chap27
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Vedic Roots of Hindu Iconography
R. Nagaswamy
CHAPTER-27
The Origin of Rāma Cult : Myth and Reality
Recently there has been some sweeping statements about the origin of Rāma cult in her lecture at the Indian History congress at Kozhikode. As they are of great concern to Indian religious ethos they are examined here from the point of available historial data.
According to that “the Rāma cult gradually emerged as a full fledged cult in the Drāviḍa (Tamil) country. The Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs sang their favourite deities and associated them with existing temples and this gave scope for identifying various places as events associated with characters of Rāmāyana and celebrating the existing temples as that of Rāma.”
Any study of Āḻvārs would show that the Ālvars based their devotion solely on the basis of Vedas, the two epics Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata and the 18 mahapurāṇas, without which Āḻvārs’ Bhakti doesn’t exist. All these are clearly northern traditions that have become part and parcel of the Dravida country and there is no question of the cult emerging in the Dravida country. It only shows that by the time of the Āḻvārs, Rāma and characters of Rāmāyaṇa have become so popular already by the time of the Āḻvārs who sang them as their favourite deities. The view now expressed is self contradictory.
“Clear evidence of setting up of Rāma shrines for the incarnation of Viṣṇu was available from the 10th cent on wards in the Chola and Pandya Kingdoms, which had been the locale of Ālvār activities which came to be incorporated into temples”. The first four Āḻvārs Poykaiyār, Pēyār, Bhūtattāḻvār, and Thirumaḻisai āḻvār hailed from northern part of Tamilnad in the Pallava territory and their work extended to the whole of Tamilnad from Vēṅkaṭam, (the modern Thiruppati) in the north, to extreme South and other places. It is wrong to confine the works of the Āḻvārs to the Chola and Pāṇḍya territory.
The view that Rāma cult spread to north India from the South is not supported by what is available in hundreds of inscriptions, art pieces, history, literature and all available factual data not only in India but also in the whole of South East Asia.
Considerable number of Terracotta sealing have been found in northern India that date back from 2nd Cent BC. In the village of Sugh, State of Hariyana, Yamunānagar District, a terracotta figurine of Rāma assigned to 2nd cent BC has been reported by Prof. Devendra Handa. Ravana carrying Sītā has been found in terracotta assigned to the same period in UP which is now housed in the Allahabad Museum. Hanuman has been found in Nāgārjunakoṇḍa in Andhrapradesh. A number of Terracotta have been found at a place called Nacha khera depicting Rāmāyaṇa scenes with the verses of Vālmiki Rāmāyaṇa inscribed on them that are ascribed to the Gupta period, 4th cent. One such Terracotta is now in the Metropolitan Museum USA. A number of brick temples of the Gupta period 4-5th cent, all in North India carry series of Rāmāyaṇa scenes as at Bhitragaon, Shravasti and others. In the last mentioned site a complete series of Rāmāyaṇa showing the influence of the great epic on the life of the people is seen. The temple at Devgarh assigned to 5th cent, well known to Indologist all over the world carries a beautiful panel showing Rama and Lakṣmaṇa in stone that can be seen even to day. The presence of such overwhelming images, and artifacts found known to all scholars, attest to the fully developed Rāma cult in Northern India unquestionably prior to the time of the Vaiṣṇavite Āḻvārs of Tamilnadu. Three terracotta images of Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, and Hanumān assignable to the Gupta period 5th cent CE are illustrated here that would speak for themseves.
Rāma cult in the north
An inscription of Vaisiṣṭhiputra Pulamavi of the Satavāhana dynasty, found in a cave at Nasik, in Maharashtra, compares the king's valour to Rāma, besides many famous kings of the epics, like Nahuṣa, Nābhāga, Janamejaya, Yayāti, Sagara, Ambariṣa, and Rāma. The inscription is dated in 149 CE. Besides he is also compared to Rāma, Keśava, Arjuna and Bhimasena. It is clear enough for th the popularity of Rāma in Maharashtra as early as 139 CE.
आगमानां निलयस्य स्त्पुरुषाणां आश्रमस्य श्रीयः अधिष्ठानस्य, आचाराणां प्रभावस्य, एकाङ्कुश्स्य एक धनुर्धरस्य, एक शूरस्य एक ब्रह्मण्स्य, रामकेशव अर्जुन भीमसेन तुल्य पराक्रमस्य, क्षणधनोत्सव समाजकस्यनाभाग नहुष जनमेजय सगर ययाति राम अम्बरीष समतेजस्य ।
āgamānāṃ nilayasya stpuruṣāṇāṃ āśramasya śrīyaḥ adhiṣṭhānasya, ācārāṇāṃ prabhāvasya, ekāṅkuśsya eka dhanurdharasya, eka śūrasya eka brahmaṇsya, rāmakeśava arjuna bhīmasena tulya parākramasya, kṣaṇadhanotsava samājakasyanābhāga nahuṣa janamejaya sagara yayāti rāma ambarīṣa samatejasya .
The gift in the record was made by the Queen mother, Rājamātā to the Buddhists belonging to the Bhādarāyaṇīya sect. The gift was recorded in the famous inscription of the Vāśiṣṭhi putra pulmāvi in 150 CE who compares himself to Rāma, Keśava and other famous rulers like Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna and thus attesting to the popularity of Rāma cult long before 150 CE. (Uttanika Trust Sanskrit Inscription vol ii. no 134)
From around 200 CE., we come across a powerful dynasty named Ikṣvāku in Andrapradesh, whose dynastic name itself was inspired by Rāma as mentioned in the their inscriptions. They ruled until the middle of 4th cent for about 150 years. An important inscription comes from Nagarjunakonda, in Guntur district of Andrapradesha, dated around 296 CE. Vīrapuruṣa (datta?) erected a temple to Śiva named Puṣpabhadrasvāmi which was built in the reign of Chāntamūla. So the record gives the praise of Chāntamūla. He is described as Rāma among Ikṣvāku. The king was “very delight of all emn”. The record also tells us that he achieved “Dharma Vijaya” like Sagara, Dilīpa, Ambarīṣa and Yudhiṣṭhira. Listing the names of Great Kings he gives a unique place to Rāma in the order saying “rāma iva sarvajanābhirāma” this is certainly a sterling example to show that Rāma was held as the darling of all men long before what Survira Jayasval has alleged. The inscription is published by Sarcar and Krishnan in Epigraphica Indica Vol xxxiv pp 17-20.
It is not only in India but through out South East Asian countires like Cambodia where the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki was so popular long before the Āḻvārs that, the phrases of Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa are found in the earliest inscription found 5th cent in Cambodia which repeats the words “tapas svādhyāya nirata”. Also there are references in such early times, the tradition of depositing the manuscripts of Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata in the temples built in Cambodia in more than one inscriptions that accounts for the presence over several hundred local versions of Rāmāyaṇa in the South East Asian Countries very much earlier than 10th cent. Rāmāyaṇa is a living faith through out south East Asia and is considered as much of theirs as that of Indians. It has been demonstrated with the help of Sculptures that the early depictions of Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata in the south East is closer to the original authors of the epics Vyāsa and Vālmiki by scholars like Son Soubert.
A study of south Indian inscriptions would show that long before to the date quoted for the Pāṇḍya and Chola rulers (10th cent) cited by the above writer, the Pallavas of northern Tamilnadu were greatly inspired by the Rāmāyaṇa cult. They assumed title like Abhirāma, Sangrāmarāma etc., The Pallava ruler Rājasimha, the author of Māmallapuram assumed several titles ending with Rāma which are recorded in Kāñchīpram and Māmallapuram Inscriptions.
Another curious argument the above writer has mentioned is that “the the Rāma temples were called sacred Ayodhya would lend credence to the view that Ayodhya was only mythological and the present Ayodhya in north India is not the original Ayodhya”. Sacred is only an auspicious prefix and we have several royal copper plate charters of the Pallava kings of 4th cent onwards that call the city of Kāñchīpuram as Sacred Kāñchī. It does not mean Kāñchīpuram is mythological and not real. There are thousands of villages and Towns in Tamilnadu which prefix the term sacred to their names like Thiru-arangam, Tiru-ālavāy, Thiruk-kōyilūr, Thiru-allikkēni, Thiru-mayilāpore, and so on and no historian would call any of them mythological and not real.
However there several early inscriptions in Tamilnadu that calls Rāma temples not as Sacred Ayodhya but as “the temple of Lord of Ayodhya”. The inscriptions in Tamilnadu prove that Rāma was associated always with the northern Ayodhya. This further corroborated by references to Kṛṣṇa in Tamil inscriptions as “The Lord of Kurukshetra, Lord of Brindavana, Lord of Dwaraka ”. It is after the Northern Mathura of Kṛṣṇa, the Madurai of the Tamil Country is named and came to be called “Ten Maturai” southern Maturai and the northern one called “Vaḍa Maturai”. To call that Northern Ayodhya did not exist in reality but only in myth, without an understanding of northern and southern tradition, is clearly a total and wishful distortion.
It is also necessary to study the works of Early Āḻvārs in original to understand the place of Rāma-bhakti in Tamilnadu for it is claimed by the above writer, that the Rāma cult emerged from the works of Āḻvārs. Peyar, Poykaiyar, and Bhutattāḻvār are three early Āḻvārs who were held contemporaries and said to have lived in the 6th cent.CE. A reference to their work show Rāma-bhakti was not a new introduction but was already at its height. Events from Rāmāyaṇa are already reflected in the Saṅgam literature and also in the Tamil Epic, Silappadikaram long before the Āḻvārs.
The supreme nature of Rāma bhakti is sung by Poykai Āḻvār, who sings that one can get his troubles, sins and diseases removed by taking refuge in the sacred feet of Rāma, who destroyed that brute Rāvaṇa, who captured a woman and imprisoned her in Lanka. Sung in one full verse this is a clear indication that Rāma was venerated and worshipped. Many episodes connected with the Rāmāyaṇa are sung by all the three Āḻvārs. Rāma going after the golden deer, getting separated from Sitā, killing the deer, pirecing the seven marāmara trees with one arrow, Sitā being imprisoned at Lanka, Rāma building a bridge across the ocean, Rāma destroying the city of Lanka and killing Rāvaṇa in a fierce battle are all narrated by the Āḻvārs. It must also be mentioned that Rāma and Kṛṣṇa are jointly described in many poems and are also held identical. The other avatars of Viṣṇu, like Kūrmāvatāra, Varāhāvatāra, Trivkramāvatara and Kṛṣṇāvatara are sung together with Rāma which conclusively prove the Āḻvārs sing Rāmāyaṇa of Northern India and not create a new cult.
It is not only the Ālvāras who sing the Rāmāyaṇa episodes the Śaiva Saints Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar sing episodes from Rāmāyaṇa. Sambandar sing the Rāvaṇa episodes in every hymn of his Tēvaram which nullifies the claim that Rāmāyaṇa is later. It was part and parcel all sections of the society.
Neither the study of Āḻvārs, nor the study of Art, history, inscriptions, monumental temples or literature nor the study of the whole South East Asian scenario lend any support to this new View which is totally unscientific and deserves to be rejected as unhistorical.