Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 53The story or the structure and sequence of events may be the same, "but
the style, details, tone, and texture—and therefore the import—may be
vastly different." All later-day Ramayanas "play on the knowledge of
previous tellings: they are meta-Ramayanas." Kampan's Tamil Ramayana,
for instance, influenced the Telugu, Malayalam, and Thai versions, and
contributed to the Malaysian Hikayat Seri Ram and even Tulsi's Ramcarit-
manas.^21
The epic has, as Romila Thapar points out, incorporated the universal
ethic of the battle between good and evil, functioned as a link between
classical tradition and local culture by facilitating assimilation from one to
the other, extended the geographical horizon through the inclusion of local
places as locations of events, and symbolized the triumph of the monar-
chical state. The epic thus becomes "a charter of validation," and the rec-
ognized components of these charters of validation are "the extension of
the geographical area, migration and settlement, social and political legiti-
macy, and religious sanction." Thapar compares three major and different
versions of the Ram story that were composed between the fifth century
B.C.E. and the mid-first millennium C.E. to make this point clearer.^22
In the Buddhist Jataka literature, the Dasaratha Jataka comes closest to
the theme of the Ramayana. Dasaratha, the king of Varanasi, has two sons,
Rama-pandita and Lakkhana, and a daughter, Sita-devi, from his eldest
queen. When the queen dies, the king elevates another wife to that status,
and she demands that her own son, Bharatha, be made the successor to
the throne. Being afraid that the queen may harm his older sons, he sug-
gests to them their fleeing to the neighboring kingdom and claiming their
rights when he dies after 12 years, as has been predicted by prophesies.
Sita also joins her brothers in their exile to the Himalaya. When Dasaratha
dies after nine years, Bharatha, who does not want to be the king, searches
for Rama and asks him to return. Rama is adamant that he will return
only after 12 years and gives Bharatha his sandals. Rama returns to his
kingdom finally, makes Sita his queen consort, and rules righteously for
16,000 years.^23
In Valmiki's Ramayana, which has seven books (Balakanda, Ayodhyakanda,
Aranyakanda, Kishkindakanda, Sundarakanda, Yuddhakanda, and Uttarakanda),
the story does not end with the Ramarajya. When people talk malice about
Rama's accepting Sita, Rama commands Lakshmana to abandon Sita in
the forest. She takes shelter at Valmiki's ashram and delivers twin sons,
Lava and Kusha. Along with the twins, Valmiki attends Rama's horse sac-
rifice, and the boys recite the Ramayana before the assembly. Having real-
ized that they are his children, Rama asks Valmiki to fetch Sita so that she
could take a solemn oath before the people and be purified. Sita prays to
Goddess Earth to swallow her up if she was pure. That the Earth does, and
then follows the death of Lakshmana. Finally Rama, Bharatha, Sathrugna,
and the citizens of Ayodhya go in procession to the river Sarayu; Rama