i66
THE ARYANS IN ANCIENT INDIA.
Outline ofthe Rama-yana.
The locallegend.
central story of the Ramayana. It differs, therefore, from thecentral legend of the Mahabharata , as commemorating a periodwhen the main arena of Aryan enterprise had extended itselffar beyond their ancient settlements around Delhi ; and as aproduct of the Brahman tendency to substitute abstract per-sonifications for human actors and mundane events. Thenucleus of the Mahabharata is a legend of ancient life; thenucleus of the Ramayana is an allegory. Its most modernform, the Adhyatma Ramayana, still further spiritualizes thestory, and elevates Rama into a saviour and deliverer, a godrather than a hero. 1
Its reputed author, Valmiki , is a conspicuous figure inthe epic, as well as its composer. He takes part in the actionof the poem, receives the hero Rama in his hermitage, andafterwards gives shelter to the unjustly banished Sita and hertwin sons, nourishing the aspirations of the youths by tales oftheir father’s prowess. These stories make up the main part ofthe Ramayana, and refer to a period which has been looselyassigned to about 1000 b . c . But the poem could not havebeen put together in its present shape many centuries, if any,before our era. Parts of it may be earlier than the Maha bharata , but the compilation as a whole apparently belongsto a later date. The Ramayana consists of seven books( Kandas ) and 24,000 slokas, or about 48,000 lines.
As the Mahabharata celebrates the Lunar race of Delhi , so-the Ramayana forms the epic chronicle of the Solar race ofAjodhya or Oudh. The two poems thus preserve the legendsof two renowned Aryan kingdoms at the two opposite, oreastern and western, borders of the Middle Land of NorthernIndia ( Madhya-desha ). The opening books of the Ramayanarecount the wondrous birth and boyhood of Rama , eldest son of Dasaratba, King of Ajodhya ; his marriage with Sita , asvictor at her Swayam-vara, or tournament, by bending themighty bow of Siva in the public contest of chiefs for theprincess; and his appointment as heir-apparent to his father’s,kingdom. A zandna intrigue ends in the youngest wife ofDasaratha obtaining this appointment to the royal successionfor her own son, Bharata, and in the exile of Rama , with hisbride Sita , for fourteen years to the forest. The banished pairwander south to Prayag (Allahabad ), already a place of
1 The allegorical character of the Ramayana has allowed scope forvarious speculations as to its origin. Such speculations have been welldealt with by the Honourable Mr. Justice Kashinath Trimbak Telang inhis essay, Was the Udmdyana copied from Homer? (Bombay , 1873.)