Bhakti and the Story of Rama

The Bhakti Ramayanas

So far, we have concentrated primarily on the Valmiki Ramayana. Let us move a few centuries after the composition of its initial nucleus by Valmiki to the beginning of the Common Era—when the Ramayana began to take on the form in which we know it today even as the emergence of bhakti led to a fundamental transformation in the story of Rama.

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Scholars of the Ramayana tradition hold the view that Rama was originally a human hero and was only later raised to the status of avatar of Vishnu. Valmiki’s Ramayana is a secular text; contrary to popular perception, it is not a Vaishnava epic, or even a religious one. J.L Brockington postulates that the epic reached its present form in stages as, over the centuries, additions and expansions were made to Valmiki’s original composition (Brockington, 1976; p.1). In the five central books of the Ramayana, regarded as the original core of the epic, Rama is portrayed as an earthly prince: though endowed with godlike courage, fortitude, and compassion, his exploits are those of a human being (Chowdhury, 2019, Vol 1, p.ix). In the initial stages of the epic, Rama is far from perfect and liable to moral lapses such as the killing of Bali. He gradually begins to take on divine qualities; at this stage he is compared to Indra, foremost of the Vedic gods rather than to the less important Vishnu. It is only in the first and last books of the poem—which are considered to be later additions to Valmiki’s epic—that Rama is explicitly declared to be an incarnation of Vishnu upon earth. By this time—probably the 2^nd century CE—Vishnu has superseded Indra and “so increased in importance as to appear in the role of supreme god”. (Brockington, 1976; p.22).

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THE RISE OF BHAKTI

At about the same time, i.e., soon after start of the Common Era, austere monistic meditation, sacrificial rites, and polytheistic practices began to be replaced by a new attitude towards the divine. This was bhakti, or intense emotional attachment and love towards a chosen, personal god and his avatars—particularly Vishnu and his earthly incarnations, Rama and Krishna—and joyous and public worship of that god. Bhakti assumed a dualistic relationship between the devotee and his god, as opposed to the monistic ideal of the Advaita or non-dualistic school of philosophy. The way of bhakti (bhakti-marg) was considered by its proponents to be superior to other means of achieving salvation such as knowledge or good works or ascetic disciplining of the body; it was also open to everyone, regardless of their caste, class, or sex. With the advent of bhakti, Rama’s transition from godlike prince to God became complete. This was a critical transformation of the Rama story—unlike Valmiki’s Rama, the Rama in the bhakti tellings of his story is unequivocally divine. (Chowdhury, 2019, Vol 1, p.ix)

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THE BHAKTI RAMAYANAS

The Bhakti movement was characterized by its emphasis on the use of the vernacular languages, making its teachings directly accessible to the common people, regardless of class or caste. This was in stark contrast to traditional practice, within which Sanskrit, regarded as the sacred language, was used for all important literary and religious texts. Sanskrit was thus the preserve of an elite few, typically high-caste Brahmins, who would study, interpret and explain the texts to the common people.

The earliest bhakti texts to appear were in Tamil—these were devotional poems in praise of Shiva and Vishnu, composed by the saint-musicians, the Nayanars and Alvars, of southern India between the 7^th and the 10^th centuries CE.  Also written in Tamil was Kamban’s Iramavataram (‘The Incarnation of Ram’)—composed in the 12^th century, it is amongst the earliest vernacular Ramayanas. It became, and still is, the definitive version of the Rama story in the Tamil-speaking areas of the subcontinent. (Chowdhury, 2019, Vol 1, p.ix-x)

A copper alloy sculpture of a Shiva Bhakti practitioner. This is estimated to have been made in Tamil Nadu, India in the 11th Century or later; on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Image attribution: Michael McConville, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The bhakti movement soon spread northwards, appearing in texts such as the Bhagavata Purana—this, composed in Sanskrit in the 10^th century, celebrated devotion to Krishna. More vernacular Ramayanas were composed. Amongst the more noteworthy of these were the 13^th century Telegu Ramayana of Buddharaja and the 15^th century Bengali Sriram Panchali by Krittibas.  In Hindi, the bhakti movement reached its zenith in the 16^th century, with Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas. Tulsi’s epic poem is unanimously regarded as the greatest achievement of Hindi literature, and is a significant addition to the Ramayan corpus. Composed in the vernacular Avadhi—a literary dialect of eastern Hindi—and therefore accessible to everyone without the need for learned intervention by the brahmin, it became, and remains, the dominant and accepted version of Ram’s story in the Hindi-speaking north. (Chowdhury, 2019, Vol 1, p.x)

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In the next two posts, we will look at the two most influential Bhakti Ramayanas, Kamban’s Iramavataram and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas.

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Other vernacular Ramayanas I am aware of include the 15^th century Jagamohana Ramayana in Odia by Balarama Dasa, the 14^th century Ranganatha Ramayanamu in Telegu by Ranganatha, and the 16^th century Bhavartha Ramayana in Marathi by Eknath.

Please add to this list via the comment box below! Tell us about the Ramayana versions you are familiar with, the Ramayana stories you heard in your childhood. Tell us if you watched performances of the Ramayana, in dance, music or theatre, or saw it told through painting and sculpture. We’d love to know how you experience and have experienced this amazing story.

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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

1. Brockington, J. L. “Religious Attitudes in Vālmīki’s ‘Rāmāyaṇa.’” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2 (1976): 108–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25203707.

2. Chowdhury, Rohini. (2019) ‘Introduction’, in The Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas. Gurgaon: Penguin Random House India, pp. vii–xxv. (Extracts from the Introduction to my transaltion used in writing this article are reproduced with the permission of the publisher).