Indian Antiquary Vol 41

SR No.: 032533
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 320
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 39 MB

Page 282

278
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[DECEMBER, 1912.
when there was apparently no reason for doing so; and we cannot suppose he did it out of mere love of novelty, since the facts examined above bear irrefragable testimony of his respect for the Valmikian tradition. In my opinion these variations, which do not seem to have sprung from the necessity of removing some points in the old epic as being in open contrast with the moral and religious spirit of the new poem, have crept into the Ramacharitamánasa in sundry ways and are partly voluntary and partly involuntary. I would therefore distinguish :
(a) The innovations, which Tulasi Dâsa knowingly introduced, conforming himself to other sources than the Ramayana. A clear allusion to those sources is made by the poet himself with the phrase kvacid anyato 'pi in the couplet quoted at the top of the present article ;10
(6) The innovations which Tulasi Dâsa introduced unconsciously without having any intention of swerving from Valmiki's path. These innovations, which, looking at their origin, we might more properly term mistakes or oversights, may be explained: (a) partly by supposing that the poet when composing those particular passages had not an exact vision of the Sanskrit text, but wrote from memory without perceiving that this was wrong; and (b) partly by considering that, in consequence of his continual effort to abridge and condense, when striving to constrain into a few verses the subject of several sargas of Valmiki, the poet may have involuntarily altered the appearance of the facts by relating them too concisely and defectively.
Let me give an example illustrative of this second class of alterations. In Ayodhyalanda, 156, Tulasi Dâsa, just after having described Daçaratha's last moments, enters immediately into the description of the bemoanings of the queens, forgetting to remark that they took place only in the following morning, and then goes on to relate the grief of all the servants and citizens, as if all this had taken place during the very night of Daçaratha's death. Then he says: "In such lamentations the night was spent, (till in the morning) all great and learned sages arrived" (156, 8). Now, according to this description, it would seem that the sages had arrived in the morning subsequent to the night of the king's death, whilst according to Valmiki they arrive, or rather assemble, only in the morning of the second day. That Tulasi Dasa, when writing this passage, had in mind and was closely following the corresponding passages in the Rámáyana cannot be doubted, as it is sufficiently proved by No. 31 of the parallel passages quoted later-on. It is clear that Tulasi Dasa simply forgot to mention the breaking of the first day.
In the same class of alterations is to be reckoned that which I would call the omission of the interval, and this is little short of a rule in the Ramacharitamanasa. Whenever in Valmiki's narrative there are two analogous events separated by an interval of not much importance and having the only effect of retarding the progress of the facts, Tulasi Dâsa passes over the interval and merges the two events. A few examples will explain the matter better:
(a) In the Ayodhyakanda (C, 4 B, 3) Valmiki relates that Daçaratha calls Râma into his presence, and after having informed him of his intention of consecrating him yuvaraja, enjoins on him the performance along with Sitâ of the fast preliminary to the ceremony (first event). Râma takes his
10 Tracing these sources is not within the limits of the present article. Let me only point out that they are to be looked for especially amidst the Puranas, and the Adhyatmaramayana and the Vasishthasamh it& are probably two of them. Sir G. Grierson calls my attention to the fact that several commentators point to a Bhuçundiramayana also as having been largely utilized by Tulas! Dåsa, but this probably refers, as Sir G. Grierson himself seems inclined to suppose, only to the Kaka-Bhuçundi episode in the Uttarakatda, which being not included in Rima's life, lies outside our subject. On the whole my opinion concerning all these extraneous sources is that Tulast Dása availed himself more of their spirit, and in some cases of their artistic form, than of their substance. In reference to art he utilized also to some degree Kalidasa's Ragharamça, as is proved by the three quotations following: Ragh., XII, 2 R. C. M., II, 2,7; Ragh., XII, 5 R. C. M., II, 25; 10-11; Ragh., XII, 80 R. C. M. VI, 69, 7.