RAMAYANA AND SRI LANKA Part 1
Posted on June 2nd, 2019
The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being the Mahabharata. Ramayana is a part of the Hindu mythology of India and is an important part of the Hindu canon. It is believed that the Hindu sage Valmiki wrote the Ramayana. Analysts say that Valmiki’s Ramayana is a literary epic and has no historical value. It is a poem and not a historical document.
According to the Ramayana, Rama was the son and heir of King Dasaratha of Kosala. He married Sita and together with his brother Lakshmana went to live in the Dandaka forests. At Dandaka he killed several demons that were harassing the villagers. This angered the demon king, Ravana, who, in retaliation, captured Sita and took her to his kingdom in Lanka, in his aerial car. The monkey king Hanuman discovered her there.
Having received Hanuman’s report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards the shore of the southern sea. There they are joined by Ravana’s brother Vibhishana. The monkeys named “Naal” and “Neel” construct a floating bridge (known as Rama Setu) across the ocean, and the princes and their army cross over to Lanka. A lengthy battle ensues and Rama kills Ravana and installs Vibhishana on the throne of Lanka.
According to Hindu tradition, Rama is an incarnation of the god Vishnu. The main purpose of this incarnation is to demonstrate the righteous path (dharma) for all living creatures on earth. Ravana, a rakshasa, is the king of Lanka. After performing severe penance for ten thousand years he received a boon from the creator-god Brahma that he could not be killed by gods, demons or spirits. He is portrayed as a powerful demon king, Vishnu incarnates as the human Rama to defeat him, thus circumventing the boon given by Brahma.
A. L. Basham thinks that Rama may have been a minor chief who lived in the 8th or the 7th century BC. Rama’s deification occurred in the course of the evolution of the Bhagavata cult. T. Paramasiva Iyer said that Ravana was a Gond chief. The ordinary or Dhur-Gonds are known as Ravana-Vamshis in central India. The Archaeological Survey of India has stated that there is to date no evidence to conclusively prove that Rama actually existed. Others thought it possible that Ramayana was based on a Jataka story, with embellishments added on later.
Romila Thapar says the original version of Ramayana could be dated to about 8th century BC. H.D. Sankalia thought it could be dated to 4th century BC. There may have been earlier Ramayanas before the one written by Valmiki. The text was revised many times after Valmiki and today there are many versions of the Ramayana, including a Jain version. Father Camille Bulcke, (1909-1982) a Belgian Jesuit missionary living in India, author of Ramakatha, has identified over 300 variants of Ramayana.
The Ramayana in North India differs from Ramayana in South India and South-East Asia. The Hindu religion and the Ramayana were exported to South East Asia. Hinduism did not take root, but the Ramayana did. There is an extensive tradition of oral storytelling based on the Ramayana in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam and Maldives.
There are several versions of the Ramayana in Indonesia. There is the Kakawin Ramayana, an old Javanese version. Bhattikavya or the Ravanavadham of Bhatti is the most influential. Yogesvara Ramayana is attributed to the scribe Yogesvara (9 CE), who was employed in the court of the Medang in Central Java. It has 2774 stanzas in manipravala style, a mixture of Sanskrit and ancient Javanese. The Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the Hindu version, said Wikipedia.
The Cambodian version of Ramayana, the Reamker adapts the Hindu concepts to Buddhist ones. The Reamker has several differences from the original Ramayana, including scenes not included in the original and emphasis on Hanuman. This has influenced the Thai and Lao versions. Reamker in Cambodia is not confined to the realm of literature but extends to all Cambodian art forms, such as sculpture, Khmer classical dance theatre known as Lakhorn Luang (the foundation of the royal ballet), poetry and the mural and bas reliefs seen at the Silver Pagoda and Angkor Wat.
Thailand’s popular national epic Ramakien is derived from the Hindu Ramayana. While the main story is identical to that of the Ramayana, many other aspects are given a Thai slant, such as the clothes, weapons, topography, and elements of nature. It has an expanded role for Hanuman and he is portrayed as a lascivious character. Ramakien can be seen in an elaborate illustration at the Wat Phra Kaew temple in Bangkok.
Phra Lak Phra Lam is the Lao language version. The title comes from Lakshmana and Rama. The story of Lakshmana and Rama is told as the previous life of the Buddha. In Hikayat Seri Rama of Malaysia, Dasharatha is the great-grandson of the Prophet Adam. Ravana receives boons from Allah instead of Brahma. In many Malay language versions, Lakshmana is given greater importance than Rama, whose character is considered somewhat weak.
Other Southeast Asian adaptations include Ramakavaca of Bali (Indonesia), Maharadya Lawana and Darangen of Mindanao (Philippines), and the Yama Zatdaw of Myanmar. Aspects of the Chinese novel Journey to the West were also inspired by the Ramayana, particularly the character Sun Wukong, who is believed to have been based on Hanuman.
The location of Valmiki’s ‘Lanka’ had been keenly discussed by Indian scholars. Indian academics cannot agree on the location of the ‘Lanka’ in the Ramayana. Romila Thapar says the matter has been disputed by Indian scholars for centuries and Lanka remains unidentified. The term Lanka is some Indian languages means island and sagara means a lake not an ocean.
Hiralal Shukla’s book ‘Lanka ki khoj’ (1977) provides information on the places identified. Lanka had been located in various places in India, in Assam, / in Rekanpalli, (between the Godavari and Krishna rivers),/ near Maheshwar on the Narmada river,/ near Jabalpur, / in Chota Nagpur in the Mahanadi delta ,/ in the Vindhya mountains at Amarakantaka ,/ near Pendra, ( Bilaspur district, Madhya Pradesh) and in the Godavari delta Outside India, Lanka has been located in Lakshadweep, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Australia (via the Sunda Islands) and the Lingga Islands on the equator.
Writers have pointed out that the Lanka mentioned in the Ramayana is not Sri Lanka. To start with, Sri Lanka was not known as Lanka in ancient times. It was known as Simhala. Mishra points out that all the Indian chronicles, such as the Puranas, the writings of Varamihira and the Greek and Buddhist writings all stated that the Simhala island differed from the island of Lanka.’ Mahabaratha refers to two distinct islands called Lanka and Simhala. The Virhatsamhita of Varamihira recorded Lanka and Sinhala as two different places. Rajasekera in his play Balaramayana also showed that Simhala was not Lanka. In this play, Ravana addresses a king who comes from Simhala”. Ravana would not have addressed another king in this manner if he, Ravana, had been the king of Simhala.
They also say that Adams Bridge cannot be Ram setu since Rama’s bridge is either eleven and a half miles or 450 miles, runs north- south and ends at a hill. The present Adam’s Bridge is over 30 miles long runs east-west and does not end in a hill.
Sankalia (1971) says Lanka is in Chotanagpur in Jharkhand. R.L. Gupta says it is in Narmada Lake, Madhya Pradesh. Mishra favors the Trikuta islands at the mouth of the river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. . But they are all agreed that the Lanka of the Ramayana is definitely not the Republic of Sri Lanka .They point out that Sri Lanka was known as Sinhaladvipa in inscriptions and literature.
T. Paramasiva Iyer, in his 1940 book Ramayana and Lanka, observed that In the Ramayana, Lanka was surrounded by sea, Rama built a bridge which was 100 yojanas long and ran due north and south from the foot of Mahendragiri in the north to Suvelagiri (a hill adjoining Trikuta) on whose slopes Rama marshalled his vanara hosts.
According to Iyer’s calculations, 100 yojanas would either mean eleven and a half miles or 450 miles. The existing bridge is neither. Moreover, there is no hill in Rameshwaram or anywhere near Mandapam. There is no hill in Mannar Island and none in the northern half of Sri Lanka. Therefore, it is obvious that Sri Lanka has nothing to do with Ravana’s Lanka. Further, If Ravana was dragging Sita, Lanka could not have been as far away as Sri Lanka. It has to nearby.
T. Paramasiva Iyer said that Ravana’s Lanka, if there ever was one, was located in Madhya Pradesh near Jabalpur. It is very likely that Ravana’s Lanka, under the name of Trikuta, was the capital of today’s Kalachari Haihayas known as Trikutakas till 900 AD. Indrana Hill surrounded by the great Hiran River on three sides was the Trikuta. It rises 650 feet above the haveli or high-level plain comprising the broad valleys of the Hiran and Narmada. According to the Jubalpore Gazetteer quoted by Iyer, ‘During the monsoon months, the haveli presents the appearance of a vast lake…’ It is quite probable that in the olden days, the Hiran, which hugs the Indrana Hill on three sides, spread out as a shallow lake all round the hill.
Archaeologist H.D. Sankalia said in the 1970s that Chotanagpur (Jharkhand State, India) was the Lanka of Ramayana . He said that the present day Sri Lanka” cannot be the Ramayana Lanka. Sri Lanka was known to Indians of the olden days as Simhala or Tamraparni, and not as Lanka. According to Sankalia Lanka is a Mundari word which means an ‘island’ and people of Sonpur on the Madhya Pradesh-Andhra-Orissa border traditionally regard Sonpur as ‘Pashchim Lanka’ (western Lanka). The name Lanka came into use only a thousand years ago. Adams Bridge and Rameshwaram are not the Setu and Shiva temple of Rama’s era.
R.L. Gupta (? 1982) says Lanka was
an island in Narmada lake, now Bagra hill. The Ramayana says that Lanka was located on Trikuti
Parvata, close to
Dhawlagiri surrounded by the hundred yojana sea and in an area where Sal
trees grew. Bagra hill, a little west
of Pachmarhi Hill, district Hoshangabad, Madhya
Pradesh was known as Dhawlagiri earlier.
for India’s geography to match the Ramayana, particularly the ‘hundred yojana sea’, the Ramayana era must have been in the period when there was such a lake near the Vindhya mountains. fossil finds indicate that there was a big lake or sea in the Narmada valley. Gupta says the phrase “hundred yojana sea” only meant ‘large size’. Setu was also in Narmada lake. The lake has black basalt. Mahendra parvata was north of the Bagra hill and almost at the edge of the Narmada lake. Gupta had also looked at the time Lord Rama took to travel between the places he visited,
D.P. Mishra (1985) says that the evidence points to the triangular delta of the mouth of the river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. The Godavari has a stretch of alluvial islands, called the Trikuta islands. These are known as the Lankas even today. However, the first meridian of Hindu astronomers is taken to have passed through Ujjain and Lanka. Ujjain is in Madhya Pradesh close to the west coast of India. ( continued)