SOURCE: Dodson, Charles B. “Using Homer to Teach The Ramayana.” Teaching English in the Two Year College 28, no. 1 (September 2000): 68-73.

[In the following essay, Dodson explores similarities and differences between the Ramayana and the Iliad and Odyssey.]

Using more familiar works as benchmarks can effectively expand students' understanding and enjoyment of unfamiliar nonwestern literary works. For example, by the time I get to Valmiki's Indian epic, the Ramayana, in a sophomore world literature survey, the class has already read, among other things, a large chunk of the Iliad and all of the Odyssey. I can then ask students to read the Ramayana with the Homeric epics in mind and to look for both general and specific likenesses and differences in cultural assumptions, content, and style. My hope is that in this way they will come to recognize and appreciate the delights of a work that is sometimes strikingly similar to, yet often exotically different from, the more familiar western ethos and manner of Homer.

I begin the course by assuming the students have little knowledge of the Homeric epics beyond a general awareness of the Trojan war, a few major characters, and probably some of the adventures of Odysseus. Our discussions stress, in addition to details of the action, such matters as the traits of the heroic figure, the position of women in Homeric times, the relationship of mortals to gods, Olympian politics, and the social and ethical values of the warrior society—for example, Achilles's complaint that Agamemnon has slighted him in the distribution of booty is not so much a matter of dollars and cents as of status. I use the Fagles translation of the Iliad and the Fitzgerald translation of the Odyssey. Many students find the stately pace and understated tone of the Iliad hard going, and the Odyssey not much easier. When we begin Valmiki's epic, they are relieved to see that the translation of the Ramayana I have chosen, R. K. Narayan's prose version, reads much like a modern novel. Because it is also relatively short, I can expect students to have completed reading it by the second day of discussion. As I had previously done for Homer, I hand out topics and questions for journal writing and group discussion …. These lead students to read the Ramayana in the light of what we have already read and discussed about the Homeric epics. I begin with a few minutes of general background comments on the religious, cultural, and historical background of the Ramayana.

Students have no trouble identifying the more obvious parallels between the epics, in spite of the different religious, cultural, and geographic origins that underlie them. For example, like the legends from which the Iliad and Odyssey are drawn, the Ramayana tells of a great war caused by the abduction of a princess, a siege of the abductor's city, a confrontation between the abductor and the aggrieved husband, and the return of the princess to her home city. Both Homer and Valmiki frequently interrupt their narrative with digressions. Both set their stories in a heroic age peopled by legendary figures, and there are important religious and ethical overtones along with the action. Gods take an active role in both. Thus Indra's sending of his own chariot and charioteer for Rama's use in battling Ravana reminds some students of Athene's active intervention at crucial times in the Odyssey; of the shield and armor made specially for Achilles by Hephaestus; and of various gods' participation on both sides on the battlefield before Troy.

More perceptive students find parallels to particular episodes or passages from both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Vali's wife Tara warns him not to go out to accept Sugreeva's challenge in a way that recalls Andromache's fearful urging in Book 4 of the Iliad that Hector not return to the field of battle but instead rebuff the rampaging Achaians from defensive positions atop the battlements of Troy. In a passage that, except for the character's name, could almost have come from the Iliad, Ravana's gigantic lieutenant Mahodara, “intoxicated with war fever” (like an Achaian warrior in a frenzied aristeia), and eager for the glory that comes with victory over a famous opponent, resolutely attacks Rama (153). Like Achilles, Ravana pridefully stays out of the fight with Rama's forces until, infuriated by Rama's destruction of his brother and son (parallel to Hector's slaying of Patroclus), Ravana feels “a terrific rage rising within him” (151), dons his “blessed armor” (149), and rushes forth to challenge Rama, telling himself, “The time has come for me to act by myself again” (152).

The Ramayana contains frequent parallels to the events of the Odyssey as well. Though the circumstances vary, both Rama and Odysseus endure long exiles—Rama for fourteen years, Odysseus the ten years of his return to Ithaka on top of the ten he spent at Troy. Rama's wife Sita staunchly resists Ravana's threats and blandishments while she is in captivity, just as Penelope puts off the suitors, who have made her a virtual prisoner in her own house. The similarities of the bow-stringing episodes in each story are obvious to even the least-attentive students. Those who read more closely also point out that Hanuman and Lakshmana, who endure exile with Rama and act as important lieutenants in the battle with Ravana, correspond to the loyal Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius, who all stand with Odysseus in the showdown with the usurping suitors. Soorpanaka's attempted seduction of Rama parallels Circe's and Calypso's more successful attempts to divert Odysseus from returning home. The final battle concluded, civic order is restored in both epics as Rama returns to Ayodhya in triumph to resume the coronation interrupted fourteen years before; and, in the Odyssey, when Odysseus has finally been reunited with Penelope and his father Laertes, Athene steps in to disperse the vengeance-bent relatives of the slain suitors.

But within this framework of similarity, the differences between the Ramayana and the Homeric poems are what the students find so uniquely interesting in Valmiki's epic. When I ask if they see anything modern in Rama, some point to an element of charisma in him that reminds them of the way we react to sports heroes or pop culture figures. As one pointed out, other characters fear and respect Achilles and Odysseus, but they love Rama. I ask the students to find examples of asceticism, contemplation, and restraint, which a Homeric character would probably consider odd, impractical, even weak. Thus Rama's training and rites of passage involve not only tests of courage and physical strength, but instruction in yoga, philosophy, and ethics. The question of whether he can destroy Thataka with propriety, because she is a woman, would probably not occur to Achilles—or to Odysseus, who orders the execution of the faithless maids without hesitation. Nor would Homer's characters pause to argue the propriety of Rama's becoming involved in the dispute between Vali and Sugreeva. The lengthy discussion of the ethical questions raised by Rama's shooting of Vali from ambush can provide the occasion for an in-class “debate” between two groups of students. Achilles's stubborn insistence on his own worth is the wellspring of the Iliad, yet one of Rama's most admirable traits is his self-denial, as he accepts an unjust exile without rancor and humbly dons clothing made from tree bark. And the blood-thirsty Achaian warrior-chieftans of the Iliad would probably find strange indeed the words of King Dasaratha to his favorite son Rama: “Humility and soft speech—there could be really no limit to these virtues. There can be no place in a king's heart for lust, anger, or meanness” (38).

Homer's warriors have no time for speculation; Rama has 14 years for it. For the Greek warrior, human suffering can be explained simply and easily: the gods are responsible. But to the Indian, such issues are the subject of debate and introspection. The transitory nature of human existence means only to the Greek warrior-hero that he does not have much time to make his mark; for him, death is always only one fated spear-thrust away, and life is all that matters. I direct students' attention to Achilles's bitter comment to Odysseus in the underworld episode of the Odyssey; “Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand / for some poor country man, on iron rations, / than lord it over all the exhausted dead” (Book 11). As Robert Antoine has pointed out, “While the Greek hero feels that human existence is a gift which must be enjoyed, the Indian hero tends to see in it a bondage from which one should escape” (112).

The students are quick to notice not only the sheer number and variety of divine and demonic beings in the Ramayana but the ambivalent powers of the gods as well. For example, the gods often lack precognition of the outcome of major events, such as the climactic battle with Ravana; whereas Homer provides us with the wonderful image of Zeus weighing the fates of Achilles and Hector on his golden scales (Book 22). As in Homer, the gods of the Ramayana take human form and go among humans, but would Zeus go to a human for help as did Indra, “the chief of all the gods” (103), who sought aid at various times from Rama's father Dasaratha and from the sage Agasthya (9, 12)? Students are especially surprised when they discover that Valmiki's gods can even be defeated by a mortal—as we learn in one of the digressive tales, when King Mahabali conquers the whole of earth and heaven (14). The laws of nature are seldom violated in the Homeric epics. Exceptions in the Odyssey are Scylla and, probably, the floating rocks, though the latter may well be a metaphor for an essentially natural phenomenon, as is Charybdis, the whirlpool. The warriors of the Iliad fight only other warriors (plus the occasional god or goddess), and the cannibal Polyphemus, his size and single eye notwithstanding, is essentially human—monstrous in behavior, but not a monster. But in the Ramayana the laws of nature are altered or even dispensed with as the storyteller pleases: Thataka is alternately woman, desert, and dragon (12-13); Shiva's bow, which Rama wields with ease, is “so huge that no one could comprehend it at one glance” (28); Ravana and Soorpanaka, Rama's and Sita's chief opponents, are themselves demons with magical powers (and Ravana has 10 heads and 20 arms); Ravana, lovesick at the mere thought of Sita—whom he has never seen—changes the weather, banishes the seasons, and disrupts the very passage of time itself; even the sun and moon shine or not, as he commands (82-3); Hanuman can assume gigantic size at will; and in the closing battle, Rama's and Ravana's chariots not only fly but circle the globe (155).

In fact, the western tendency to exaggerate the virtues and prowess of the heroic figure is mild in comparison to the almost bizarrely superhuman deeds, characters, and events of the Ramayana. Thus Bhagiratha, “responsible for bringing the Ganges down to earth […] prayed intensely for ten thousand years to Brahma, […] prayed to Shiva for ten thousand years […] and prayed to Ganga for five thousand years” before finally prevailing on Ganga to become the Ganges (19). Rama defeats Kara's 14 demon commanders, then Kara himself and his whole army of demons, single-handedly (76-77); and he similarly disposes of Ravana's whole army, “which stretched away to the horizon,” (154) before taking on Ravana himself in a battle that ranges over the whole earth.

Both Homer and Valmiki's epics share a digressive narrative mode, which students tend to find disconcerting, given the modern penchant (especially in popular movies and television series) for uncomplicated linear narrative. So I ask students to look for fairy-tale-like qualities in the interpolated stories in the Ramayana, in contrast to Homer's stolid histories of helmets and lineages. For example, in Mahabali's story, Vishnu restores the kingdoms of the gods by tricking Mahabali, first by taking dwarfish form and then by becoming so huge that he encompasses the earth and the heavens in two steps (14-15). Thataka's story explains how the desert came to be (11-14). Perhaps Ahalya's story is the nearest to Greek myth in spirit, reminding students of Zeus's frequent infatuation with mortal women. The sage Gautama, having caught Indra (“the highest god among the gods”) in the act of lying with Gautama's surpassingly beautiful wife Ahalya, decrees that Indra's body “be covered with a thousand female marks, so that in all the worlds,” he tells Indra, “people may understand what really goes on in your mind all the time”; immediately, “every inch of Indra's body displayed the female organ” (21). Gautama also punishes the blameless Ahalya—Indra had assumed Gautama's own form when he seduced her—by turning her to granite. She can only be freed from the enchantment when “Rama passes this way at some future date” (22), which, of course, happens when some dust from Rama's feet falls on her as he is walking to Sita's city for his wedding (20).

This fairytale quality pervades much of Narayan's version of the epic, quite in contrast with the somber and often grimly bloody events of the Homeric poems. The Iliad is full of pain and suffering: its battle scenes are exciting and realistic, its killings depicted in graphic and bloody detail. In the Odyssey the slaughter of the suitors, the hanging of the treacherous maids, and the mutilation of the disloyal goatherd Melanthius are ghastly and have considerable emotional impact despite Homer's lofty style. But the Ramayana, for all its military action, violent death, and physical punishments, is somehow different. We feel the pain in Homer's battles, but not in the Ramayana's. And indeed, one wonders if the final conflict between Rama and Ravana takes place in the external world of searing pain and bloody corpses at all, or rather in Rama's mind. I ask students to consider this description of the penultimate attack by Ravana, who is invoking a weapon called “Maya,” designed to create illusions:

With proper incantations and worship, he sent off the weapon and it created an illusion of reviving all the arm[y] and its leaders […] and bringing them back to the battlefield. Presently Rama found all those who, he thought, were no more, coming on with battle cries and surrounding him. Every man in the enemy's army was again up in arms. […] Rama asked, […] “How are all these coming back? They were dead.” Matali explained, “In your original identity you are the creator of illusions in this universe. Please know that Ravana has created phantoms to confuse you. If you make up your mind, you can dispel them immediately.” […] Rama at once invoked a weapon called “Gnana”—which means “wisdom” or “perception.” […] And all the terrifying armies who seemed to have come on in such a great mass suddenly evaporated into thin air.

(156)

Shortly after, Rama delivers the lethal blow to Ravana in the form of Brahmasthra, a weapon devised by Brahma himself. Immediately Ravana is transformed, revealing a being “devout and capable of tremendous attainments,” whose “face shone with serenity and peace”:

Rama's arrows had burnt off the layers of dross, the anger, conceit, cruelty, lust, and egotism which had encrusted his [Ravana's] real self, and now his personality came through in its pristine form.

(159)

All this suggests that in the world of the Ramayana, evil is only a temporary aberration from good and not a permanent entity. And in fact, we are told on the next page that Ravana's spirit will “go to heaven, where he has his place.”

But there are no miraculous transformations of character when a Homeric personage dies. In the Odyssey, the shade of Achilles is as sullenly ferocious as ever (Book 11); the dead suitors are quickly conducted to their permanent dwelling in the underworld. And were it not for the direct intervention of Athene, the Odyssey would close on yet another cycle of retributive killing in response to the code of blood vengeance.

The students find other noteworthy differences between the Homeric and Indian epics. For example, there are occasional flashes of humor in the latter and an unselfconscious treatment of sex that today's generation of students finds amusing. There are no doubt other ways of conveying to American students the delights of the Ramayana and other unfamiliar works outside the European tradition, but I have found that asking them to observe closely both the similarities and differences between Homer and Valmiki succeeds admirably with most. In fact, in the informal poll that I often conduct at the end of the course, many students tell me the Ramayana was the work they enjoyed most.

Works Cited

Antoine, Robert. “Indian and Greek Epics.” Approaches to the Oriental Classics. New York: Columbia UP, 1959. 95-112.

Fagles, Robert, trans. The Odyssey. New York: Penguin, 1990.

Fitzgerald, Robert, trans. The Iliad. Garden City: Anchor, 1963.

Narayan, R. K. The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic. New York: Penguin, 1977.