Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

Author(s): Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 58

The Tales in Ramayana
then we will have to be very cautious in accepting the so-called historicity of our purāņic personages, and the claims and attempts of our Purāņists to construct some nomenclature of history from the Purāņic genealogies will be thrown in serious doubt. At least, we shall have to wait till the tales we intend to utilise as our historical data are proved not to be purely mythical. We shall confirm this caution below while discussing the Abalyā-tale.
(2) Another interesting aspect of the motif-pattern is the role of Indra as the "Penance-breaker'. Apparently it seems to point to the well-known Brāhmaṇa-Śramaņa dichotomy. The Sramaņa attitude characterised by austere penance and renunciation of the worldly pleasures is symbolised in the sages whereas Indra is the highest god of the Vedas, the premier books of Brāhmaṇism, and his selfishly antagonistic attitude towards the sages has been a standard butt of joke. But there is more in it than meets the eye. Actually, the Rşyaśộnga tale furnishes an important clue to all such seduction-tales. The basic structure of the male seduction by a female is similar in all these episodes but at other places the seduction of the sage merely means the loss of his accumulated power of penance. So Indra who causes the nymphs to seduce the sage is presented there as a very coward god trembling at the merest excess of the penance of some sage. In the Rşyaśțăga-tale if the seduction of the sage means loss of accumulated pedance, it also means bringing rains for the plenty. The real cause of always connecting Indra with the seductions of the sages is revealed here. Originally, the ritual human mating -- the male seduction by the female — must have been intended to serve as a sympathetic mimetic magic to induce rains — symbolic of the earth's attempt to seduce the sky who is withdrawing his seed divine -- the rain-water - thus laying the land barren.72 Indra is connected with the ritual since he is the god of rains. It is he who withdraws rains. It is he who should be propitiated by the act of human mating. The imposition of some reason on his act of withdrawing the rains - viz. his anxiety about the austere penance of some sage and his attempt to interrupt it -- are only later, most probably since the time of the spread of śramaņic religions, especially Buddhism. Indra in the jātakas is clearly shown to be antagonis. tic to the penance of the sages-ascetics. But there at least his characteristic as the God of rains is retained. In the Purāņic versions, which seem to be still later, Indra's antagonism for the penance of the sages is rendered pointless since his status as the rain -god has been dissociated from the seduction-tales. What remains of him is only a coward - miserable god, almost the antithesis of his Vedic image. The śramanic influence has set the trend of the change in the degradation of the image of Vedic Indra.
(3) The motif of the 'Tempest in reverse'73 has very well been exploited by the one who first wrote it out. The description of a female in the mouth of a sage who 72 Regarding the marriage of Hea en and Earth see S. A. Dange's paper. “The Marriage
of Heaven and Earth in the Vedic Ritual", Proceedings of AIOC, XXVIII. 73 In 'The Tempest' of Shakespeare, the girl is living upon an island with her father and has not
seen any other male. (Caliban is not fully human.) In the Rsya śråga tale the sage is living with his father and has not seen any human female.