The Many Retellings of the Ramayana

The makers of the movie “Adipurush” were no doubt hoping to cash in on India’s current obsession with all things Hindu when they decided to make a film based on the ancient Hindu epic, the Ramayana.

However, their calculations went horribly wrong. 

“Adipurush” crashed at the box office when it was released in mid-June. It has been criticized for just about everything – its shoddy screenplay, tacky VFX, and poor acting. Particularly offensive to viewers was the street slang used by Hanuman, the monkey god. 

Importantly, “Adipurush” has been slammed for distorting the Ramayana and making a mockery of Hindu gods. Protests calling for its ban erupted in Indian cities. Meanwhile, the Hindu Sena, a right-wing organization, filed a petition in the Delhi High Court claiming that the film “hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community by depicting the religious leaders/characters/figures in an inaccurate and inappropriate manner.” The “religious characters” are depicted “contrary to the image and descriptions in the Ramayana authored by writers like Maharishi Valmiki, Saint Tulsidas, etc.,” the petition said calling for the “removal of objectionable scenes” and denial of certification to the film for public viewing.

There were protests across the border in Nepal, too, where Balendra Shah, the mayor of Kathmandu, warned that if “objectionable dialogue” in “Adipurush” that referred to Sita as “India’s daughter” was not removed, he would block the film’s screening. 

Sita is believed to have been born in Janakpur, in present-day Nepal. But that’s not the case in all versions of the Ramayana. In some, she was born in Sitamarhi in present-day India. In others, she is said to have appeared miraculously.

Why has “Adipurush” drawn such criticism and ire? That the movie is poorly made is without a doubt. The cinematic criticism is therefore understandable.

As for the ire, much of it has come from the Hindu right-wing. For hardline devotees of the Hindu deity Rama, whose story the Ramayana is, this is a holy text. The “original” epic – i.e., the one that is believed to have been written by Sage Valmiki in Sanskrit over 2,500 years ago – is the only authentic story. Hardline Hindus look upon any digressions from Valmiki’s Ramayana as sacrilegious.

Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, is the main protagonist in Valmiki’s Ramayana and many other retellings of the epic that followed in subsequent millennia. He goes into exile in a forest for 14 years at the request of his father, Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya. Rama’s wife, Sita, and brother, Lakshmana, follow him into the forest. When Sita is abducted by the ten-headed King of Lanka, Ravana, Rama and Lakshmana raise an army of monkeys led by Hanuman, and cross the ocean to rescue her. A battle follows and Ravana is slain, good triumphs over evil, Sita is rescued, and Rama returns to Ayodhya to become king. 

Years later, when gossip questioning Sita’s chastity reaches Rama’s ears, he sends her away to the forest, where she, unknown to Rama, gives birth to twins. Rama meets the twins subsequently and on being told that they are his sons, asks her to undergo an agni pariksha (test by fire). Sita invokes her mother, the Earth, who opens up to embrace and swallow Sita. Rama then returns with his sons to Ayodhya. 

In the millenniums since Valmiki wrote the Ramayana in Sanskrit, countless others have retold the story in different languages and mediums, and through different lenses. 

“Just a list of languages in which the Rama story is found makes one gasp: Annamese, Balinese, Bengali, Cambodian, Chinese, Gujarati, Javanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Khotanese, Laotian, Malaysian, Marathi, Oriya, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan – to say nothing of Western languages,“ Indian poet and scholar A. K. Ramanujan wrote in his essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation,” which was published in the 1991 book, “Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia,” edited by Paula Richman.

“Through the centuries some of these languages have hosted more than one telling of the Rama story. Sanskrit alone contains some 25 or more tellings belonging to various narrative genres. If we add plays, dance-dramas, and other performances, in both the classical and folk traditions, the number of Ramayanas grows even larger,” Ramanujan continued. 

Written over many centuries, the various retellings of the Ramayana place the Rama story in different geographic locales (such as Southeast Asia, for instance) and historical and political contexts. How the main characters are depicted in the different versions varies.

The Jaina Ramayana of Vimalasuri, for instance, focuses not on Rama’s virtues, as does Valmiki’s Ramayana, but on Ravana’s erudition. In the Jaina texts, Ravana is fated by his karma to fall in love with Sita and bring upon himself his own death. In Ramakien, the Thai retelling of the Ramayana, Ravana is a scholar king worthy of respect. His pursuit of Sita stems from genuine love, not lust, and he emerges as a tragic figure. In the Bhil version of the Ramayana, there is no war; “because they don’t believe in violence, they don’t believe in war,” K. Satchidanandan, a poet and literary critic, pointed out in a 2018 interview.

All retellings of the Ramayana are not necessarily Rama’s story. There are several narrations of Sita’s point of view. In the 16th-century balladeer Chandrabati’s retelling of the epic, Sita pours out her sorrows. Tribal retellings are sympathetic to Sita; they scold Rama for heaping humiliations on his wife. Recent decades have seen a surge in feminist retellings where Sita is not a submissive character but a woman of strength. She is neither a damsel in distress nor is she freed from Ravana’s clutches by Rama as the traditional retellings claim. Rather, Sita liberates herself. 

To hardline Hindus, especially votaries of Hindutva, who view Indian history, society, and culture through a narrow lens of Hindu supremacism, upper caste domination, and patriarchy, the only Ramayanas that are acceptable are those written by Valmiki and Tulsidas, a 16th-century poet. Tulsidas wrote Ramacharitramanas in Awadhi, which made Valmiki’s Sanskrit version accessible to the masses and is therefore popular in northern India.

For believers, Rama is “Maryada Pushottam” (the ideal being), who is the obedient son, the perfect husband, and the ideal ruler. This and the fact that he appeals to large sections of Hindu society and is worshiped by every Hindu sect adds to his appeal to hardline Hindus. He’s the icon of the Hindutva movement. Any retelling of the Ramayana that veers away from Valmiki’s story is therefore unacceptable to them.

Indeed, articles and discussions that call attention to the multiple retellings of the Ramayana have invited further wrath. Ramanujan’s essay, for instance, met with ferocious opposition from the Sangh Parivar, a family of organizations and parties that espouse Hindutva. 

The inclusion of Ramanujan’s essay in the reading list of Delhi University’s B.A history (honors) syllabus so rattled the Sangh Parivar that their student organization, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, went on a rampage in 2008 and took the matter to court. The essay, which merely drew attention to the diversity in Ramayana retellings, was eventually withdrawn from the syllabus.

The Ramayana is among the most popular stories in India. Children hear the story from their parents and grandparents. They learn songs about its characters. If previously children read about Rama in comics and books, recent decades have seen a plethora of television serials and films based on the story. Children then go on to enact these stories through dance and drama in their neighborhoods, always retelling the epic with their own twists and turns. 

The Ramayana remains a popular story because it has evolved over millennia, adapting to social change, political upheavals, geographies, and technology. If people feel connected to the Ramayana, it is because it has always lent itself to multiple interpretations. 

The Ramayana has served as a vehicle for the spread of Indian culture to South and Southeast Asia. It has provided India with immense soft power and influence in these regions. Denying people or opposing their right to retell the Ramayana story will only limit its richness and the diversity of Indian culture.