This story was published as part of Outlook's 21 October 2024 magazine issue titled 'Raavan Leela'. To read more stories from the issue, click here
In the immortal epic Kamba Ramayana, there is a wonderful poem which starts with the words “Vendrilan Enra Pothum (even though I haven’t won)”. In this poem, Raavan tells his son Indrajit, who pleads with him to leave Sita, that he may not win the war, but his name will stand as long as the name of Ram stands, which is supposed to last as long as the Vedas last.
Raavan is right.
Every time the name of Ram is invoked, the demon with 10 heads springs to our mind. Such is the power of his character. Like Milton’s Satan, Raavan sets himself against God. Like Satan, who says, “That glory never shall his wrath or might/Extort from me/To bow and sue for grace/With suppliant knee, and deify his power...,” Raavan too doesn’t want to bow before Ram. A study of the evolution of Raavan, especially in the Tamil literary world, where he was first introduced as a callous demon without any sensibilities but, as time passed on, acquired several exceedingly human dimensions, makes fascinating reading.
Raavan in the Sangam Age
The connection between the Ramayana and Tamil is almost as old as the extant Tamil literature itself. Sangam poems, written about 2,000 years ago, speak about the Ramayana and Raavan. He is called “Valithakai Arakkan”—the most powerful rakshasa (demon). Later in Chilappadikaram, written about 1,500 years ago, the storming of the fortress Lanka and its destruction are mentioned.
Raavan and the Tamil Bhakti Saints
When the Bhakti movement prospered in the Tamil country, Ramayana stories became extremely popular. Raavan, naturally, was the favourite villain, whose destruction is gleefully mentioned in several poems of the Vaishnavite Alwars. Andal, the female poet, for instance, says, “He severed the heads of the cruel Rakshasa and killed him. We sing of his glory.” On the other hand, the Saiva saints like Appar and Sambandar emphasise that Raavan is a great devotee of Shiva. They not only mention his incredible feat of lifting Mount Kailash and Shiva effortlessly crushing him in several poems, but also speak about Shiva being extremely pleased with his devotion—his knowledge of the Vedas and the skill he displayed at playing the veena. Raavan’s feat made Parvati hug her husband, Shiva, in fright. Shiva, of course, was delighted. He presented Raavan with a splendorous sword. In the iconography of Tamil Nadu, Ravananugraha murti (Shiva who blesses Raavan) starts appearing from the 8th century CE onwards and today there is hardly any Shiva temple in Tamil Nadu which doesn’t have the sculptural depiction of Raavan lifting the Kailash.
Kamban’s Raavan
When we read Kamban, who prospered in the 12th century CE, we find that the few centuries that separate the Tamil Bhakti saints from him have transformed Raavan and made him almost unrecognisable. He is still the demon and he is still the person who lusts after another person’s wife, but he is very much more. In Kamban’s glorious verses, he is a great warrior, a stupendous scholar, a loving father, husband and brother, and an incomparable King whose city of Lanka rivals the city of Indira in its splendour. Hence, his fall, when it comes, is also mighty and worthy of a great hero. V. V. S. Aiyar (1881-1925), the great freedom fighter, describes his fall in his book Kamba Ramayanam—A Study: “The holy dart of Raghava did drink his three crore years of mortal life, and all the strength of his austerities; It quenched the blessing Brahma bestowed on him that none should have the power to conquer him… So ended the hero of a thousand battles, the most valiant hero excepting Rama that epic poetry has ever created or sung…” And even after he has fallen, the poet would say: “ …but the hero’s face/Even at that awful moment wore a look of majesty, surpassing far the splendour/Even of days when saints and Rishis had/To flee for safety from his oppressive rule.”
‘Mayil Raavanan’
As the story of the Ramayana began to be told and retold, it reached every village of the Tamil country and stirred the imagination of the folktale creators. One such creation is the story of ‘Mayil Raavanan’. It was not clear when it was written, but there is evidence that cheap editions of this story were circulating right from the 19th century CE, when printing became common. Mayil Raavanan is the cousin of Raavan and rules the netherworld. When the war is fully on and when defeat stares at the face of Raavan, Mayil Raavanan kidnaps Ram and Lakshman and sets out to offer them as sacrifices to Kali. Hanuman comes to know of this plot and reaches the netherworld. After several twists and turns, he kills Mayil Ravanan and brings back Ram and Lakshman to earth. The battle with Raavan resumes. This story has a delectable twist. Hanuman, who considers himself a bachelor, learns to his surprise that he has a son by the name of Macchavallabhan in the netherworld!
Raavan in the Last Two Centuries
In 19th century Tamil Nadu, the rivalry between the Brahmins and the upper caste non-Brahmin Vellalas, who upheld the Saiva Siddhanta, became acute. Professor P Sundram Pillai (1855-1897), a noted Tamil Vellala scholar, was among the first to express the cultural separateness and originality of the Dravidians. He wrote several articles pleading the cause of the Dravidians and held that there was a period in great antiquity, when the native Dravidian religion (read Saiva Siddhanta) was alone in vogue, and the first foreign influence brought to bear upon the Dravidian worship was that of the Vedic religion. From 1880 onwards, many Vellala scholars began to postulate that the Saiva Siddhanta philosophy was superior to the Vedic teachings. Naturally, Raavan, who was a great devotee of Shiva, caught their attention. M. S. Purnalingam Pillai brought out a book in 1928 titled Ravana the Great; King of Lanka. What sort of a king was he? Let us hear Pillai’s own words: “The ten faced and twenty-armed Ravana was apparently a very intelligent and valiant hero, a cultured and civilized ruler, knew the Vedas and was an expert musician. He took away Sita according to the Tamilian mode of warfare, had her in the Asoka woods accompanied by his own niece, and would not touch her without her consent.” According to him, Raavan was a physical and intellectual giant, a great administrator, leader of men and a man of his word. Pillai’s Ram, on the other hand, had his specks and he lacked courage and faltered in crises. He says that the various interpretations of the myth of Ram do not affect the historical character of Raavan and that the Dravidians look upon him as a mighty hero and a monarch and, importantly, a fearless ‘resister’ of the Aryan aggressions in south India.
Periyar’s Raavan
It will not be a surprise to anyone that Raavan was a great hero to Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879-1973). He wrote several articles on the Ramayana during his long life denigrating the Aryan ‘perfidy’ and the Dravidian ‘valour’, especially Raavan’s valour. On August 7, 1966, he wrote an article in Viduthalai titled Ramayana in which he made many scurrilous remarks on the Ramayana. But the most shocking of all was that Sita willingly submitted to Raavan and was impregnated by him. He repeated these remarks many times thereafter.
Pulavar Kuzhanthai’s ‘Raavana Kavya’
Periyar’s broadsides on the Ramayana inspired many of his admirers to deconstruct the Ramayana. One such major attempt was Pulavar Kuzhanthai’s (1906-1972) Ravana Kavya, which was published in 1946. Kuzhanthai’s main villains are, of course, the main ‘Aryan’ characters of the Ramayana, but his total contempt is reserved for Kamban for having been a toady of Aryans! He calls Kamban an ideologue of lies, crimes and slavery. It was Kamban who spread the Aryan deception and the unimaginably ugly Aryan speech. The Aryans, Pulavar depicts in his Kavya, are meat-eaters, drunkards and womanisers, while the Dravidians are gentle vegetarians. The characters of his Kavya are consequently transposed. Ram is cowardly and demonic while Raavan is pure, noble and heroic. His book was banned by the government in 1948, but it was lifted in 1971.
Bharati’s Raavan
Not many people know that Subramania Bharati (1882-1921) wrote a spoof on the Ramayana called The Horns of the Horse. The story is told to a king called Reevana by a narrator named Pandit Crooked Face. Reevana wants to know why horses have no horns and the pandit tells a long story which is a sort of a reverse Ramayana. In it, Shurpanaka disfigures Lakshman. Ram abducts Sita. He is also not the eldest and he doesn’t want his elder brother Bharat to be crowned. The pandit tells the king that the horses indeed had horns, but when Raavan heard that Ram was invading Lanka, he laughed so loud that it caused Surya’s horses to lose their horns. Raavan, therefore, ordered Brahma to create henceforth horses without horns and that is the reason why horses nowadays are without horns!
Others on Raavana
One of the scholarly books on Raavan was written by A. S. Gnanasambandan (1916-2002) in 1948. The book’s title was Ravanan Matchiyum Vizhchiyum—The Tragedy of Ravana. In this book, the author seeks to convey that as long as Raavan used his good qualities for greater public good, he was revered by all and his fall came about only because he chose to use his enormous talents for nefarious purposes. He says Raavan realised his mistake when he was about to die and his death was a great tragedy for mankind.
Conclusion
The portrayal of Raavan in the Tamil country has evolved over the last 2,000 years. In spite of the Dravidian aberrations, the image an ordinary Tamil carries about him is that of an extraordinarily accomplished person coming to an inglorious end because of his irrational passion for a woman who detests him. As always, ordinary people do catch the essence of our epics without much effort.
(Views expressed are personal)
P A Krishnan is a renowned writer in tamil and english
(This appeared in the print as 'In The World of Tamils')
