Queen Red-Ant pitches in
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A retrograde step, says Brinda Karat
Special Correspondent
JAIPUR: Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat has termed the UPA government's decision to withdraw the affidavit in the Supreme Court on the Ramar Sethu issue "an act of succumbing to pressure from the communal forces."
"We supported the initial decision of the government to withdraw certain references in the text, but the full withdrawal of the affidavit and seeking three months to reconsider the issue are surely a retrograde step," she said.
"We will not tolerate any going back on the issue. A rethinking on the construction of the Sethusamudram project would surely be taken as yielding to pressure from the communal forces," Ms. Karat said at the Rajasthan College here while delivering a lecture on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. "What kind of coalition is this? They [the Congress] did not consult the DMK on the issue before the Minister gave a statement."
"First, they botched it up by bringing in extraneous aspects in the affidavit. Talking about the sethu, they brought in the bhagwan's name. We wanted those things to be dropped from the affidavit but they totally withdrew it," Ms. Karat said.
"While the Sethusamudram project was discussed in Parliament, the Congress and the DMK had taken a clear stand on it. The project was taken up during the Vajpayee government's regime, and now his party had sensed the potential the issue had for whipping up communal passions," she said.
Tulsidas's seminal rendition of the Ram story makes no mention of the Lakshman rekha in the episode dealing with Sita's abduction. The line surfaces only later, in distant Lanka, when Ravan's wife, Mandodri, advises him to give up his obstinacy and refrain from fighting the illustrious Raghus. She points out that Lakshman had drawn a protective line around Sita in the forest, which Ravan couldn't even cross! Sita could be abducted only after she was tricked into breaching it; the Lakshman rekha has since become the ethical standard of Hindu self-restraint, discipline, and sense of limit.
This moral dimension was shaken when a Union Government-approved affidavit claimed before the Supreme Court that there is no 'historic' or 'scientific' evidence of the existence of the maryada purushottam. <b>This contemptuous attitude towards Hindu civilisation's greatest moral exemplar has caused shock all over the Hindu universe, from Jammu & Kashmir to Kanyakumari, to Trinidad & Tobago, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, Myanmar, Kampuchea, Indonesia, Bali, Malaysia, Nepal, Java, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand; regions whose national culture has been shaped by the benign presence of Lord Ram. </b>
Originally a dispute over a sand and coral formation uniting the Indian mainland with its island neighbour, Ram Setu has catapulted into a bridge of India's Hindu identity and nationhood, straddling centuries of collective sloth and amnesia. The Tamil Kings of Jaffna (13th to 16th centuries AD) once called themselves "Sethu Kavalar", protectors of Rameshwaram and the surrounding seas; south India principally reveres Lord Ram as Kodanda-Rama, deity with the bow.
The military career of this armed god, born to defeat the forces of darkness and tyranny and uphold dharma, was a saga of successive triumphs. He was invincible before the Rakshas and Asurs who were inimical to Vedic dharma. Even prior to the first century BC, Lord Krishna identified Lord Ram as the highest example of a warrior (Bhagavad Gita, X 31).
Significantly, of the multifarious roles of this divinity - ideal son, ideal brother, ideal husband, ideal human being - post-independence India has most valued the ideal king! This is precisely what is sought to be demeaned by the Archaeological Survey of India's audacious affidavit, duly vetted by the Union Law Ministry, declaring Lord Ram a non-historic figure. For Lord Ram was a king deeply concerned with his subjects' judgement of his way of living, and anxious to measure up to their expectations of him.
Â
T<b>he backlash over the Ram Setu affidavit may yet teach modern India's foreign-born and native-secular rulers that in the Hindu civilisational ethos, rajdharma (duty of the king) means embracing and upholding the dharma of the people. There are no exemptions; Ashok's decision to make Buddhism the state religion and propagate it through state-appointed missionaries is perceived as an undesirable aberration. The quest for Ram rajya is the search for an ideal realm where people are happy, prosperous, well-behaved and contented; poverty and social ills are rare. India is thus the only country in the world where a ruler may not impose his dharma upon the people (convert them); he must honour the dharma of the people. </b>
Even if Lord Ram was a figment of the collective Hindu imagination, he cast an enduring spell over subsequent epochs. The Harivamsa, a second-third century AD work on Lord Krishna, lauds Lord Ram's rule as the most righteous age on earth. The Vayu Puran, dated not later than fifth century AD, says Lord Ram had a long reign and in his kingdom the chants of the Rig, Yajur, and Sam Ved were heard ceaselessly and people gave and ate to their hearts content. Kalidas, himself a Shaiva, honed his poetic skills glorifying the Iksvakus and Lord Ram. The Gurjar-Pratihars who worsted the Arabs in the ninth century AD, trace their genealogy to Lakshman, brother of Lord Ram, as revealed by the Gwalior Prasasti of Mihir Bhoj, seventh king of the dynasty. Tukaram extolled Shivaji's reign as Ram rajya in which ruler and subjects were all equal and there was all-round welfare.
Interestingly, the first tsunami of 2004 came soon after the arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya on specious grounds of conspiracy to murder. The second warning, when the ocean literally growled and tremors measured eight on the Richter scale, came within hours of the Centre declaring there was no historic evidence of Lord Ram and the Setu was a mere sandbank.
Retreat was equally swift. With mid-term election looming threateningly on the horizon, the official dogma reinvented itself: Certainly there is Lord Ram. Till recently a mythological hero, the god metamorphosed into "an integral part of Hindu faith" whose existence can never be doubted. In the three months reprieve sought to 'study' the feasibility of the canal, there may finally be a Ram Setu as well. Popular belief (astha) is nothing; but popular vote surely counts!
The tsunami warning is not a secular matter of environmental degradation. For Hindus, also at stake is our panch-tatva (debt) to the panch-tatva that make the universe: Earth, water, fire, air, ether, and all creatures within. Contrary to the Western world-view, man alone is not the measure of all things, and we have no right to desecrate nature. The Gulf of Mannar is an indivisible water body which impacts the coasts of India and Sri Lanka. Any dredging here can trigger the fault-lines and the heat-flow zone, causing incalculable damage to the coast and aquatic resources. Yet, tsunami effects and tsunami protection measures were not included in the Sethusamundram Shipping Channel Project report, though this affects coastline security. Hopefully, this lacuna will be addressed in the three month review period.
At stake is a rich and endangered marine life and the sensitive ecosystem in the Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar, including Dugong sea turtles, dolphins and sea horses that thrive in the coral reefs. Under UNESCO's Man and Biosphere Programme, the Gulf of Mannar environs were notified as a Marine Biosphere Reserve by the Government of India. The 10,500 sq km area, with 21 islands with continuous stretches of coral reef, is home to over 3,600 rare species of flora and fauna. Five coastal districts depend upon this marine resource.
<b>The ASI affidavit was a shameful attempt to humiliate Hindu dharma by belittling a defining feature of Hindu tradition. Unsurprisingly, this flagrant violation of the Lakshman rekha roused the languorous Hindu elephant to protest. Let it now trumpet the regime's fall.</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> <b>Dredging stops at Sethusamudram </b>
Chennai, Sept 18: With the stoppage of the Sethusamudram project work in Ram Sethu area, the three ships involved in dredging have been sent to Nagapattinam, about 270 km from here.
The dredging work was stopped at 4 PM yesterday and the ships involved in transporting workers and disposing the silt had also been sent to Nagapattinam last evening, official sources said today.
However, a top official of the project refused to clarify why the ships were being sent to Nagapattinam and also declined to comment on future plans.
The dredging ships had so far desilted 35 cubic million feet out of 82 MCft of silt.
Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu yesterday said the dredging would be resumed soon by obtaining appropriate orders from the Supreme Court, which had put on hold demolition of Ram Sethu while passing interim orders on a PIL.
The apex court had, however, allowed the dredging activity to continue to the extent that it did not in anyway cause any destruction to the Ram Sethu, the mythical bridge situated south-east off Rameswaram. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Dravidian Kazhagam, a British imperialist stooge organisation, has recently threatened to burn the Ramyana in a public protest against âAryan Supremacyâ for opposing the destruction of the Ram Sethu in the implementation of the Sethusamudram Canal Project.
............
Ramayana is not a myth: S.R. Rao <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->His excavations near Dwaraka found parts of the town where Lord Krishna livedÂ
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âDiscovery of the submerged Kusasthali Dwaraka is a historical truthâ
âTradition depicts Hampi in Karnataka as Kishkindha, a place visited by Ramaâ
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Bangalore: <b>President of the Society for Marine Archaeology in India S.R. Rao said that Ramayana cannot be dismissed as a myth, just as it was done earlier in the case of Mahabharata. </b>
In a press release, the former scientist emeritus said that the discovery of the submerged Kusasthali Dwaraka is a historical truth now and the experts had dubbed Mahabharata as a myth.
Neolithic culture
In the case of Ramayana, he said strong tradition depicts Hampi in Karnataka as Kishkindha, which was visited by Rama. The culture of Kishkindha at that time was of Neolithic levels, it said.
Prof. Rao, who undertook deep-sea excavations near Dwaraka, discovered the submerged parts of the town where Krishna lived when he was director of National Institute of Oceanography.
He said that the culture (seen in Kishkindha) has several Neolithic sites spread over Patapadu and Pusalpadu in Bellary district. Another important site is Bandi Pushala Chenu in Bellary-Kurnool area where excavations of the Harappan steatite wheel-like beads are found.
These beads occur in all Harappan sites as early as 3000 BC.
Weapons
Bithur near Kanpur, a traditional Ramayana site, had yielded weapons of the culture, archeologically designated as ochre-coloured pottery, ranging from 1500 to 2000 BC or even 3000 BC near Ghaneswar in Rajasthan.
Excavations at the Neolithic culture site at Mahagara in the Belan valley of Uttar Pradesh yielded rice dated around 4000 BC.
Further north-west in Pakistan, the cotton growing Neolithic culture is 7,000 years old (5000 BC). When Rama came to Kishkindha, the Vanaras were the same Neolithic people, whose help he took, said Prof. Rao.
The archaeological dating of Neolotihic culture ranged from 4000 BC in Uttar Pradesh to 7600 BC in pre-Harappan sites of Pakistan. On this basis, Ramayana should be dated at least to 3000 BC, if not earlier.
Core of truth
<b>The Mahabharata, he said, mentioned Ramayana, while the Ramayana did not mention Mahabharata. There is no negative evidence to say that Ramayana was a myth. </b>
<i>(Of course Prof Witzel argued in CA that Mahabharata came before Ramayana - or who cares)</i>
Ramayana is built on a core of truth depicting the life of a particular people and period, Prof. Rao added.
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Dr. S Swamy's hilarious rejoinder to MK. (MK had earlier asked whether Lord Rama was a trained engineer to have built a bridge.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NT Bureau
Chennai, Sept 18:
    Chief Minister M Karunanidhi should retire from public life, Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy said today. In a rejoinder to Karunanidhi's remarks that Lord Ram was an imaginary character and Ram Sethu (Adam's Bridge) was not man-made, Subramanian Swamy said, 'the remarks against Lord Rama by Karunanidhi is rapidly becoming pathetic and may indicate that he is under pressure from outside much as from the terrorist outfits like the LTTE.
    'The LTTE has long wanted a short and quick access for its contraband boats from Jaffna Peninsula to Tuticorin and Kaniyakumari for its nefarious terrorist activities'.
    Karunanidhi's attempt to disparage Lord Rama by asking if Bhagwan Sri Rama was a trained engineer to build such a bridge and if so from which college of engineering did Rama obtain his degree, is silly and objectionable under Section 295 of the IPC. 'I can turn the query of Karunanidhi on him by asking if he even passed High School exams much less engineering college. Yet so many buildings in the State have been named after him. He has a TV channel named after him', Swamy said.
On a serious note, it is quite well known that the LTTE are actively canvassing the destruction of the bridge, because it will mean easy transport of arms between India and Sri Lanka, and smuggling of illegal immigrants (LTTE fighters) into India from Sri Lanka. MK is most likely in on this deal, because he and his family stand to make lots of money from the LTTE if the project materializes. The Ram Sethu project should pose a great security concern to India, because it will greatly facilitate the LTTE presence and their operations in the Indian soil.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Sonia can't shirk responsibility for affidavit: VHP </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Tuesday said Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi could not escape the responsibility of insulting the faith of Hindus by just making a couple of Government officers scapegoats for the controversial affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court vis-Ã -vis the row over Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP).
VHP leaders who met here to take stock of the situation following the Government's decision to withdraw the affidavit and the agitation going on across the country also suggested the Centre to re-consider the different alignments available so that the Ram Setu could be saved.
VHP leaders felt Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karundanidhi's remarks on Lord Ram exposes that he was having some "hidden interest" in the SSCP. "He has also sought to divide the country by raising the issue of Arya versus Dravids. It is highly objectionable and condemnable," the outfit said in a resolution adopted after the meeting.
<b>It also warned the Centre for an intense backlash in case if it decided to go ahead with the SSCP with present alignments and demolish the Ram Setu in order to complete the SSCP. The VHP also urged upon people to shun regionalism and launch a comprehensive and united campaign against any attempt to destroy the structure of historical and cultural importance.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Top Stories
It's a "civil war" over Ram in UPA: BJP
New Delhi, Sept. 19 (PTI): The BJP on Tuesday said the Ram Setu affidavit fiasco has triggered a " full-scale civil war" in the UPA.
"It's a full-scale civil war in the UPA, a signal of collapse of this unnatural alliance," BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said at a news conference here.
The BJP leader, who flayed Karunanidhi for his remarks on Lord Ram, said he wondered why the ruling Congress stopped short of condemning them outright.
"Those remarks are more offensive than the affidavit (on the Ram Setu). The Congress should explain its stand on them," Javadekar said.
He alleged that the UPA would soon break apart as he cited a string of statements by leaders of the ruling alliance against one another.
"National interest has become a casualty to this civil war in the UPA which is evident from the statements of Jairam Ramesh and R K Dhawan aginst Ambika Soni. Then there is Sibal's spat with the Left. The UPA is sinking vessel," Javadekar said.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ram row: Bomb hurled at TN CM's daughter's house
September 18, 2007 23:41 IST
Suspected Sangh Parivar activists on Tuesday night attacked the house of Selvi, the daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, in Bangalore.
The unidentified assailants hurled a petrol bomb and stones protesting her father's remarks against Lord Ram.
A Tamil Nadu government bus bound for Bangalore was set on fire at Bommanahalli, about 35km from Bangalore, police said.
A 50-member strong group, shouting slogans against Karunanidhi for his remarks on Lord Ram and Ram Sethu, hurled the bomb and stones and damaged window panes of the house, the police said.
Selvi and her husband Selvam, who is heading the Sun TV [Get Quote] group's Kannada channel Udaya TV, were in Chennai when the incident took place, they said.
Two security personnel guarding the house were injured in the attack, they said adding the protestors pasted a sticker on the house condemning the chief minister's remarks.
The attackers dispersed on seeing the police. The police have provided security to the house.
On Saturday, addressing a public meeting at Erode in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi, while opposing the stalling of Ram Sethu project, had asked, "Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did he graduate?"
I hope we get our revenge the right way: depose UPA, kick maino back to her useless rome. I hope nobody screws this up. Karunanidhi can wipe tables then and remember who Ram is while doing it. No mis-steps, no sympathy votes for UPA.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Issue Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2007
<b>Ambika silent, Baalu wary of boomerang</b>
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (Kolkata, Telegraph)
New Delhi , Sept. 18: Ambika Soni has shut herself up in her house and gone silent. Her staff had only one terse message for journalists: "Madam will answer all your questions once she meets the Prime Minister."
However, there is no word yet on when Manmohan Singh would give his culture and tourism minister time, though he has been discharged from AIIMS and returned home in "good health" after prostate surgery.
In Transport Bhavan in Parliament Street, another minister looked like he, too, was under the weather.
Shipping and transport minister T.R. Baalu called the media to put up his first defence in a case that put the government, the Congress and the UPA on the defensive after the BJP and the Sangh hit the streets over the "Ram setu" controversy.
Ambika's and Baalu's ministries were in the spotlight. The two affidavits withdrawn from the Supreme Court were based on inputs from their departments.
But while Ambika looked like she could end up becoming the fall girl for the government's now-retracted suggestion that there was no "incontrovertible" proof that Ram ever lived, Baalu declared he would "periodically fire salvos".
The difference between their positions is political and ideological. Ambika's party, the Congress, is scared of alienating the middle class, whereas Baalu's party, the DMK, has regional constituents to answer to.
The Sethusamudram project, crucial to south Tamil Nadu's uplift, has been a long-standing demand of the people of the region. The state legislature has passed at least 20 resolutions in support of the project, first envisioned in a poem by the legendary Subramaniam Bharati. The BJP feels the project would destroy a bridge Hanuman's monkey army is said to have built for Ram.
<b>The only problem is: what happens to Baalu if Ambika puts in her papers accepting responsibility for the "offending" ASI affidavit? </b>
<b>An unconfirmed report said DMK chief M. Karunanidhi, in a bid to "save" Baalu, phoned Sonia Gandhi and suggested that she should not push for Ambika's resignation.</b>
Baalu refused comment, saying: "I don't know anything about such matters."
The DMK leader said he didn't feel let down that his ministry's affidavit was withdrawn. "But the shipping ministry paid special attention to the affidavit. I myself took time off to go through each and every line," he said. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070919/asp/...ry_8334569.asp#
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> couldn't nidhi have paid someone to do it to get political mileage?
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There's plenty sibiling rivalry in the Karnunanidhi clan. Remember that couple months ago there were street fights in Chennai when a newspaper reported one kid was more popular than other. Even a Lok Shabha (Maran ?)member had to resign on this episode.
This is from about 9 years ago... Karunanidhi's ode to Ravana has political significance
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Karunanidhi's objection was that the ancient poets and authors depicted the 'Tamil King' Ravana as an evil force who represented adharma and destruction. He angrily went on to say, "<b>If you insult Ravana, you are insulting me.</b>"<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ahem... Mr. Karunanidhi, you question the historicity of Rama but offended by insults to Ravana!! Why?? What are we missing here?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There's plenty sibiling rivalry in the Karnunanidhi clan. Remember that couple months ago there were street fights in Chennai when a newspaper reported one kid was more popular than other. Even a Lok Shabha (Maran ?)member had to resign on this episode. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Three software Engineer lost their life because of these fools family feud for power.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Sethu Samudram project is a prestige issue for so-called âDravidianâ politicians. It is a matter of hubris waiting for nemesis. There is an unfortunate vanity among some groups that they can, god-like, mold the world. The âDravidiansâ are such a neo-Semitic quasi-religious group, with blind faith in some easily refuted axioms, exactly like the Communists. This is not to discount, of course, the very rational and real lure of lucrative drilling and dredging contracts, but King Canute does leap to mind.
Just as the Communists did with the Aral Sea and the Aswan Dam and the Three Gorges, the âDravidiansâ of Tamil Nadu will also act in haste and repent at leisure. Alas, the rest of peninsular India will have to pay for their folly.
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(Ramana/Mudy: might make sense to merge this thread with Rama Setu thread, if not let me know)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Stay away from Ramlilas: VHP tells Congress, UPA leaders </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Wednesday asked people to stop Congress and UPA leaders from attending Ramlilas and said "those who have challenged the existence of Lord Ram have no right to take part in any celebration related to the God."
<b>VHP patriarch Ashok Singhal believes Congress leaders were afraid of admitting that Lord Ram was a historical figure as a 'foreigner' in their camp was the main architect of the entire plan that badly hurt Hindu sentiments.</b>
Singhal said, <b>"The Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi realised the power of Lord Ram and subsequently withdrew the controversial affidavit. But, there conduct afterwards has been very suspicious. With a couple of Ministers and UPA allies still raising their heads with one or the other controversial remarks on Lord Ram, we would like to warn them to mend ways." </b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
09-20-2007, 01:40 AM (This post was last modified: 09-20-2007, 01:42 AM by ramana.)
Op-ed in Pioneer, 20 Sept., 2007
Note the author is anguished and his comments really are about the upper class welle ducated modernised Hindu and dont apply to the rest of the population.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Servile Hindu, timid Hindu
Second opinion: KR Phanda
The original affidavit submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India in the Supreme Court, which had inter alia asserted that Lord Ram did not exist, reflects a deeper malaise afflicting Hindus. <b>Often it is believed that due to centuries of being suppressed during the medieval period, many Hindus suffer from a servility or slavery complex. This may be a simplistic generalisation, but a complex does afflict them, which finds expression in different manners.</b>
Jewish scholar Bat Ye'or wrote a book, Islam and Dhimmitude. Even though his study is confined to the experiences in West Asia, Africa and Europe, it gives enough clues to what actually ails Hindus. <b>During much of the Mughal period, barring the reigns of emperors Akbar and Shah Jahan, Hindus were considered dhimmis (protected subjects). All of them were liable to pay jizyah as a price for protection. The dhimmi status was not only humiliating, but it also brought with it a number of complexes. To accept oppression became normal.</b>
By any benchmark of human quality, the status of the dhimmis was sub-human. <b>An average Hindu was scared; he rarely expressed his resentment. The educated and well-off Hindu, however, gave some interesting excuses for being submissive. In the process, the Hindu elite developed masochistic tendencies. They got sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain on their co-religionists.</b>
<b>Mahatma Gandhi, an undisputed leader of Hindus during the freedom struggle, did nothing to cure the inherited psychological disorder.</b> Instead, he repeatedly recommended submission. He said that if one was slapped on one cheek, instead of slapping back, the other cheek should be offered. The Communist Party of India, founded in the 1920s, sponsored the other channel of slavishness of Hindus. Its leaders acted on the commands of their bosses from Moscow. So, Hindu leaders have either not conveyed the feelings of average citizens or have misrepresented them.
<b>Ever since the Congress came back to power in 2004, it has pursued a one-point programme: Muslims first.</b> Earlier, Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had taken it for granted that Hindus would obey their whimsical commands that exhorted them to be docile. The present crop of Congress leaders is no different. Little wonder, Muslims despised Hindus "as a servile race" as mentioned in Sir William Hunter's book, The Indian Musalmans.
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Another trait developed during the Colonial period- Muslim & British rule was the lack of osetentatious display of wealth or prosperity by Hindus. This was because the Sultan/Ruler and his cohorts could demand whatever you possess and enforce the demand. Hence people had to be wary of showing off their wealth or else buri nazar types could get the Sultan's ear and its kaput for them. Another was the suppression of public display of happiness. I am glad that the Punjabification by way of bhangra and the ostentatious Kurta etc has spread to all parts of India. This is one way of de-dhimmification of Indian society.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Karunanidhi wrong, Ram an ancient Tamil icon
P Ananthakrishnan delves into scholarly and popular Tamil literature that celebrates Ram and Ramayan
One of the most celebrated quotations of Marx is the one about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Had he been watching the television debates on the controversy regarding Ram Setu, he would have concluded that the real tragedy is that history has finally attained the steady-state of farce. The nonsense that is bandied in these discussions is staggering even when one takes into account the fact that so-called specialists are barely allowed to speak and, when they are, they are commanded to give their answers in binary, yes/no terms. Â
A case in point is the discussion on Ram in Tamil tradition. One historian said Ram had never been a popular god in Tamil Nadu and he was more a literary figure than a religious one. He went on to add that iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil country was scarce and people even feared that if they worshipped Ram, tragedy would strike them. Another worthy stated that Ram was worshipped by a small group of Vaishnavites. Inevitably, the Aryan-Dravidian divide came up. The Great Political Thespian of India, M Karunanidhi, had the last word. <b>He asked, rhetorically, "Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did he graduate?" </b>
<b>I am not sure, but certainly not from one of the "self-financing" colleges of Tamil Nadu. If he had, he would not have been able to make a plank to cross a brook, leave alone build a bridge to span a gulf. </b>
Is it really that Ram was scarcely known in Tamil country?
Before answering this question, let me make my position very clear on this issue. I am not exactly a believer. And I am of the view that the Sethusamudram project must go ahead, if it has no serious ecological, geological, technological and, what is more, bribe-related implications.
<b>The Ramayan finds a mention in at least two places in the Sangam corpus, which is traditionally dated between 200 BC and 200 AD. </b>In one reference, Ram orders chirping birds to silence. In another, the monkeys wear, in a monkey-like manner, the jewels discarded by Sita while she was being abducted by Ravan. It is worthwhile to note here that both these incidents find no mention in the Valmiki Ramayan. The ease with which these incidents have been woven into the poems indicates that the Ramayan story was well known in the Tamil country during the Sangam period.
<b>The next reference to Ram occurs in the epic Silappadikaram - "The Tale of an Anklet". </b>It was written in the Second Century AD by Ilango Adigal, a prince who became a Jain monk. It is an unforgettable literary masterpiece that was made into an eminently forgettable Tamil film by Karunanidhi himself. In this epic, shepherdesses sing ballads in praise of both Ram and Krishna, clearly identifying them as avatar s of Vishnu.
The works of the Vaishnava saints <b>the Alwars</b>, collectively known as "The Sacred Four Thousand," <b>have innumerable allusions to Ram and the Ramayan</b>. The Alwars prospered between the Sixth and the Tenth Centuries AD. As Vasudha Narayanan points out in her excellent essay on the Ramayan (available at www.ramanuja.org), in the work of one Alwar alone there are 106 allusions to Ram and the Ramayan and there are six "sets" of poems (about 63 verses) where the words are spoken by the Alwar in the guise of a character form the Ramayan. This Alwar, it must be noted, is not a Brahmin.
The Saiva saints, <b>the Nayanmars, most of whom are contemporaries of the Alwars, also stud their verses with episodes from the Ramayan. Then we have the greatest Tamil poet of them all, Kamban</b>.
His Ramayan is correctly considered the acme of Tamil literary achievement. In about 10,000 verses Kamban, who, again, is not a Brahmin and is a grand scholar of Sanskrit and an unabashed admirer of Valmiki, <b>establishes that, for his bhakta s, Rama is the One who is the origin of all</b>. This, it must be remembered, is a sure departure from Valmiki, for whom Rama was only a Maryada Purushottam.
Thus, it is clear that the Tamil country has an uninterrupted tradition of worshipping Ram at least right from the Second Century AD.
The iconographic evidence of Ram in Tamil Nadu is too numerous to narrate here. There are temples to Ram that date back at least to the Ninth Century AD. Some of the greatest Chola bronzes are of Ram - a few of them are on display at the National Museum in Delhi. Some of the masterpieces are worshipped to this day, without interruption, from the day they were consecrated. Today, there is hardly any major city in Tamil Nadu that doesn't have a Ram shrine. Hanuman, of course, pervades everywhere. One of the biggest statues of Hanuman is enshrined in a Chennai suburb, where festival days result in horrendous traffic snarls.
Curiously, this hoary tradition of Ram worship in the Tamil country has led to historian Suvira Jaiswal claiming in March 2007 that (in the words of The Hindu) the Ram cult took birth and evolved in the South, the "Dravida" country, and later got assimilated into the religious psyche of the North! This has evoked a testy response from, of all people, a Tamil, Dr Nagaswamy, a respected art historian and archaeologist, who says that the Ram cult must have originated in the North, perhaps as early as the Second Century BC.
There is <b>nothing more ridiculous than calling Ravan a Dravidian hero</b>. <b>Ravan is in fact a top-of-the drawer Brahmin. He is the great grandson of Brahma himself, the grandson of Pulastya Maharishi and the son of Visravas, another rishi.</b> There is another point to be made here. The beautiful temple at Rameswaram is dedicated to Shiva. According to the Sthalapurana the Shivalinga in the temple is supposed to have been installed by Ram himself for worship. Why did he want to worship Shiva? It was to expiate the sin of Brahmahatya (killing a Brahmin).
There is indeed another great, real divide. This is between the Tamils and the Tam Brahms of Delhi, who are generally seen in these infernal TV discussions. <b>The Tam Brahms of Delhi has lost their Tamil roots long ago. I doubt many of them will be able to read Tamil with some degree of comfort. They have absolutely no clue about the Tamil traditions, culture or literature. </b>So long as they dominate the TV scene, there will only be sound and fury - sound from the Tam Brahms and fury from the Defenders of Dravidian Faith - signifying nothing.
-- The writer , a retired civil servant is an author and novelist
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