54 "Presenting" the Past
enters the abode of Vishnu (a Hindu god) in his Vishnu-form along with
his brothers, and the commoners ascend the heaven.
Padmacarita, or Paumacariyam in Prakrit language, is the Jaina text of
Vimalasuri, which dates sometime between the third and seventh centu-
ries C.E. The rewriting of this earliest of the Jaina versions of the story
was important for the Jaina religion. Paumacariyam begins with King Sre-
nika (Bimbisara) of Magadha asking for the correct version of Ramayana,
because he doubted the authenticity of the story in the existing versions.
The story begins with a description of the land of the Vidyadharas, who
also comprise the rakshasas (demons) and the vanaras (monkeys). Fol-
lowing a detailed account of these two groups' lineages, the Dasaratha
episode is introduced. On the basis of a Jaina muni's teaching, Dasaratha
desires to renounce the world, and Kekeyi demands that her son succeed
to the throne. As she simply wants her son to be the king, she dissuades
Rama from going into exile. Likewise, the rakshasas were not demons, as
the name came from the root raksa (to protect). The text also establishes
that Ravana was neither 10-headed nor a meat-eater, and "all that has
been said about him by foolish poets (murkhakukavi) is untrue." All the
main characters are pious Jainas and hence try to avoid violence. How-
ever, the rulers do show their valor through violence, as heroism cannot
be completely stifled.^24 Although the events of the Ramayana may not be
historically authenticated, it "can be seen as the expression of a certain
historical consciousness." The historical necessity of these versions, such
as the Jataka stories, Valmiki's Ramayana, and Paumacariyam, reflects "its
function as a form of validation for a changing historical situation."^25
In recent times, the fusion of the Ramayana and political issues has been
quite commonplace. During 1920-50, the peasant leader Baba Ram Chan-
dra, for instance, used the Ramcaritmanas in the Oudh countryside to radi-
calize the peasants and organize them. Invoking the popular story and
elaborating suitable episodes and characters, Ram Chandra defined impe-
rialism in the common folks' idiom, highlighted the inner contradictions
of the society, and made the peasants fight the oppressive social forces.
For him the peasants were Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana; their banishment
was the peasant's condition; the British and their landlord allies were like
the king of gods, Indra, with all the wickedness, treachery, and rascality;
and the landlords, capitalists, moneylenders, and others who exploited
the people were devils. He used the Ramayana not as a devotional text but
"to expose the exploitative character of the given social organization and
for its transformation."^26
Taking a jab at the colonial establishment with a different emphasis
from Ram Chandra, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee retold the Ramayana in
his Bengali satire Ramayaner Samalochana. In it a Western Indologist is sup-
posedly presenting a critical version of Valmiki's Ramayana for his mod-
ern readers. An illiterate king in ancient times had three wives, and one