Ishwa helper Reged: 03/03/02 Posts: 553

Re: The Ramayan NEVER HAPPENED [Re: dhilwala2001] #17054 - 06/04/02 03:13 AM Edit Reply Quote

It is understandable to question the historicity of characters any (holy) scripture. But that wouldn't explain the many historical sites and situations from very ancient times related to Rama, remembered by people living in Greater Bharata: from India to Indonesia. I believe that India was from very ancient times greatly involved in that part. In Thai tradition it is firmly believed that the (hi)story of the Ramayana happened mainly in their country. (It's something for archeologists and historians to do research on more remoter ties than the so far told history of India in relation to the far South-East) Of course the myth around Rama has grown as his deeds etc. Every ancient work of India is an endproduct of a very long narrative tradition. And important characters are mostly a fusion of more previous independant characters. About the questions: 1. It doesn't sound odd to me that people go on a Yatra. It was a part of the devote life. It was done, whether healthy or sick, whether abled or disabled as an important part of their lives. The story of Shravana is a mean to explain the later developments of the Ramayana story. This is a narrative technique, which is a special feature of epic works and Puranas. 2. The story about the deer is again a narrative aspect, most probably not belonging to the original story the way it is depicted. The deer is the distractive mean to introduce the coming of Rakshasas (who used to being around in that area, though far from their own homes). The Ramayana is a mixture of historicity and legends embellished with narrative extensions. After these developments it did get a Dharmika flavour: The whole story was put ingeniously into a philosophical frame to serve metaphysical concepts. (This same has happened with many ancient and/or epic works)