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Myth Retold – Romila Thapar
A myth grows through additions and changes. So we
have to ask what the trajectory was of the Valmiki
Ramayana at various times in Indian history.
myth and why. I would argue that
these texts do not claim historicity but
reflect a historical consciousness, a
consciousness that what they are
narrating may have happened in the
past. This would suggest that we
investigate not the historicity of events
narrated in the texts, but how the
consciousness of the past itself has
been captured and given form through
the narrative. To me this seems to be
the way in which one has to analyse
what, for example, is being said in
Valmiki’s Ramayana. A myth grows
through additions and changes. So we
have to ask what the trajectory was of
the Valmiki Ramayana at various
times in Indian history. Why did this
particular story, articulated in this
particular form, capture popular
imagination? When and why was it
converted into a sacred text for the
Vaishnava Bhagavata sect by
representing Rama as an avatara of
Vishnu?
Passing reference is made to what
seems to have been an oral rama-katha,
which was converted into a written
kavya by Valmiki possibly during the
fourth or third century BC, and then
this was added to in the later periods.
The Valmiki Ramayana became a
hegemonic text from the late first
millennium AD. It consists of seven
books, and most Ramayana scholars
accept that the first and the last book,
the Bala-kanda and the Uttara-kanda,
were later additions. It is in these
additions that the emphasis is on Rama
being an avatara. So when one talks
about the original Valmiki Ramayana
one is referring to books Two to Six.
Current scholarship assumes that the
Ramayana that Valmiki composed, and
which was added to, was written over a
period that stretched from 400 BC to
400 AD.
This chronological span of 800 years
would include the two variants that I
wish to discuss: the Buddhist version
of the Rama story, a very short version
known as the Dasaratha Jataka put
together in possibly the second
century BC; and the first of many
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