Box 5.3 Two Models for Kings in the Ramayana and Mahabharata
Rama’s story is told and retold in hundreds of versions throughout India and
Southeast Asia, in poetry and prose, almost always as a public event. It is chanted
by pandits reading from a text or enacted by traveling troupes of actors or per-
formed by puppets. For the last 150 years the Ramayana has been an annual event
at a site across the Ganges River from Banaras. In nightly episodes lasting a month,
Rama’s 14-year exile is reenacted by actors and followed by audience-pilgrims who
literally journey from site to site where all the critical locations, from Ayodhya to Sri
Lanka, are reproduced around the palaces and gardens of the Maharaja of Banaras.
The actors who play Rama, Sita, Lakshman, and Hanuman are svarup, “forms” or
incarnations of the divine figures themselves, worshipped with garlands and
pranams (a gesture of reverence to the feet of superior beings) at the end of each
performance. Before the final performance of farewell to Rama and Sita, they are
carried by royal elephants to the palace, where the Maharaja of Banaras, dressed
simply as a devotee of Rama, washes their feet and garlands, and feasts them.
A televised serial in 1987 had over 80
million viewers, the most watched program
ever on Indian television. Paula Richman
(1991:3) describes the reactions of viewers:
It was not just that people watched
the show: they became so involved
in it that they were loath to see it
end.... Sanitation workers in
Jalandhar went on strike because
the serial was due to end without
depicting the events of the seventh,
and final, book of the Ramayana.
The strike spread among sanitation
workers in many major cities in North
India, compelling the government to
sponsor the desired episodes in
order to prevent a major health haz-
ard.... Many people responded
to the image of Rama on the televi-
sion screen as if it were an icon in a
temple. They bathed before watch-
ing, garlanded the set like a shrine,
and considered the viewing of Rama
to be a religious experience.
After transforming India’s television
audience into a devotional congregation for
a year, the Ramayana inspired a more omi-
nous event. On December 6, 1992, Hindu
mobs led by right-wing, religiously motivated political parties demolished a six-
teenth-century mosque said to have been built by the first Mughal emperor, Babur,
over the birthplace of Rama in Ayodhya, setting off Hindu–Muslim riots across India
in which more than 5,000 people were killed.
When the Ramayana was serialized for
Indian television, the entire nation came
to a standstill. Viewers treated it as a reli-
gious event, bathing prior to watching
and lighting incense on their television
sets. Gift sets of the show came out on
DVD, such as this one of episodes 9–13
(out of 38).(continued)