The spectre of A K Ramanujan

Amrthulal
economic times

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/comments-analysis/the-spectre-of-a-k-ramanujan/articleshow/10588424.cms

Camille Bulcke, a Jesuit priest , in his magisterial survey of Ramayanas, counted at least 300 tellings spread across cultures in south and south-east Asia. Now, we have Aziz Tharuvana , a young scholar from Kerala, adding a few more to the cornucopia of Ramayana renderings.

In his study, The Ramayanas of Wayanad, Aziz has collected the numerous Ramayana narratives that exist as part of the oral tradition of various adivasi communities in Wayanad, a region bordering Coorg and the Nilgiris on the Western Ghats. These narrations, expectedly , do not follow the Sanskrit text of Valmiki Ramayana. Many in these communities, according to Aziz, wouldn't even accept that the 'real Ramayana' is in Sanskrit because for many adivasis , the authentic version is the oral text they follow and its author Valmiki was a local bard.

There is a Valmiki ashram in Pulpalli, a town in Wayanad, which many locals believe to be the place where the sage poet lived. Yes, they do accept that there may have been other Rama kathas and Valmikis and places that claim to be Ramayana sites, but those, they caution, are not the 'real' ones. Clearly, there is no one real Ramayana . There isn't even one great Ramayana tradition.

And, that's no discovery of Father Bulcke or Aziz Tharuvana , but a fact known to the great Ramayana poets as varied as Thulsidas and Thunjathu Ezhuthachhan, as is evident from their works. For Aziz, a Muslim who grew up partly in an orphanage, the Ramayana was no distant Hindu epic but a lived experience of his childhood. Everyone in his neighbourhood believed that a tree in the next village was where Luv and Kush tied the horse that was set free after Ram conducted his ashwamedha.

Kannarampuzha, a river that meandered a few miles away, was born from the tears of Sita, who was abandoned in the woods nearby. So, it was natural for him to go in search of these stories when he grew up. In one of the tellings he heard from an Adiya tribe storyteller , Sita was a tribal woman, who both Rama and Ravana fell in love with. But Ravana was the first to befriend her and took her to his 12-storeyed abode across a river in Lanka. The bridge to cross the stream, incidentally, was built by Hanuman.

Meanwhile, Rama started yearning for Sita and enlists the help of Hanuman to find her. Hanuman finds her and convinces her to leave Ravana - in the story, Sita had asked for a vow from Ravana that he should not touch her body or even clothes for 12 years - for Rama. The Adiya narration too talks about the separation of Rama and Sita and the birth of Luv and Kush, who later defeat the armies of Ram, and Ram himself. The narration and the relationship between various characters are, of course, shaped by the social mores of Adiyas. But, Aziz says, within the Adiya community itself, there are many versions of this narration.