Two questions

[Guest guest]

My daughter asked me two questions and I could not reply. May be some of you can

help me.

1.. Why is GOD VISHNU's picture painted in light blue colour?

2.. Is the original manuscript of Ramayana written by Balmiki still there in

India? If yes, where can it be found? If not, how did people recreated it?

I think some one on this list can enlighten me.

 

Thanx

Kailash Srivastava

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "Kailash Srivastava" <knsri@d...> wrote:

 

> 2.. Is the original manuscript of Ramayana written by Balmiki

still there in India? If yes, where can it be found? If not, how did

people recreated it?

 

VA: The answer is 'no'. A detailed reply would imply three

considerations -

1. When did the art of writing commence in India?

2. When did Maharshi Valmiki live?

3. How old are the oldest manuscripts in India?

 

To the first question, there is a view amongst Indologists that

writing did not commence in India before 300 BCE. If that is true and

if Valmiki Maharshi lived before that date, it would be obvious that

the text was composed orally and transmitted as such for several

generations till writing was discovered and the text was written down.

 

In any case, irrespective of whether writing existed in India before

300 BCE or not, the fact is that manuscripts dating to that day do

not survive. Hindu manuscripts first appear in archaeological record

many centuries after that. So it is a forgone conclusion that the

original manuscript, even if it existed, has not survived.

 

In some of the popular traditions however, the original manuscript of

Valmiki Ramayana are alluded to. For instance, there is this Tamil

tradition reported by Rodrigues in a book published in 1840 whose

rare copy could be fortunately consulted by me.

 

[Reference -Rodrigues, E. A.; Translation of Part of the Remains of

the Ramayanam of Bodhayana; Oriental Lithographic Press; Madras,

India; 1840 ]

 

This is how Rodrigues narrates the tradition, which is obviously

apocryhal since no Bodhayana is known to have been contemporaneous

with Valmiki -

 

"Bodhayana was the disciple of Valmiki himself and composed the text

comprising of 60000 verses in beautiful Sanskrit meter. Envious of

his disciples work, Valmiki alleged that while his own Ramayana was

nothing but the truth, that of Bodhayana was full of falsehood.

Valmiki them proposed that both would place their respective works on

a flowing river and whichever book sinks will be declared as false

while that which floats will be declared as the true narration of the

tale of Ramayana. The test was carried out and while the Ramayana of

Valmiki floated, that of Bodhayana sank barring a few pages, which

alone have survived to this day".

 

*****

 

As an aside, it is clear that the story is apocryphal but it does

indicate two facts- that a large part of the Bodhayana Ramayana was

lost at a very early state and that the metrical work was written in

very elegant Sanskrit. Indeed, Rodrigues also declares that the

surviving verses of Bodhayana Ramayana are very elegant, much

superior to the verses of Valmiki Ramayana. He makes another

interesting observation- that the Tamil version of Ramayana of Kamban

tallies very closely to the corresponding extant portions of the

Bodhayana Ramayana. It is well known that Kamban often differs in

minor details from Valmiki in his version of Sri Rama's biography. It

is not hard to digest this observation of Rodrigues since the

Ramayana of Bodhayana seems to have been prevelant in the Tamil

speaking areas of India and this is where Rodrigues found the

dilapidated manuscript of the text.

 

[Recently I was told that palm leaf manuscript of the Bodhayana

Ramayana does exist in Malabar. BTW, could this 'Bodhayana Kavi' be

the same person to whom the prahaasana 'Bhagavadajjuka' is sometimes

attributed? Any suggestions?]

 

Vishal