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Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
of Sveta and Danda are again put into the mouth of Agastya, while Rāma and Laksmaņa narrate one tale each of Aśvamedha. The final tragedy is again shown to be part of the principal narrative. The parrators of the tales in the Lavaņa-episode are again as numerous as the tales themselves. The Lavaņa-episode has no connection with the principal theme or its hero, except that Satrughna is a brother to Rāma. It can stand by itself, since, not Rāma, but Śatrughna is the hero as far as that episode is concerned. This also damages the impression of the unity of UK. The tale of King Sveta also has no clear function to perform in the epic (unless, of course, we imagine that just as Sitā was given the sthāgara ointment by Anasāyā, Rāma also must be given something, divine ornaments for that matter, by someone !) and falls loose. There is, thus, no logical arrangement in the tales of UK. Consequently, the tragic end of the epic loses much of its poignance on account of a lack of consistently developing emotions which are interrupted by numerous tales, and on account of its paurāņika style. The conception was grand, the execution is poor.
The pattern of the tales of BK is logical and systematic, that of the tales of UK is rather clumsy.
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