‘Tis the tale, not he who tells it: Why the Ramayana is greater than any writer
Jul 7th, 2005 by Ashok
Here’s a curiosity I found in my old files.
A column I wrote as (relatively) recently as 2000, published in my weekly Book Chaat column on Rediff.com.
Guess what it’s about?
The Ramayana.
Now, this is during the same period that I was reading extensively in the ancient epics, history, etc.
But as you can see from this piece (reproduced exactly as it appeared, not one word altered or added), I still hadn’t formed the ambition of writing the Ramayana myself.
To some extent of course, I’d dreamed of doing such a thing since I was a kid and first began writing stories.
But to actually dare to attempt it for publication…that was something I hadn’t yet grown the…ahem…courage to do, let’s say.
And yet I was so obsessed with the epic, with its intricacies, and clearly dissatisfied with the various versions that had appeared over the years.
Especially the firang translations and editions.
(Incidentally, the Goldman version mentioned later in the column never did get completed, it remains incomplete and more or less out of print to this day.)
Reading this little column now is like getting a glimpse into my mindset back then.
And to the world at large.
Because here was a world, just six years ago, where no popular, widely available, English-language retelling of the Ramayana existed.
And here we are today.
That’s not to say I did something extraordinary.
But that the epic itself is extraordinary.
That it drove an ordinary hack in Mumbai city, a not-very-talented writer with more debts than brains, to embark upon the most ambitious retelling of the Ramayana ever attempted by any single writer.
And, eventually, in 2004, to achieve that ambition.
The rest is history.
Or mythology.
Or fantasy.
Whichever you prefer.
BOOK CHAAT
by Ashok Banker
Hey Ram
Our most loved epic outshines every translator or reteller, writes Ashok Banker
In the current wave of feverish hype over Indian authors, it’s often easy to forget that our tradition of literature is as old as our civilization. And that Indian authors have been lauded and read by scholars and bibliophiles across the world long before there was even a Booker Prize or a Nobel.
An age when a story was read for its own worth, not because some critic had recommended it in a review or a committee had handed out a prize sponsored by a company that made munitions or industrial chemicals.
A time when epics were truly epics, not merely 1000-page novels labelled so by an assistant editor in a publishing house. Tales about Gods and Demons, Devis and Apsaras, great acts of heroism and vile acts of villainy.
And of all the tales that were told in ancient India, not many could compare to the richness and greatness of one particular epic. A story whose resonance is most felt in our cultural bones at this special time of year, the Diwali season.
The story of course is Valmiki’s Ramayan. And there are few things I could say about it that have not been said before. So let’s not waste time with any pseudo-cultural comment. Or psychoanalytic revisionism.
Instead, let’s talk about translations.
One major problem English-reading Indians face when approaching a great Indian classic is the paucity of good translations. Either there are none available, as in the case of several dozen works that still languish in dusty museums. Or they’re ridiculously truncated, like the several ‘retellings’ of The Mahabharat.
One particular edition I found offers ‘one of the most complete’ retellings of the original work. How ‘complete’ is that? Well, it contains translations of around 800 verses out of the full 40,000 verses!
Apparently, the only genuinely complete translation of The Mahabharat is being done by a team of scholars working for over 2 decades at an American University.
Which is the second problem: Foreign translations. There’s no question that some of the greatest Indophiles have been Europeans, from the late great Sir Richard F Burton and Max Mueller to the surprisingly large numbers of Sanskrit scholars that stream out of Swedish, Dutch and German universities even now.
But there comes a time when you tire of all those footnote explanations of dharma and karma, the constant concessions to Western readers, the Anglicizations and the italicizations. And your heart yearns to read a translation written by an Indian for Indians.
Thankfully, the situation is much better with The Ramayana. Here too, it’s difficult to find a complete edition, but the good abridgements are far more complete than the Mahabharat ones. Partly because the original work itself is much shorter than the Mahabharat. Moreover, the parts left out by Ramayan translators are usually the parts that most scholars have agreed upon to excise. Or the parts that were never part of the original work but were conveniently added on over the centuries by enthusiastic regional translators.
Most of these well-meaning but egregious additions came about in the course of translating Valmiki’s great epic into various ethnic Indian languages. Since almost every one of us has grown up speaking a language other than English or Hindi, we’ve probably heard these local versions of the Ramayan, with the accreted embellishments, rather than the original Valmiki Ramayan.
Which often means that the Ramayana stories we take for granted may not even be a part of the original epic!
For instance, did you know that the story of Lakshman drawing a circle around Sita in the forest, the basis for the famous Lakshmanrekha, is apparently one of these ‘additions’? That’s why you’re unlikely to find it in any of the reputable translations of Valmiki’s original work.
So which are the best, most authentic English translations of The Ramayan? Well, there are quite a few to choose from. Any good edition you pick should be based on the Valmiki Ramayana and of these, one of the best is believed to be the Critical Edition prepared by the Oriental Institute at M.S. University, Baroda.
If you’re keen on a complete translation, the most famous are Hari Prasad Shastri’s and N Raghunathan’s version. Robert Goldman’s team of scholars have been working on their version for years and it should be out anytime.
Among abridged translations and retellings, there’s a wider variety. Earlier ones by Kamala Subramaniam, P. Lal, William Buck and C. Rajagopalachari are all immensely readable and even enjoyable.
R K Narayan’s retelling is perhaps the best written one. The master of Malgudi’s deceptively simple prose style makes his version the ideal one for young readers, or for those who want their Ramayan simple and unadorned. Narayan leaves out most of the quaint archaism of the Sanskrit text, which is replete with the animal metaphors of Valmiki’s age.
For older, more traditional readers, the C. Rajagopalachari version still remains a perennial favourite. I don’t know how many reprintings the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan edition has been through since the original publication in 1951, but as of 1997, it was numbered at 31 reprints. Which means tens of thousands of readers, at the very least, have grown up with this version, including this columnist as a child.
But for readers who are seeking a more modern, more authentic version, here’s good news. Arshia Sattar, an Indian scholar, has written a wonderfully rendered abridgement of the Valmiki text. Published as The Ramayana Valmiki, it’s available in hardback as well as paperback, and it’s the one I keep closest at hand.
How much difference could there really be between versions? After all, the story is the same, isn’t it? So how far from the road could different drivers wander, you wonder?!
You’d be surprised.
As just one brief example, here’s how two versions open their narration. The first, taken from the 1997 reprint of the C. Rajagopalachari version, reads thus:
—————–
The story begins with the visit of the Saint Narada one morning to Vaalmeeki’s aashrama. After the usual welcome Vaalmeeki asked him: “Oh, all-knowing Narada, tell me, who among the heroes of this world is the highest in virtue and wisdom?”
Knowing through his supernatural power why Vaalmeeki put the question, Naarada answered: “Raama is the Hero that you ask for. Born in the Solar dynasty, he is at present ruling in Ayodhya.”
Sage Narada then briefly narrated to Vaalmeeki the story of Raama.
——————
Now, here’s the same opening in Arshia Sattar’s translation:
The great sage Valmiki was a bull among men who practised austerities constantly. One day he said to the eloquent Narada, “Tell me, great one, who is the most virtuous man in the world of humans? Who is the most honourable, dutiful, gracious and resolute? Who is the most courteous, the most dedicated to the welfare of all beings, the most learned, the most patient and handsome? Who is the man with the greatest soul, the one who has conquered anger, who is intelligent and free of envy? Who is this man, whose anger frightens even the gods? I am sure you know of such a man and I am curious to hear about him from you.”
Narada, who knows the past, the present and the future, was delighted with Valmiki’s question. “There are few men with all the qualities that you have described,” he replied. “But there is one man, O sage, who has all these virtues. Listen, and I will tell you about him.”
(Then follows five full pages of Narada’s story of Raama, as against the single dismissive sentence in Rajagopalachari’s version.)
——————–
It’s not my intention to critique either translation. Each has its own following, and for very good reason. But personally, I’ve been waiting for a more modern, more comprehensive translation for years, and was thrilled to find the Arshia Sattar one.
It could certainly be much, much better. For one, it could have more physical detail and not veer into endless pages of abstract monologue, but that’s clearly a choice made by the translator. Just as Rajagopalachari chose to truncate the great sage Narada’s recounting of Rama’s life history, probably because he knew that the rest of the book would tell the same story in far greater detail anyway.
On the other hand, Sattar clearly chose to retain the original dialogue of Narada and it makes for a very fine encapsulation of the main events of the story. In fact, if you had to tell anyone what the Ramayana is about, these five pages are totally comprehensive (in a wide overview), as well as authentic.
There are always a myriad of choices made by each translator. This leads to often incongruous, even strikingly contradictory versions at times.
But whichever version you choose, one thing is undeniable. Towering above every translator’s individual idiosyncrasies and scholarly choices, there’s the greatness of the tale itself. The Ramayana’s timeless quality outshines every translator, scholar or critic. This is still a great story, no matter how it’s told or by whom.
As another great unknown writer once wrote, millennia ago: “‘Tis the tale, not he who tells it.”
Rarely is that as true as in the case of one of our greatest and most loved epics.
Jai Siya Ramkatha ki jai!
