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Vol. XXXIII, 2010
Rāmāyaṇa Characters In The Thai Mould
It is the alien component of his character that puts him on a different footing. And unfortunately that is not something that does him proud. As conceived in the Thai tradition reflected in the RKM., Rāma, his divine origin apart, is indistinguishable from a common man. He suffers from infirmities that do not go well with his stature, and rudely dent his 'majesty and augustness.
The stratagems cunningly employed by Rāvaņa to humble him off the field might not have served their purpose to the desired extent, they have certainly been instrumental in exposing him to awkward situations. It is surprising that he was duped with incredible ease into presuming Sītā dead on seeing so much as her replica floating in the river, forgetting the deceit the demons were capable of exercising on others. It was Hanuman's alertness that saved him from what might have been a disaster (X. 17). His brush with Maiyarāba shows him in still poorer light. It is a measure of the lack of alertness against the enemy's possible depredations that he was thrown into swoon by such a cheap device as magic powder and carried unnoticed, to Pātāla, to be encaged like a petty criminals. It was again Hanumān who rescued him after a long drawn struggle, at great peril to himself. If Rāvana had the audacity to invoke divine verdict against him, he could not be absolved of the responsibility. It was the fairness of Mallivaggabrahma that turned the tables on Rāvana and made him bite dust. Rāma cannot be credited to have averted the divine wrath on his own. He seems to be a victim of a variety of conspiracies with no vision or power to thwart them.
The way he conducts himself vis-à-vis his devoted wife is simply reprehensible. He emerges from the exercise as a suspicious and scheming husband, with no qualms to employ the worst trickery and deceit. He sees many phantoms rising from the portrait of Rāvana that the innocent Sītā was tricked into drawing by Sūrapankhā's daughter Atulā to wreak vengeance on her for the wrong done to her mother because of her (Sītā). He comes to suspect her fidelity to him and in a fit of rage orders Laksmana to execute her in the forest?. That was unmitigated crueltys which ill behoves the nāyaka, much less of the stature of Rāma. No wonder, Sītā, doubtless under the impact of the milieu that has fashioned her, pelts him, at different points of time, with such devastating epithets as suspicious, cruel (XXIII.5), petty-minded, jealous (XXIII.27), wife-killer (XXIII.35), wicked (XXIV.36), deceitful (XXIV. 40-41), fickle (XXV.19) and evilminded (XXV.20), so deep were the scars he had inflicted on her.
