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kshatriya values of conquest and protection must be defended and brahmanas shown deference; the use of violence is called for whenever the Brahmanical Dharma is in danger and needs to be protected. There are some traces, though, of earlier forms of society, for example when the king is about to hold the ashvamedha and other ceremonies he consults with the elders, both of his family and others. In the clan society, typically, elders are always consulted if any serious decision is to be made or action taken. The praja, the subjects, try to hold back Rama, Sita and Lakshmana from going into exile despite their knowing there is a royal order—once again, a remnant of the old clan society. We are constantly reminded that arajya, the absence of kingship, is a state of chaos. The exile arises out of a crisis of primogeniture; if primogeniture had been observed there would have been no crisis because Rama would automatically have become the king. I would like to argue that the society of the rakshasa in Valmiki’s Ramayana is a clan-based society and therefore inherently the enemy of the kingdom of Ayodhya. (Not all clans are enemies, though; the Vanaras, Myth Retold – Romila Thapar although a clan society, are allies.) In its organisation and functioning, the rakshasa society is more like the ganasangha and conforms little to the Kautilyan model. Ravana is the chief who, in a crisis, always consults his main support who are his kinsmen. The rakshasas have no territorial boundaries; they wander freely everywhere. Access to large forested areas was of course essential to the basic occupation of clan societies: hunting and gathering, pastoralism, shifting cultivation, and tapping mineral wealth and forest produce. Therefore, since the forest was crucial to their society and their economy, people encroaching into the forest were to be resisted. So it was natural that Rama entering the forest would be resisted by the forest dwellers, the rakshasas. Lanka is described as resplendent but little is said about the source of this wealth. One suspects that this is the poet’s fantasy coming into play. The fabulous wealth of the city of Lanka is doubtless an attempt to show that this was an extraordinary enemy that Rama was contesting. The rakshasas do not observe caste, or the rules of commensality, pollution or marriage, which are crucial to caste societies, and they attack Brahmanical rites. 39
40 ArtConnect: The IFA Magazine, Volume 6, Number 1 The Paumachariya retells the skeletal story of the Valmiki Ramayana but from another perspective. The characters in the various variants are all Jainas, and this includes Ravana. They dress like forest dwellers and the epithet that is commonly used for them is nilanjana, antimony, associating them with a dark colour. They are also connected with sorcery. Their form of worship is strange, and is conducted sometimes in chaityas, local, non-Vedic shrines, which subsequently became the name for Buddhist halls of worship. The Jaina Variant Now I’ll come to the third variant, the Paumachariya, which reads like a Jain commentary on Valmiki’s Ramayana. Vimala Suri simply says, the existing versions of the Rama story are untrue and I will now tell you the story as it actually happened. And the Paumachariya in fact retells the skeletal story of the Valmiki Ramayana but from another perspective. The characters in the various variants are all Jainas, and this includes Ravana. There is a pre- determined hostility between Rama and Ravana: Rama is what in cosmography is called Vasudeva, and Ravana, the Prativasudeva, is his opposite. There are no rakshasas in the Paumachariya as in the Valmiki version. The main characters belong to four major lineages: the Ikshvaku and the Somavamsa, known to the earlier work; and then the two other lineages Harivamsha and the Vidyadhara. The Harivamsha has to do with the Vrishnis and Krishna neither of which have a presence in the Paumachariya. The Vidyadhara lineage acquires the maximum respect because it is associated with learning. Of the Ikshvakus, Sagara is remembered as a great hero, as he also is in the Valmiki Ramayana. The major clan associated with the Vidyadhara is the Meghavahana—literally, the cloud vehicle, and it migrated to Lanka under the leadership of its chief,
Page 2 and 3: Contents EDITORIAL 3 READING VISUAL
Page 4 and 5: IFA has collaborated with Adishakti
Page 6 and 7: Reading Visuals: Timeless Voyages o
Page 10 and 11: The divine messenger (Agnipurusha)
Page 12 and 13: they sit in mournful contemplation
Page 14 and 15: upon a blue-gold sky. Or elsewhere
Page 16 and 17: his daughter in marriage. Dasharath
Page 18 and 19: Reading Visuals - Gulammohammed She
Page 20 and 21: It is difficult to summarise the na
Page 22 and 23: There are numerous other sights tha
Page 24 and 25: produces a rare form of intimate ye
Page 26 and 27: Reading Visuals - Gulammohammed She
Page 28: set upon a luminous red ground. In
Page 31 and 32: Myth Retold: Variants of the Story
Page 33 and 34: 32 ArtConnect: The IFA Magazine, Vo
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Page 69: Wayang Kulit: Where Ravana Dances i
Page 72 and 73: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo the Javan
Page 74 and 75: I could explain what Malaysia is, c
Page 76 and 77: when a member of your family is suf
Page 78 and 79: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo 77 Hanuma
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Page 82 and 83: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo Ravana or
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Page 86 and 87: Wayang Kulit during the 1970s, 1980
Page 88 and 89: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo Winged in
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the aim was to ‘museumise’ this
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104 About IFA India Foundation for
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