Gujarát and the Gujarátis/The Inimitable Rámáyan
THE INIMITABLE "RAMAYAN." RAMA, SITA, LAXAMAN.
Another attractive feature of the Diwáli holiday is the recitation of the epic of Rámáyan. I had the most enjoyable time of it at Baroda when listening, for a few hours every evening, to recitations from the Rámáyan.
I have read the Rámáyan, the Iliad, the Sháhnámeh, and other master-pieces of human thought, but none in the original. I never advanced much in the learned languages,though I attempted all by turn. I remember having taken up my friend Professor Bhandárkar's First Book of Sanskrit to keep off the agitating sensation one feels when conscious, for the first time, of having ababy at home. But baby was obstinate that night in mistaking vme for the mother. I loved Sanskrit, and I loved baby, too, in a sort of way. What was I to do? Oh! happy thought. I put baby on the table, and tried to soothe it to slumber with excellent Sanskrit conjugations. But it was no use—baby conjugated with me in chorus. Now came the time to decide, and I foolishly decided to give up Sanskrit. You do enough for one man if you can manage a new baby. It is a terrible task, especially for absent-minded students. You take the little being up with a shiver of anxiety lest it should melt in your hands, or lest it should slip through your fingers; or lest, in deep "brown study," mistaking it for a plaything, you should throw it out of the window. Then, again, you have the presence of the mother to disturb your peace of mind—the mother who sleeps with one eye eternally open. Oh, it is a saddening thing; but one must do one's duty. Babies take very kindly to me, except when I am hungry, at which time they avoid me with that instinct of self-preservation which is the first law of our nature. Well, then, if I gave up Sanskrit, you see it was not on a flimsy pretext.
Popular Recitations of the National Epic
But to return to the recitation of the Rámáyan at Baroda. These popular recitals from the Rámáyan are done in Gujaráti in easy, flowing narrative verse. I have often listened to them, and always with increasing interest. I believe the Gujaráti rendering is by Premánand, the sweetest of our bards, and an inhabitant of Baroda. It is read out by an intelligent Brahmin to a mixed audience of all classes and both sexes. It has a powerful and perceptible influence on the Hindu character. I believe the remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to be seen in most Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious habits, can be traced to that influence. And little wonder.
Every true lover of poetry knows what the Rámáyan is. It is a work for all times, for all men. I have read poetry of various ages and of various climes, and it is my deliberate opinion that in the field of ancient literature, so rich in imperishable prose and verse, the Rámáyan stands pre-eminent. It is the greatest of intellectual efforts inasmuch as it has moulded the character of the mightiest nation of antiquity. I can hardly believe it to be the work of a mortal. I have great faith in the efficacy of life-long prayer and contemplation—contemplation of the eternal God, the Source of all knowledge. And thus I can see nothing unnatural in Válmiki[1] having been inspired by Heaven, after such a life of contemplation, to write the Ramayan, a work which has been the most precious and the most cherished heritage of the Aryans. William Ewart Gladstone, the greatest Englishman of our times, has done much to enlighten the student on the life and times of his favourite author, the immortal Homer. Had he studied the Rámáyan, he, and Europe with him, would have known infinitely more of India in every way than at present. Yet Horace Wilson, Sir William Jones, and others too many to name and too distinguished to need being named, have rendered conspicuous service to this branch of Hindu literature; and the Hindus will cherish their memory to the latest hour of their national life. The records of ancient literature give evidence of the wondrous energy of thought and expression the old masters commanded; but none equals Válmiki in depicting those soft little domestic charities which are equally powerful to heal the wounds and bruises of severe misfortune, and to soothe the wrinkles of every-day care. Works there are to which the human intellect owes much of its refined culture; but none so imbues, so possesses the mind with deep, calm, abiding affection, as the Rámáyan.
Hero and Heroine.
Look at the principal characters. There is Laxaman, lesser of the brother heroes of the solar dynasty. His generous heart recoils at the thought of living in ease and comfort when his elder brother is threatened with exile. He is indignant with the step-mother for her arts and machinations; but, obedient to his brother, he suppresses his wrath, and vows henceforth to renounce the world, and follow the brother and his bride in their forced banishment, humble as a slave, dutiful as a son unto both. Laxaman's behaviour towards her he honours with the name of "mother" is extremely tender and touching. Look at Ráma. The loving, dutiful son, the faithful brother, the tender protecting husband, the devoted friend, the magnanimous foe, in every relation of life he realises our ideal of man, while his character as sovereign, "a ruler of men," transcends all his private virtues. The picture drawn by the immortal poet is faultless, absolutely faultless in detail as in the aggregate. And Sitá? Mistress of a thousand womanly graces—the fond faithful wife, the tender being twice transplanted by relentless fate from the bosom where she had learnt but yesterday to nestle so close—the suspected, repudiated wife, scorned of the foul-mouthed rabble, left alone by the husband in the trackless desert to the mercy of the fierce beasts and the fierce elements, leading an aimless, hopeless life; now exhausted by reason of her loneliness, now cheered by the thought of her precious burden, the pledge of her short-lived union—whose unselfish soul rises superior to all personal discomforts, and who, in the midst of insupportable misery, even in the agonies of travail, has no thought but of her Ráma, "the beloved of my heart, my true, my tender, my eternal lover, who has deserted me because he thought fit!"
Happy the nation who can claim Ráma and Sitá, for their ideal. Blessed the hearth at which are offered tributes of national homage to this peerless pair, when the simple children of toil—the rough old artisan, his matter-of-fact dame, and the sweet, simple, romantic girl—mingle honest tears as the family priest recites some favourite passage out of the sacred volume! And blessed, thrice blessed, the man (if only man he was) whose genius could soar up to the very fount of divine inspiration; and who could create two beings of such exquisite grace, before whose realistic and ever-enduring nature the works of such literary giants as Homer and Firdousi look mean and distorted. With all its varied brilliancy it must be admitted that European genius pales and retreats before the fire of Oriental genius, even as the wan and sickly queen of night pales and retreats before the glorious lord of day.
The Sanskrit Language.
Sanskrit is a wonderful language; almost each word of it has a double meaning, the esoteric and exoteric. In this respect, as in others, it is the most capable of the world's languages. And when such a poet as Válmiki writes in such a language as Sanskrit, the outcome of his labours must, of course, be inimitable. Each verse of the Rámáyan has a world of hidden meaning. Each simple line, which looks common-place at first sight, discovers, when carefully studied, an unbroken scene of beauty, under the surface, a glorious panorama of "sweetness and light," where the reader, drinking his fill of the freshest and healthiest sentiment, forgets himself in the contemplation of the genius that conjured up a creation so perfect in symmetry and proportion. At such times his first thought is to forswear his own namby-pamby puerilistics and be content in life with a loving study of the great master.
- ↑ Supposed author of the epic.