wouldnt run away. But like this author I would keep grappling with the issues until I made my peace with it or reconciled myself to what cannot be changed. But I do not have to accept it. Hindu dharma does not force or compel. Thank you author for making me think.

Radha Rajan
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

It is also important to note - as Madhu Kishwar points out -
"there is no escaping the fact that in north India the Sita of popular imagination has been deeply influenced by the Sita of Ramcharit Manas by Tulsi. In most other versions of the Ramayan, close companionship and joyful togetherness of the couple are the most prominent features of the Ram-Sita relationship rather than her self-effacing devotion and loyalty which have become the hallmark of the modern day stereotype of Sita. The medieval Ramayan of Tulsi marks the transition from Ram and Sita being presented as an ideal couple to projecting each of them as an ideal man and woman respectively...... The power of the ideal wife archetype in Tulsi's Ramayan overshadows the happy conjugal life of the couple prior to Ram's rejection of Sita."

There is no divinely-sanctioned Sita role - it is men who interpret it and it is a man who changed its meaning from "joyful togetherness" to "self-effacing devotion". Perhaps we need to re-look the pre-Tulsidas versions - and interpret their application to today's world.

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

This is a remarkable contemporary (yet traditional) reading of the Ramayana. Without going into feminist issues (here Radha Rajan's comment is useful) I would like to focus on what seems to be the author's main theme:

The Ultimate Reality (call it Paramatman, Brahman etc.) decides to playfully create the world with Prana and Earth (the Sita element standing for the gunas and Prakriti). As an individual Jiva (Self) humans like Rama (as both human and divine) we get caught in the limiting Me, Me. Hence the conflict with self and society.

Eventually, the Unconscious limiting Self,is transcended and hopefully Rama and us humans will retrace and return to the Paramatman/Brahman. This is moksha or liberation.

The author has presented a dharmic view of Psychoanalysis and its liberating role.

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

That the wife and husband should be in a joyful relationship, rather than she should be his most obedient servant, is not a "feminist issue"; it is a human issue.

` "Ram honge bade admi par Sita ne kya sukh paya?" (Ram may have been a great man, but what good did it do Sita?) ' is not a feminist issue; it is very much an indigenous Mithila people's issue.

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

True it is a human issue, not a 'feminist' one.

However, the article seems to be arguing that the human issue is part of the confusion generated in Rama's mind by the limiting nature of the Me principle. The loving relationship between husband and wife, is or should be part of the larger relationship between the individual jiva and the paramatman.

Hence, the author seems to be saying that pyschoanalysis is part of the liberating process whereby the limiting Me principle that generates confusion and conflict can be transcended and we can view Rama, Sita, Lakshmana,Hanuman as prototypes of that liberation.

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Women's issues in an ideal world should not be concern of women only. But we are not living in an ideal world. Women have to speak out on women's issues, sometimes loudly, sometimes screaming in agony. We give the dog a bad name and hang him. We use the word feminist pejoratively and label as feminists women speaking assertively about our issues or about how women and animals continue to live in a man's world. Feminist is just a word to describe how I think, my worldview. And when I imagine the terror that Sita must have experienced in the forest at night, pregnant and alone, I don't feel liberated by metaphysics or abstraction.

Radha Rajan
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

"The following equation is the beginning:
Rama (the divine Self) + Sita (the elements of the Earth) = Basic infrastructure for all living beings."

However -

"If Prana or Rama are taken away from the living being, the living being is deemed deceased."

And what if Sita is taken out from this equation? What then becomes of Rama's liberation?

Or, as in the Raghuvamsha, she categorically rejects Rama?

She rejects him, not he her. He tries to re-unite with her. She flatly denies him. What psychoanalytical prototype of liberation does she represent? And what then of his liberation?

"Understood in this light, Ramayana is a delightful exploration of Consciousness."

Delightful, indeed.

Bharati
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

My two cents.

It's been decades since I read the Ramayana - and it changes all the time even when the story remains the same!!! Anyway, I want to say -

1] Sita had lived 14 years in the forest and had no reason to fear the forest. She also knew she was near Valmiki's ashram and reached there easily.

2] More than any character in the Ramayana, she was conscious of her role and her duty in the kingdom, including the duty of Rama, and accompanied him to the forest in response to that understanding. That is also why Janak with his mighty army did not come to Ayodhya to enthrone Rama and Sita... would not have been a small restraint... Janak too had an exalted sense of Dharma of that Age. None of the Kaikayi type of emotionalism on his part.

3] Bharat is overlooked. His upbringing is a credit to the royal household and preceptors. He did not sit on the throne.

4] That leaves three widow queens of Dasratha in the palace. And three daughters in law to care for them and perhaps keep the palace going, which would impact on the health of the kingdom -
Urmila, younger sister of Sita [Lakshman],
Mandavi, niece of King Janaka [Bharat]
Shrutakirti, niece of King Janaka [Shatrughan]

Given the circumstances of King Dasratha's death and Rama's insistence on taking sanyas, it is highly unlikely that any of the Queens would have maintained any kind of public life after that.

The royal daughters in law would necessarily have had to step in in some manner, which seems to have been done discreetly, given the circumstances.

I am quite astonished to hear the agitation over 'abandonment'. There is no great epic anywhere in the world which does not speak of the grave travails of high born men and women, who become exemplars of their age.... separation is part of the trials of high born women in many ancient cultures.

Sandhya
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Finally, I want to add - the sneering tones in which Tulsidas is disparaged for having [allegedly] imposed the version of a suffering Sita and Rama-Sita as an Ideal Couple for all, especially women, to emulate is totally misplaced.

Any understanding of Hindu Dharma is not possible without Time and Place/Context.

Tulsidas lived in the time of Emperor Akbar. This means Muslim rule in North India was already some centuries old, and the ravages it wrought on the land, people, civilisation, gods, temples, was well known and part of the lived experience of people.

Tulsidas had certain TASKS before him, per his understanding of the needs of society:-

1] Complete UNITY of the family - husband wife, mother father, elders of joint family et al. Individualism of the kind we know today, and love, was not part of Indian tradition till very modern times, and would have been SUICIDAL in the medieval era.

Like every thing that Hindus impute value to - like the Tulsi plant, cow, pipal tree - he wove this into the Dharma, as did many other preceptors all over the land.

2] Iconoclasm was a cultural shock to Hindus and they were at a loss how to deal with it. Tulsidas provided the solution - he performed the Ramayana on the streets of Varanasi and other places he visited - and told the people that the God resides within us. When there is no temple, there is the human guru and the human performer who becomes the god for that duration, because you hear the scripture from his mouth.

To this day, Hindus touch the feet of the performers of Ramayana, not because they are fools, but because they are devout.

This is also the reason why Tulsidas - who was a Sanskrit scholar - wrote the Ramayana in Awadhi. He was providing SUCCOUR to the ordinary devotee, not showing off his writing skills.

Sandhya
April 09, 2018

Report Abuse

Thankyou Sandhyaji beautifully put, both your comments. First you point out that Sita was familiar with the forest and knew that Valmiki lived nearby. Being who she was, she was heroic in following her husband in his vanavas. That heroism can be included in the loving relationship between husband and wife.

Secondly you place Tulsidas in a historical context, the Islamic rule
over India and the need to revive Hindu dharma.

I want to reemphasise that yes Rama was confused, conflicted, but also recall the heroic side of him also. As Sandhyaji points out there are many episodes in the ancient world of male and female heroism.

In the end, for Sanatana Dharma, the liberation via the return to the ultimate reality (whatever one wishes to call it), is to be taken seriously. The author of the article is arguing that this liberation can be achieved through an understanding of the damage done to the unconscious through the limiting Me-Me principle

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

Sandhyaji thank you for carrying forward this discussion. And your intervention is never worth just 2 cents; I am going to place my point of view with the same sense of dharma that has driven this discussion. The consorts of kings were very rarely seen in public and widows almost never. So that the three dowagers chose not to be publicly involved in the affairs of keeping the kingdom operational is normal by the standards of conduct of that yuga's dharma. I emphasise yugadharma because the rules of conduct changed with Draupadi.

Letg me begin with abandonment. Even today we drive women away from their married homes to their father's home for dowry, for failing to beget sons and for other reasons. Just because the woman goes back to her birth family does not make her sense of abandonment any less agonising nor does it make this fact a non-fact. The abandonment is real. And how can we even remotely suggest that Sita who was carrying the future kings in her womb would not felt any fear when she was dropped there by L:ashmana.

She did not know she was close to Valmiki's ashram nor did Lakshmana. If Lakshmana knew then why did he not escort Sita with respect and dignity into the ashram and place her in Rishi Valmiki's care? How is what Lakshmana did any different from those who tear away newborn kittens and puppies who have not yet opened their eyes away from their mothers and leave them in front of my house?

That the three daughters-in-law took care of their widowed mothers-in-law and managed palace affairs brings us back to my first point - the dharma of the wife and widow is to fulfill the husband's dharma.

Liberation from the burden of grief, sorrow and injustice must happen in the now for the liberation to become a reality. If indeed that were true then I am left with the question - why did Sita refuse to return to Ayodhya after her sons taught the King of Ayodhya the lesson in dharma which no one else could have taught him? The truth is Sita did not return to Ayodhya in the same sense of duty and dharma when she chose to follow Rama to the forest for 14 years.

This time Sita made the choice to say 'no'. Rama had to suffer the same sense of rejection and loneliness from rejection to which he had condemned Sita when she most needed her family with her.

I ask the author, Vijayaji, Sandhyaji and Bharathi to consider if Sita is not the panchabhuta that made the divine human but prana itself. Because when Sita abandoned Ayodhya, when Sita refused to heed Rama's wish to return, Rama's prana left his body. Ramayana in every sense ends not with Srirama giving up his body in the Sarayu, but when Sita his prana left him.

Srirama is purushottama because he had to choose his course of action everytime under difficult and extreme circumstances. But like Sita he made the choices he did because he was driven by his understanding of dharma - dharma of the son, of the king. In these extreme circumstances the husband had to be abandoned.

Radha Rajan
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

I have only one comment to add -

Tulsidas wrote at a time when the Mughal Empire was on the ascendant under Akbar [although this is also the time the Europeans had started exploring the world for ultimate conquest].

Unlike Samarth Ramdas, he did not have a king like Shivaji to mentor. Powerless, he had to use his intellect to keep the people united and in hope. I think that the fact that a literary creation was elevated to the level of Scripture by the people, and so remains to this day, is testimony to this achievement.

In contrast, see the Mahabharat - it is divinely seen by Sanjay who relates it to Dhritarashtra. It contains two of the greatest Hindu Scriptures - Vishnu Sahasranama, and Bhagvad Gita. Yet the epic as a whole is NOT a scripture.

Maybe we can also see the Man-Woman synergy in our stories as a form of Chinese yin and yang - a story of shifting dynamics.

Sita was at her most powerful when she supported Rama and accompanied him to the forest; when she resisted the allurements and threats of Ravana; when she returned to the Earth where she belonged.

Sandhya
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

There is no sneering and yes, there is abandonment. If Tulsidas wrote for his age, then it is pertinent to ask whether his construction and interpretation of the legend is still relevant for our age. The ordinary people of Mithila certainly do not think so - I urge readers to check my cite above and assess the data for themselves.

"His rejection of Sita is almost universally condemned while her rejection of him is held up as an example of supreme dignity. By that act she emerges triumphant and supreme, she leaves a permanent stigma on Ram's name. I have never heard even one person, man or woman, suggest that Sita should have gone through the second fire ordeal quietly and obediently and accepted life with her husband once again, though I often hear people say that Ram had no business to reject her in the first place."

Is ancient-culture "separation" to be "part of the trials" of women, high-born or not, in today's culture too? Kalidasa does not suggest so.

In today's world, are we to suggest to women that as wives they model themselves on the self-effacing Sita to enable their husbands transcend the Me Principle, or that husbands and wives together transcend whatever it is that is to be transcended?

Or, in terms of ground realities, are we to draw on a different relevance, one, for example, that is illustrated by the effectiveness of the (albeit brief) Lakshmi Mukti programme of the Shetkari Sangathana.

Bharati
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

Bereft of an understanding of the time and space
the authors of the great epics lived in ,we,the
mortals of 21st century are bound to falter
in comprehending the complete import of
the sacred saga of Ramayan which is one
of maintaining Maryada in human relationships
and readiness to sacrifice anything and
everything to defend Dharma ; both enshrined
in single word DUTY( ??????? ) , words like
RIGHT( ??????)altogether absent in the
lexicon.
That was India's Yugdharm .
And also Rashtrdharm.
That understood, we would desist from
charging Laxman of abandoning Urmila,
his wife .
May I suggest Rashtrkavi Mathilisharan
Gupta's Saket ( ????? ) also to be read
in conjunction with Valmiki's Ramayan
and Tulsi's Ramcharit Manas .

Aanand Aadeesh
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

We have to remember that it was the people of Ayodhya who pressured Rama to abandon Sita. Rama, ofcourse, was conflicted and confused and did that.

Agree with Radhaji that the yuga dharma needs to be changed. Today the abandonment of widows and other helpess people should not continue.

However, the dualism of Sita being Prana and Rama being Purusha should be reexamined. It was the Sankhya philosophy that began that dualism.

For the Veda (as I understand it) the Ultimate Reality manifests as both purusha and prakriti (prana,earth, consciousness etc.). Hence, both Rama and Sita are expressions of that non dualism.

Where the limiting principle of Me Me distorts this state, then it must be struggled with. It is here that the author's suggestion that the Unconscious can be brought to light is an important contribution to the struggle.

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
April 10, 2018

Report Abuse

Wonderful discussion we had on this topic. All the commentators have been very insightful and obviously are erudite and thoughtful. No question the Epic of Ramayana is wrongly or rightly viewed as a
compendium on morality, extant in the times it was composed and later extrapolated to all times to follow!!! This perspective is questionable as amply illustrated by the penetrating comments above. The devotees who are full of Bhakti for Rama tend to condone all character flaws and faults, empathize with Him as well as with any other character in the Epic and are emotionally hurt when such criticisms are leveled. This leads to rationalization and justification of any and all behaviors depicted by the Mahakavi Valmiki or any other subsequent poet. The nature of poetry itself is not polemical. It is only suggestive and leaves much unexplained for the readers' imagination to fill in. That is the beauty of all Sahitya. Let us not forget this is Adikavya. and the first Epic but has been eternally fascinating all Indians (Bharatiyas) to the wonderment of all observers. How many security guards are reading any other epic at night during their duty hours in a dim light in any other culture?

Having said all that, the gist of the epic and the tuning in into the Unconscious (a concept foreign to Indian philosophy except in the context of Yoga referring to "Sanskarashesha") demonstrated by the poets, makes Ramayana a metaphor (Roopaka) for human existence
and life cycle with focus on intra-psychic dynamics. Reconciling such metaphor with deeper understanding of human psychology that is Universal for all human beings, regardless of sex, gender, race, class, creed, culture, or political affiliation, elevates Ramayana as one of the first Epics in human history to provide rich insight into the very metaphysics, metapsychology, depth psychology that have emerged later as disciplines for understanding humanity. The author's effort is to use this metaphor (Poopaka) as a Universally applicable one, cutting across all religions. Viewed in this manner Ramayana is suprareligious though espoused by the religious Bharatiya as a dharmic guiding light. Making it suprareligious philosophy will not diminish its sentimental value nor will it explain all the irrationalities hidden in the trees of this epic and the forest of Dandakaranya. Is it a forest of irrational punishments by suggestions of the name itself?? Is human existence to be viewed as irrational punishments for Atman that each individual human being has to suffer through in the Dandakaranya forest or darkness of the Unconscious and the suffering (Dukkha) concomitant with living a life facing reality?

Achintyachintaka
April 12, 2018

Report Abuse

Beautifully put ! Dandakaranya, the forest of the Unconscious and the suffering (Dukkha) comcomitant with living a life facing reality?

But why not think of the light of the Veda ? In Western philosophy, it was Plato who said that we should always be thinking of the Good.

I am impressed with the light generating quality of the Rig Veda, followed by the Upanishads. I think it is the Chandogya Upanishad (which has also been commented upon by Adi Sankara) that begins thus: Let us meditate on Om, the imperishable. . . .

And whenever I read Adi Sankara's commentary on the Brahma Sutras I am struck by the radiance of his text.

Anyhow, thankyou Achintyachintaka for an illuminating discussion.

Dr. Vijaya Rajiva
April 13, 2018

Report Abuse

Dr. Rajiva ji: All of the above commentators are correct in their perceptions as well as in their deep sense of discomfort for the injustices they feel the characters in Ramayana are subjected to. Dukkha and suffering that came to everyone in this Epic story probably resulted from the root cause of making a promise, the scope of which could not be fathomed, by Dasharatha during his euphoric state experienced on the battle field when Kaikeyi helped him win the war. Extracting a promise to be cashed it at the right moment when she had the maximum benefit coming to her was her shrewdness. That sets the stage for the domino effects of tragedies. The innocent ones are punished one after another accepting the punishments as if it was their fate that was ruling over them because in some mysterious karmic way they deserved such plight. It appeared that everyone made his/her choice perhaps not Urmila. So, the Dandaka + Aranya may stand for a forest of irrational undeserved punishments. The helpless state in which the human infant arrives in this world as innocent being does not deserve to receive such
unfair treatment. The forest of darkness or the irrationalities of the Unconscious does not spare anyone rich, poor, royalty or the commoner. Each to his own when getting lost in the dark forest of the Unconscious and irrational impulses.This is indeed the plight of every human being. Likewise there is a life giving force in the Unconscious. Hanuman may symbolize it. Much positive and creative flows from the Unconscious. The drives to survive and succeed also emerge from the Unconscious.

The "rupaka" or metaphor of Ramayana is not oblivious of the light you are referring to. The forgotten identity or in fact the oneness with the Paramatman as you pointed out in one of your comments, is in itself the light of the Vedas. Ramayana like any other dharmashastra or adhyatma-shastra in the Bharatiya culture is a downstream digestible Vedic wisdom.

Radhaji quotes Gandhiji as not acknowledging Rama in his human role
as Godlike but the abstract Rama he worships. With all of our faults and flaws the Vedic light recognizes the individual Rama the divine resident or observing ego in all human beings as none other than Paramatman or Brahman. You can, therefore, see the dvaita and advaita as only two sides of the same coin. Adi Shankara kept himself in both the modes.

Philosophy aside, there is no end to brining about social reform in any human society. Equality for women is indeed sorely needed to be striven for by all social reformers. Ramayana is not to be used to perpetrate any kind of injustice or inequality. Far from it, Achintyachintaka had no intentions of justifying probably deliberately inserted irrationalities galore in Ramayana.

Achintyachintaka
April 13, 2018

Report Abuse

I am grateful to read this article and all the amazing comments here.

Question to the author and others. When dark forces of unconscious - trauma, pain , shame and grief engulf a human soul -- Is there a clear solution in Ramayana. How do we channel the Hanuman (Prana) to access the unconscious and liberate oneself to survive / succeed in his/her endeavor in life.

AJ
April 18, 2018

Report Abuse