The Epics. History,
Tradition, and Myth
The two great epics of ancient India — the Ramayana and
the Mahabharata—probably took shape in the course of several hundred
years, and even subsequently additions were made to them. They deal with the
early days of the Indo-Aryans, their conquests and civil wars, when they were
expanding and con-solidating themselves, but they were composed and compiled
later. I do not know of any books anywhere which have exercis-ed such a
continuous and pervasive influence on the mass mind as these two. Dating back
to a remote antiquity, they are still a living force in the life of the Indian
people. Not in the original Sanskrit, except for a few intellectuals, but in
translations and adaptations, and in those innumerable ways in which tradition
and legend spread and become a part of the texture of a people's life. They
represent the typical Indian method of catering all together for various
degrees of cultural development, from the highest intellectual to the simple
unread and untaught villager. They make us understand somewhat the secret of
the old Indians in holding together a variegated society divided up in many
ways and graded in castes, in harmonizing their discords, and giving them a
common background of heroic tradition and ethical living. Deliberately they
tried to build up a unity of outlook among the people, which was to survive and
overshadow all diversity.
Among the earliest memories of my
childhood are the stories from these epics told to me by my mother or the older
ladies of the house, just as a child in Europe or America might listen to fairy
tales or stories of adventure. There was for me both adven-ture and the fairy
element in them. And then I used to be taken every year to the popular open-air
performances where the Ramayana story was enacted and vast crowds came to see
it and join in the processions. It was all very crude, but that did not matter,
for everyone knew the story by heart and it was carnival time.In this way Indian
mythology and old tradition crept into my mind and got mixed up with all manner
of other creatures of the imagination. I do not think I ever attached very much
importance to these stories as factually true, and I even criti-cized the
magical and supernatural element in them. But they were just as imaginatively
true for me as were the stories from the Arabian Nights or the Panchatantra,
that storehouse of animal tales from which Western Asia and Europe have
drawn so much (The story of the innumerable translations and adaptations of
the 'Panchatantra' into Asiatic and European languages is a long, intricate,
and fascinating one. The first known translation was from Sanskrit into Pahlavi
in the middle of the sixth century A.C. at the instance of Khusrau
Anushirwan, Emperor of Persia. Soon after (c. 570 A.C.) a Syrian
translation appeared, and later on an Arabic one. In the eleventh century new
translations appeared in Syrian, Arabic, and Persian, the last named becoming
famous as the story of 'Kalia Daman.' It was through these translations that
the 'Panchatantra' readied Europe. There was a Greek translation from the
Syrian at the end of the eleventh century, and a little later a Hebrew
translation. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a number of transla-tions
and adaptations appeared in Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Danish,
Dutch Icelandic, French, English, Hungarian, Turkish, and a number of Slav
languages. Thus the stories of the 'Panchatantra' merged into Asiatic and European
literatures). As I grew up other pictures crowded into my mind: fairy
stories, both Indian and European, tales from Greek mythology, the story of
Joan of Arc, Alice in Wonderland, and many stories of Akbar and Birbal,
Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and his Knights, the Rani of Jhansi, the young
heroine of the Indian Mutiny, and tales of Rajput chivalry and heroism. These
and many others filled my mind in strange confusion, but always there was the
background of Indian mythology which I had imbibed in my earliest years.
If it was so with me, in spite of the
diverse influences that worked on my mind, I realized how much more must old
my-thology and tradition work on the minds of others and, especially, the
unread masses of our people. That influence is a good influence both culturally
and ethically, and I would hate to destroy or throw away all the beauty and
imaginative symbolism that these stories and allegories contain.Indian mythology is
not confined to the epics; it goes back to the Vedic period and appears in many
forms and garbs in Sanskrit literature. The poets and the dramatists take full
advantage of it and build their stories and lovely fancies round it. The Ashoka
tree is said to burst into flower when touched by the foot of a beautiful
woman. We read of the adventures of Kama, the god of love, and his wife, Rati
(or rapture), with their friend Vasanta, the god of spring. Greatly daring,
Kama shoots his flowery arrow at Shiva himself and is reduced to ashes by the
fire that flashed out of Shiva's third eye. But he survives as Ananga, the
bodiless one.
Most of the myths and stories are
heroic in conception and teach adherence to truth and the pledged word,
whatever the consequences, faithfulness unto death and even beyond, cour-age,
good works and sacrifice for the common good. Sometimes the story is pure
rpyth, or else it is a mixture of fact and myth, an exaggerated account of some
incident that tradition pre-served. Facts and fiction are so interwoven
together as to be inseparable, and this amalgam becomes an imagined history,
which may not tell us exactly what happened but does tell us something that is
equally important—what people believed had taken place, what they thought their
heroic ancestors were capable of, and what ideals inspired them. So, whether
fact or fiction, it became a living element in their lives, ever pulling them
up from the drudgery and ugliness of their everyday existence to higher realms,
ever pointing towards the path of endeavour and right living, even though the
ideal might be far off and difficult to reach.
Goethe is reported to have
condemned those who said that the old Roman stories of heroism, of Lucretia and
others, were spurious and false. Anything, he said, that was essentially false
and spurious could only be absurd and unfruitful and never beautiful and
inspiring, and that 'if the Romans were great enough to invent things like
that, we at least should be great enough to believe them.' Thus this imagined
history, mixture of fact and fiction, or sometimes only fiction, becomes
symbolically true and tells us of the minds and hearts and purposes of the
people of that parti-cular epoch. It is true also in the sense that it becomes
the basis for thought and action, for future history. The whole concep-tion of
history in ancient India was influenced by the specula-tive and ethical trends
of philosophy and religion. Little im-portance was attached to the writing of a
chronicle or the compi-lation of a bare record of events. What those people
were more concerned with was the effect and influence of human events and
actions on human conduct. Like the Greeks, they were strongly imaginative and
artistic and they gave rein to this artistry and imagination in dealing with
past events, intent as they were on drawing some moral and lesson from them for
future behaviour.
Unlike the Greeks, and unlike
the Chinese and the Arabs, Indians in the past were not historians. This was
very unfortu-nate and it has made it difficult for us now to fix dates or make
up an accurate chronology. Events run into each other, overlap and produce an
enormous confusion. Only very gradually are patient scholars to-day discovering
the clues to the maze of Indian history. There is really only one old book,
Kalhana's 'Rajatarangini', a history of Kashmir written in the twelfth cen-tury
A.C., which may be considered as history. For the rest we have to go to
the imagined history of the epics and other books, to some contemporary
records, to inscriptions, to artistic and architectural remains, to coins, and
to the large body of Sanskrit literature, for occasional hints; also, of
course, to the many re-cords of foreign travellers who came to India, notably
Greeks and Chinese, and, during a later period, Arabs.
This
lack of historical sense did not affect the masses, for as elsewhere and more
so than elsewhere, they built up their view of the past from the traditional
accounts and myth and story that were handed to them from generation to
generation. This imagined history and mixture of fact and legend became widely
known and gave to the people a strong and abiding cultural background. But the
ignoring of history had evil consequences which we pursue still. It produced a
vagueness of outlook, divorce from life as it is, a credulity, a woolliness of
the mind where fact was concerned. That mind was not at all woolly in the far
more difficult, but inevitably vaguer and more indefinite, realms of
philosophy; it was both analytic and synthetic, often very critical, sometimes
sceptical. But where fact was concerned,, it was uncritical, because, perhaps,
it did not attach much im-portance to fact as such.
The
impact of science and the modern world have brought a greater appreciation of
facts, a more critical faculty, a weighing of evidence, a refusal to accept
tradition merely because it is tradition. Many competent historians are at work
now, but they often err on the other side and their work is more a meticulous
chronicle of facts than living history. But even to-day it is strange how we
suddenly become overwhelmed by tradition, and the critical faculties of even
intelligent men cease to function. This may partly be due to the nationalism
that consumes us in our present subject state. Only when we are politically and
economically free will the mind function normally and critically.
Very
recently there has been a significant and revealing' instance of "this
conflict between the critical outlook and nationalist tradition. In the greater
part of India the Vikram Samvat calen-dar is observed; this is based on
a solar reckoning, but the months are lunar. Last month, in April, 1944,
according to this calendar, 2,000 years were completed and a new millennium
began. This has been the occasion for celebrations throughout India, and the
celebrations were justified, both because it was a big turning point in the
reckoning of time and because Vikram, or VikramS-ditya, with whose name the
calendar is associated, has long been a great hero in popular tradition.
Innumerable stories cling to his name, and many of these found their way in
mediaeval times in different garbs to various parts of Asia, and later to
Europe.
Vikram
has long been considered a national hero, a beau ideal of a prince. He is
remembered as a ruler who pushed out foreign invaders. But his fame rests on
the literary and cultural brilliance of his court, where he collected some of
the most famous writers, artists, and musicians—the 'nine gems' of his court as
they are called. Most of the stories deal with his desire to do good to his
people, and to sacrifice himself or his personal interest at the slightest
provocation in order to benefit someone else. He is famous for his generosity,
service for others, courage, and lack of conceit. Essentially he has been popular
because he was considered a good man and a patron of the arts. The fact that he
was a successful soldier or a conqueror hardly comes out in the stories. That
emphasis on the goodness and self-sacri-ficing nature of the man is
characteristic of the Indian mind and of Indian ideals. Vikramaditya's name,
like that of Caesar, became a kind of symbol and title, and numerous subsequent
rulers added it to their names. This has added to the Confusion, as there are
many Vikramadityas mentioned in history.
But who
was this Vikram? And when did he exist? Histori-cally speaking everything is
vague. There is no trace of any such ruler round about 57 B.C. when the
Vikram Samvat era should begin. There was, however, a Vikramaditya in North
India in the fourth century A.C. and he fought against Hun invaders and
pushed them out. It is he who is supposed to have kept the 'nine gems' in his
court and around whom all these stories gather. The problem then is this: How
is this Vikramaditya who existed in the fourth century A.C. to be
connected with an era which begins in 57 B.C. ? The probable explanation
appears to be that an era dating from 57 B.C. existed in the Malava
State in Central India, and, long after Vikram, this era and calendar were
connected with him and renamed after him. But all this is vague and un-certain.
What has been most surprising
is the way in which quite intelligent Indians have played about with history in
order some-how to connect the traditional hero, Vikram, with the beginning of
the era 2,000 years ago. It has also been interesting to find how emphasis is
laid on his fight against the foreigner and his desire to establish the unity
of India under one national state. Vikram's realm was, in fact, confined to
North and Central India.
It
is not Indians only who are affected by nationalist urges and supposed national
interest in the writing or consideration of history. Every nation and people
seem to be affected by this desire to gild and better the past and distort it
to their advan-tage. The histories of India that most of us have had to read,
chiefly written by Englishmen, are usually long apologies for and panegyrics of
British rule, and a barely veiled contemptuous account of what happened here in
the millenniums preceding it. Indeed, real history for them begins with the
advent of the Englishman into India; all that went before is in some mystic kind
of way a preparation for this divine consummation. Even the British period is
distorted with the object of glorifying British rule and British virtues. Very
slowly a more correct per-spective is developing. But we need not go to the
past to find instances of the manipulation of history to suit particular ends
and support one's own fancies and prejudices. The present is full of this, and
if the present, which we have ourselves seen and experienced, can be so
distorted, what of the past?
Nevertheless, it is true that
Indians are peculiarly liable to accept tradition and report as history,
uncritically and without sufficient examination. They will have to rid
themselves of this loose thinking and easy way of arriving at conclusions. But
I have digressed and wandered away from the gods and goddesses and the days
when myth and legend began. Those were the days when life was full and in
harmony with nature, when man's mind gazed with wonder and delight at the
mystery of the universe, when heaven and earth seemed very near to each other,
and the gods and goddesses came down from Kailasa or their other Himalayan
haunts, even as the gods of Olympus used to come down, to play with and
sometimes punish men and women. Out of this abundant life and rich imagination
grew myth and legend and strong and beautiful gods and goddesses, for the
ancient Indians, like the Greeks, were lovers of beauty and of life. Professor
Gilbert Murray (Gilbert Murray's 'Five Stages of Creek Religion,' p. 76. Thinkers'
Library, Watts, Tjmion.) tells us of
the sheer beauty of the Olympian system. That description might well apply to
the early creations of the Indian mind also. 'They are artists' dreams, ideals,
allegories; they are symbols of something beyond themselves. They are gods of
half-rejected tradition, of uncons-cious make-believe, of aspiration. They are
gods to whom doubt-ful philosophers can pray, with all a philosopher's due
caution, as to many radiant and heart-searching hypotheses. They are not gods
in whom anyone believes as a hard fact.' Equally applicable to India is what
Professor Murray adds: 'As the most beautiful image carved by man was not the
god, but only a symbol to help towards conceiving the god; so the god himself,
when conceived, was not the reality but only a symbol to help towards
conceiving the reality.... Meanwhile they issued no creeds that contradicted
knowledge, no commands that made man sin against his own inner light.'
Gradually
the days of the Vedic and other gods and goddesses receded into the background
and hard and abstruse philosophy took their place. But in the minds of the
people these images still floated, companions in joy and friends in distress,
symbols of their own vaguely-felt ideals and aspirations. And round them poets
wrapped their fancies and built the houses of their dreams, full of rich
embroidery and lovely fantasy. Many of these legends and poets' fancies have
been delightfully adapted by F. W. Bain in his series of little books
containing stories from Indian my-thology. In one of these, 'The Digit of the
Moon,' we are told of the creation of woman. 'In the beginning, when Twaslitri
(the Divine Artificer) came to the creation of woman he found that he had
exhausted his materials in the making of man and that no solid elements were
left. In this dilemma, after pro-found meditation, he did as follows: he took
the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of the creepers, and the clinging of
tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the
bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the
elephant's trunk, and the glances of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,
and the joyous gaiety of sun-beams, and the weeping of clouds, and the
fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the
peacock, and the softness of the parrot's bosom, and the hardness of adamant,
and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of
fire, and the coldnesss of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of
the kokila, and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the chakravaka;
and compounding all these together, he made woman and gave her to man.'
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