{"id":89755,"date":"2019-06-02T15:58:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T22:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89755"},"modified":"2019-06-02T15:58:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T22:58:26","slug":"ramayana-and-sri-lanka-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/02\/ramayana-and-sri-lanka-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"RAMAYANA AND SRI LANKA Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\nRamayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being the Mahabharata<\/em><\/a>. Ramayana is a part of the Hindu mythology of\nIndia and is an important part of the Hindu canon.  It is believed that the Hindu<\/a>\nsage Valmiki<\/a> wrote the Ramayana. Analysts say that Valmiki\u2019s\nRamayana is a literary epic and has no historical value. It is a poem and not a historical document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Ramayana, Rama\nwas the son and heir of King Dasaratha  \nof Kosala. He married Sita and together with his brother Lakshmana went\nto live in the Dandaka forests. At Dandaka he killed several demons that were\nharassing the villagers. This angered the demon king, Ravana, who, in\nretaliation, captured Sita and took her to his kingdom in Lanka, in his aerial\ncar. The monkey king Hanuman discovered her there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having received\nHanuman’s report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards\nthe shore of the southern sea. There they are joined by Ravana’s brother Vibhishana<\/a>.\nThe monkeys named “Naal” and “Neel<\/a>”\nconstruct a floating bridge (known as Rama Setu<\/em><\/a>)\nacross the ocean, and the princes and their army cross over to Lanka. A lengthy\nbattle ensues and Rama kills Ravana and installs Vibhishana on the throne of\nLanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Hindu tradition, Rama\nis an incarnation of the god Vishnu. The main purpose of this incarnation is to\ndemonstrate the righteous path (dharma<\/em><\/a>) for all\nliving creatures on earth. Ravana<\/a>, a rakshasa<\/a>,\nis the king of Lanka. After performing severe penance for ten thousand years he\nreceived a boon from the creator-god Brahma<\/a>\nthat he could not be killed by gods, demons or spirits. He is portrayed as a\npowerful demon king, Vishnu incarnates as the human Rama to defeat him, thus\ncircumventing the boon given by Brahma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A. L. Basham thinks\nthat Rama may have been a minor chief who lived in the 8th or the 7th century\nBC.  Rama\u2019s deification occurred in the course of\nthe evolution of the Bhagavata cult. T.\nParamasiva Iyer said that Ravana was a Gond chief. The ordinary or Dhur-Gonds\nare known as Ravana-Vamshis in central India. The\nArchaeological Survey of India has stated that there is to date no evidence to\nconclusively prove that Rama actually existed.\nOthers thought it possible that Ramayana  was  \nbased on a Jataka story, with embellishments added on later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romila Thapar says the original\nversion of Ramayana could be dated to about 8th century BC. H.D. Sankalia thought it could be dated to 4th century BC. There\n may have been earlier Ramayanas before\nthe one written by Valmiki.  The\ntext   was revised many times  after Valmiki and today there are many\nversions of the Ramayana, including a Jain version.   Father Camille Bulcke, (1909-1982) a Belgian\nJesuit<\/a> missionary living\nin India<\/a>, author of Ramakatha<\/em>,\nhas identified over 300 variants of Ramayana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 The Ramayana in North India differs from\nRamayana in South India and South-East Asia. The Hindu religion and the\nRamayana were exported to South East Asia. Hinduism\ndid not take root, but the Ramayana did. There is an extensive tradition of\noral storytelling based on the Ramayana in Indonesia<\/a>,\nCambodia<\/a>, Thailand<\/a>,\nMalaysia<\/a>, Laos<\/a>,\nVietnam<\/a> and Maldives<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several versions\nof the Ramayana in Indonesia.  There is the Kakawin Ramayana<\/a>, an old Javanese<\/a> version. Bhattikavya or the Ravanavadham of Bhatti<\/a> is the most influential. Yogesvara Ramayana<\/em>\nis attributed to the scribe Yogesvara<\/em> (9 CE), who was employed in the\ncourt of the Medang<\/a>\nin Central Java. It has 2774 stanzas<\/a>\nin manipravala style, a mixture of Sanskrit<\/a> and\nancient Javanese.   The Javanese Ramayana<\/a>\ndiffers markedly from the Hindu version, said Wikipedia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cambodian version\nof Ramayana, the Reamker<\/em><\/a>\nadapts the Hindu concepts to Buddhist ones. The Reamker has several differences\nfrom the original Ramayana, including scenes not included in the original and\nemphasis on Hanuman<\/a>. This has\ninfluenced the Thai and Lao versions. Reamker in\nCambodia is not confined to the realm of literature but extends to all\nCambodian art forms, such as sculpture, Khmer classical dance<\/a> theatre<\/a>\nknown as Lakhorn Luang (the foundation of the royal ballet), poetry<\/a>\nand the mural and bas reliefs seen at the Silver\nPagoda<\/a> and Angkor\nWat<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thailand’s popular\nnational epic Ramakien<\/em><\/a>  is derived from the Hindu Ramayana. While the\nmain story is identical to that of the Ramayana<\/em>, many other aspects are\ngiven a Thai slant, such as the clothes, weapons, topography, and elements of\nnature. It has an expanded role for Hanuman and he is portrayed as a lascivious\ncharacter. Ramakien can be seen in an elaborate illustration at the Wat Phra Kaew<\/a> temple in Bangkok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phra\nLak Phra Lam<\/em><\/a> is the Lao\nlanguage<\/a> version.  The\ntitle comes from Lakshmana and Rama. The story of Lakshmana and Rama is told as\nthe previous life of the Buddha<\/a>.\nIn Hikayat\nSeri Rama<\/em><\/a> of Malaysia<\/a>,\nDasharatha is the great-grandson of the Prophet Adam<\/a>.\nRavana receives boons from Allah<\/a>\ninstead of Brahma. In many Malay\nlanguage<\/a> versions, Lakshmana is given greater importance than\nRama, whose character is considered somewhat weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Southeast Asian<\/a>\nadaptations include Ramakavaca<\/em> of Bali<\/a>\n(Indonesia), Maharadya Lawana<\/em> and Darangen<\/em><\/a>\nof Mindanao<\/a> (Philippines), and\nthe Yama Zatdaw<\/em><\/a>\nof Myanmar<\/a>. Aspects of the Chinese<\/a>\nnovel Journey to the West<\/em><\/a>\nwere also inspired by the Ramayana<\/em>, particularly the character Sun\nWukong<\/a>, who is believed to have been based on Hanuman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The location\nof Valmiki\u2019s \u2018Lanka\u2019 had been keenly discussed by Indian scholars. Indian academics cannot agree on the\nlocation of the \u2018Lanka\u2019 in the Ramayana. Romila Thapar says the matter has been\ndisputed by Indian scholars for centuries and Lanka remains unidentified. The\nterm Lanka is some Indian languages means island and sagara means a lake not an\nocean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiralal Shukla\u2019s book ‘Lanka ki khoj\u2019\n(1977) provides information on the places identified. Lanka had been located in\nvarious places in India, in Assam,   \/ in\nRekanpalli, (between the Godavari and Krishna rivers),\/ near Maheshwar on the\nNarmada river,\/ near Jabalpur, \/ in Chota Nagpur in the Mahanadi delta ,\/ in the Vindhya mountains at Amarakantaka\n,\/ near Pendra, ( Bilaspur district, Madhya Pradesh) and in the  Godavari delta    Outside India, Lanka has been located in Lakshadweep,\nMaldives, Sri Lanka, Sumatra,  Australia\n(via the Sunda Islands) and the Lingga Islands on the equator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writers\nhave pointed out that the Lanka mentioned in the Ramayana is not Sri Lanka. To\nstart with, Sri Lanka was not known as Lanka in ancient times. It was known as\nSimhala. Mishra points out that all the Indian chronicles, such as the Puranas,\nthe writings of Varamihira and the Greek and Buddhist writings all stated that\nthe Simhala island differed from the island of  \nLanka.\u2019 Mahabaratha refers to two distinct islands called Lanka and\nSimhala. The Virhatsamhita of\nVaramihira recorded Lanka and Sinhala as two different places. Rajasekera in his play Balaramayana also\nshowed that Simhala was not Lanka. In this play, Ravana addresses a king who\ncomes from Simhala\u201d. Ravana would not have addressed another king in this\nmanner if he, Ravana, had been the king of Simhala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  They\nalso say that Adams Bridge cannot be Ram setu since Rama\u2019s bridge is either\neleven and a half miles or 450 miles, runs north- south and ends at a hill. The\npresent Adam\u2019s Bridge is over 30 miles long runs east-west and does not end in\na hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sankalia\n(1971) says Lanka is in Chotanagpur in\nJharkhand. R.L. Gupta says it is in Narmada Lake, Madhya Pradesh. Mishra\nfavors the Trikuta islands at the mouth of the river Godavari in Andhra\nPradesh. .  But they are all agreed that\nthe Lanka of the Ramayana is definitely not the Republic of Sri Lanka .They\npoint out that Sri Lanka was known as Sinhaladvipa in inscriptions and\nliterature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T. Paramasiva Iyer, in his 1940\nbook Ramayana and Lanka<\/em>, observed that In the Ramayana, Lanka was\nsurrounded by sea, Rama built a bridge which was 100 yojanas<\/em> long and\nran due north and south from the foot of Mahendragiri in the north to\nSuvelagiri (a hill adjoining Trikuta) on whose slopes Rama marshalled his vanara<\/em>\nhosts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Iyer\u2019s calculations,\n100 yojanas would either mean eleven and a half miles or 450 miles. The\nexisting bridge is neither. Moreover, there is no hill in Rameshwaram or\nanywhere near Mandapam. There is no hill in Mannar Island and none in the\nnorthern half of Sri Lanka. Therefore, it is obvious that Sri Lanka has nothing\nto do with Ravana\u2019s Lanka. Further, If\nRavana was dragging Sita, Lanka could not have been as far away as Sri Lanka.\nIt has to nearby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T. Paramasiva Iyer said that\nRavana\u2019s Lanka, if there ever was one, was located in Madhya Pradesh near\nJabalpur. It is very likely that\nRavana\u2019s Lanka, under the name of Trikuta, was the capital of today\u2019s  Kalachari Haihayas known as Trikutakas till\n900 AD.  Indrana Hill surrounded by the\ngreat Hiran River on three sides was the Trikuta. It rises 650 feet above the haveli<\/em>\nor high-level plain comprising the broad valleys of the Hiran and Narmada.\nAccording to the Jubalpore Gazetteer<\/em> quoted by Iyer, \u2018During the monsoon\nmonths, the haveli<\/em> presents the appearance of a vast lake\u2026\u2019 It is quite\nprobable that in the olden days, the Hiran, which hugs the Indrana Hill on\nthree sides, spread out as a shallow lake all round the hill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Archaeologist\nH.D. Sankalia  said in  the 1970s that Chotanagpur (Jharkhand State,\nIndia) was the Lanka of Ramayana .    He\nsaid that the present day Sri Lanka\u201d cannot be the Ramayana Lanka. Sri Lanka\nwas  known to Indians of the olden days\nas Simhala or Tamraparni, and not as Lanka. According to Sankalia \nLanka is a Mundari word which means an \u2018island\u2019 and people of\nSonpur on the Madhya Pradesh-Andhra-Orissa border traditionally regard Sonpur\nas \u2018Pashchim Lanka\u2019 (western Lanka). The\nname Lanka came into use only a thousand years ago. Adams Bridge and\nRameshwaram  are not the Setu and Shiva\ntemple of Rama’s era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

R.L. Gupta (? 1982) says Lanka was\nan island in Narmada lake, now Bagra hill.  The Ramayana   says that Lanka was located on Trikuti\nParvata, close to
\nDhawlagiri surrounded by the hundred yojana sea and in an area where Sal
\ntrees grew. Bagra hill, a little west\nof Pachmarhi Hill, district Hoshangabad, Madhya
\nPradesh was known as Dhawlagiri earlier. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for India’s geography to match the\nRamayana, particularly the ‘hundred yojana sea’, the Ramayana era must have\nbeen in the period when there was such a lake near the Vindhya mountains.\nfossil finds indicate that there was a big lake or sea in the Narmada valley.\nGupta says   the phrase “hundred\nyojana sea”   only meant ‘large\nsize’. Setu was also\nin Narmada lake.  The lake has black\nbasalt. Mahendra\nparvata was north of the Bagra hill and almost at the edge of the Narmada lake.\nGupta   had also looked at the time Lord\nRama took to travel between the places he visited,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D.P.\nMishra  (1985) says that the evidence\npoints to the triangular delta of the mouth of the river Godavari in Andhra\nPradesh. The Godavari has a stretch of alluvial islands, called the Trikuta\nislands. These are known as the Lankas even today. However, the first meridian of Hindu\nastronomers is taken to have passed through Ujjain and Lanka. Ujjain is in\nMadhya Pradesh close to the west coast of India.  ( continued)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s Ramayana is a literary epic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}