In India we always called our epics itihas [history]. The Ramayana and Mahabharata are itihas. It’s only since Max Müller that we were taught: Hey listen, this is myth, this is not historical narrative. I’m not willing to accept that.
Take the Mahabharata. It started off with less than 25,000 verses of a work called Jaya, which morphed into a work of roughly 50,000 verses called the Bharat, which then morphed into the 100,000 verses of the Mahabharat. We attribute all of this to one single writer, the Rishi Vyasa. I believe that’s almost like a nom de plume, a pseudonym, for multiple writers who wrote through the generations. But do you think multiple generations would have spent their time narrating that story if there wasn’t a kernel of truth to the events that happened?
We have 300 versions of the Ramayana, and each version is remarkably different. You have the Valmiki Ramayana, in which Ram is simply a human being, a mortal. You have the Tulsi Ramayana, in which he is elevated to the status of a God. You have versions like the Adbhuta Ramayana, in which it isn’t Ram who kills Ravana, but Sita who manifests as Durga. You have the Jain Ramayana, in which Lakshman kills Ravana. You have versions like the Muslim Ramayana, in which Ram is a Sultan, or the Lao Ramayana, in which Ram is a Bodhisattva.
But at the core, there are elements of the story that remain common throughout. And why would there be 300 versions of a story that never happened? So I believe what we need to do is to find that enticing, exciting overlap zone where history intersects with myth. And there is a lot we can gain by examining it closely. The problem is that mainstream academia has shied away from looking at these things.
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Denne historien er fra January 2020-utgaven av Heartfulness eMagazine.
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