Rämäyaëa Volume 2:

Introduction to Ayodhyäkänòa —
Sheldon Pollock

Manjushree Hegde
Introduction
1. Prelude to the Ayodhyäkänòa
2. Synopsis of the Ayodhyäkänòa
3. The Central Issues
4. A Problem of Narrative and its Significance
5. The Philosophy
6. Aesthetic and Literary-Historical
Considerations
7. The Characters
8. The Women of the Ayodhyäkänòa
9. Daçaratha
10. Räma
The Red Flags

1. The Rämäyaëa, history or a myth?

2. Kingship

3. Caste-system

4. Fate
1 The Rämäyaëa — history or a myth?
For Pollock, Ayodhyäkänòa has a touch of reality
to its narration, while the rest is simply fantastic:

“…in the Araëyakänòa , we move abruptly into

“ the enchanted realm of the forests… peopled by
mighty sages…dreadful supernatural monsters, and
flying monkeys who can change their shapes and
sizes at will, and who speak elegant Sanskrit.”
 Such a romantic conception of South India was
possible because the author was unfamiliar with
peninsular India?

“
“ …The poet knows nothing about the Deccan
beyond the fact that brähmin hermitages are to be
found there. Otherwise, it is a region haunted by
the monsters and fabulous beings with which an
Indian imagination would people an unknown
land.”
Pollock concludes,

It is entirely “futile and wrongheaded” to identify

historical evidence for what is “a kind of elaborate
fairy tale”, for in doing so, “we are led away from a
true understanding of the work”
“It must be remembered that the myth is a symbol,
a representation of the reality that underlies all

“ fact, but never itself becomes a fact… I can and

do believe in the myth far more profoundly than in
any historical event which may or may not have
taken place…”
— Coomaraswamy
2 Indian Kingship
Part 1 – Transfer of Power
 Core of Epic Poems —

“ struggle among brothers for succession to the

hereditary throne”

“
“acquisition, maintenance, and execution of royal
power, the legitimacy of succession, the
predicament of transferring hereditary power
within a royal dynasty”
 Why?
1. It is improbable, says Pollock, that exclusive
royal dynasties existed in the vedic period — it
was a later development.

2. By the time of Rämäyaëa, the welfare of the

state had come to depend exclusively on the
king, political power had become entirely
concentrated in the hands of royalty.

3. For the first time, he says, it became a practice

to transfer royal power through heredity.
Problems

“…If hereditary power could not be transferred

smoothly, the consequences could be disastrous:
the fragmentation of the state among rival
claimants, or be a dangerous interregnum
entailing redistribution of power and liability to
external attack”
A solution — Pollock

“…For civilized society, the poet inculcates, by

positive precept and negative example, and with a
sometimes numbing insistence, a powerful new
code of conduct: hierarchically ordered,
unqualified submission”
Part 2 – Spiritual authority &
temporal power
 Kingship— a powerless institution?

“Kingship as an institution has no authority and

legitimacy of its own. It is dependent on the uneasy
relationship between the king and the brähmin …
the brähmin’s monopoly of the source of authority
and legitimization leaves the king with mere power
and effectively bars kingship from developing its
full potential as the central regulating force”
 A solution — Pollock

Räma… made his kñatriya dharma to absorb

brähmanical dharma and its legitimizing ethics—
nonviolence and spirituality. In this way, kñatriya
could become “self-legitimizing” and “the full
potential of kingship could be activated at last”…

“The hierarchical subordination that Räma and

the text explicitly upholds, is implicitly opposed by
his spiritual commitment…”
“…the absolute monarchies of the Orient are not
comparable to that of France immediately before
the revolution. The normal Oriental monarchy is
really a theocracy, in which the king’s position is
that of an executive who may do only what ought
to be done and is a servant of justice ( dharma ) of
which he is not himself the author. The whole
prosperity of the state depends upon the king’s
virtue— just as for Aristotle, the monarch who
rules in his own interest is not a king but a tyrant,
and may be removed like a mad dog.”
— Coomaraswamy
3 Caste - System
Välméki, Pollock insists, showed the
society to submit, on the one hand, to the
will of the elders, and on the other, to the
members of the hierarchically loftier
castes.

Also, Välméki showed women to submit

fully to their husbands/sons/fathers, and
thus, laid the foundation of a paternalistic
society.
4 Fate
In the question of fate v/s free-will, there
is, according to Pollock, absolutely no
place in the Indian scheme of things for
free-will/puruña-prayatna.
“In the Ayodhyäkänòa man is prohibited from
making his destiny… the fate of Rama and is
others is prepared for them, at some plane beyond
their intervention or even comprehension…”

“
“There is only a mechanical quality to the
course of human affairs, regulated only by some
‘dark, dumb force that turns the handle of this
world’…”
A solution

The traditional, orthodox view, and the ‘first

principles’ of Indian thought must be
effectively described to refute these issues
decisively.
Thank you.
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