POETRY OF V?LMEEKI AND VY?SA

The poetry of V?lmeeki and that of his poetic twin brother Vy?sa is quite different from that of other poets. These latter poets are conventional poets and M?y be called for the sake of distinction court-poets. These poets take a situation, an incident from a chronicle or a story from mythology or tradition and present them in a fine and aesthetic form or to a fine dramatic effect accordingly to the degrees of their poetic talents. Their talents could go no further perhaps. They do not, perhaps could not, create those incidents or stories. Generally it is the reverse with V?lmeeki, Vy?sa and such others. They invent a story, a situation or a series of situations. That invention, by itself is kind of poetry and a sublime one. But their presentation of invented story or incident M?y not have that finesse shown by some of the so called court-poets in presenting them. Their forte is their inventive talent while the forte of the court-poets of merit, consists in their way of presentation. This is the distinction between V?lmeeki whose name also conjures up the name of Vy?sa and other poets.

The yardstick for evaluating the poetry of V?lmeeki or Vy?sa, is the genius or the ethos of our society, in which they lived and which they inspired and to which they dedicated their work. The tests and standard of poetics are of later origin and some are of entirely exotic character and are entirely inapplicable to the genius of V?lmeeki or Vy?sa. .........................

But this is next to say that V?lmeeki or Vy?sa lack the gift for Court-Poetry. On the other hand, their works contain superb Court-Poetry. Only in the case of one type of poetic composition, namely dR?ma, some very rare gems of poets sprang up and within that specific sphere acted with greater effect vigour and beauty. In the context of the comparison with these mighty, twin-like Seer-poets, V?lmeeki and Vy?sa, those princes of poets cannot but be less than half a dozen. Moreover this type of composition is of much later origin and quite unknown to V?lmeeki or Vy?sa. There is thus K?lid?s, the greatest poets and dramatist of our country. His Sakuntala is held to be synonymous with all the beauty and charms of the heaven and earth combined. He took a small clear and small incident in M?habharata, glossed over by Vy?sa in his hurry for greater things and gave it an entirely new shape M?de it an entirely new theme and breathed such charm into it .......

There is Bhavabhuti, the greatest Sanskrit scholar poets of India and a great rival to - K?lid?sa. In his M?sterpiece, Uttara R?macharita, the karuna rasa (pathos) is said to have reached the acme of excellence as sring?ra rasa (love) in Sakuntala of K?lid?sa.

Bh?sa Mah?kavi, is another dramatic genius, who lived before K?lid?sa's times. About 13 plays are said to be authored by him. His M?sterpiece "Swapna Vasavadatta" is praised by even foreign critics, both for its structural beauty and intrinsic merit. As the saying goes, Bh?sa is the simile and K?lid?sa, the charm of the muse of poesy. He took the themes from R?mayana and M?habh?rata for his plot, but in some plays completely deviated from them and gave them new content and rasa.

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In the context of comparison with V?lmeeki and Vy?sa, such poets are very few and the above list is almost exhaustive, if it is not sought to be explained by a spirits of parochialism. To adopt a saying, those poets can be counted by the fingers of the hands, being very small in number and even in that case, the more ornamented, the more privileged and the more sacred (in the M?tter of rites) ring-fingers belong to V?lmeeki and Vy?sa, one to V?lmeeki and the other to Vy?sa. These are my little reasons. Apart from it being a perennial source of rasas and themes for any number of R?ma-plays (R?ma N?tak?s), R?mayana itself, can be viewed as a drama itself, though not a finished specimen. It satisfies M?ny rules of dramaturgy, though they are of hater origin. The seed (Beeja), from which the whole tree grows, is laid in the coming of Visw?mitra to Dasaratha culminating in the M?rriage of R?ma and Sita. It is Sita, who caused the ruination of R?vana. The sage declared before Dasaratha that he embarked upon a yagna (scarfice) to achieve some object, which obviously was to sow the seed of enmity between R?ma and the R?kshas?s through his slaying of M?reecha and Subahu and to unite the divine couple in marriage Bindu removes the obstacles in the way of fulfillment of the object. This is obviously Kaikeyee episode, Bharata's unsuccessful mission to R?ma and return to NandigrdM? and the episod of Soorpanakha which broke up R?ma's stay among the sages. Sugreeva's episode can be named as Pat?ka, which helps the main story to some extent.

The episodes of Jatayu and Sabari can be characterised as Pr?k?ri which has a least impact than on the main story. Every kind of rasa flowed from R?mayana. All this is to show that there is much superb court-poetry in V?lmeeki. But by no stretch of imagination can his R?mayana be classed as a strict drama. The canons of drama about time, places and action, completely break down here, being too short, too narrow and too restricted. Moreover the philosophy of rasa in the theatrical art, postulates aesthetic enjoyment, tranquility of mind and at last moral reformation but falls short of a spiritual ferment, revolution and discipline. A stage or a picture house can never rise to the level of a temple, which status is what is claimed by V?lmeeki or Vy?sa for their epics and that is over ethos also.

V?lmeeki is the super-human genius in the invention of a story or the incidents. That is the main characteristic of his poetic muse. But in their presentation, it is no profanation to say that he yields the palm to K?lidas and other princes of poets mentioned above, just as these latter geniuses are not fit to hold a candle to V?lmeeki or Vy?sa in inventive poetic faculty. The string of incidents mentioned in this Sarga, amply demonstrates the mind-boggling dimensions of V?lmeeki's inventive power, provided ofcourse, we don't allow the above mentioned exotic ethos with all story fantastic theories about prior legends and folk lore and bias about V?lmeeki due to N?rada's symbolic of such love, to interfere with our native ethos. Again the inventions of V?lmeeki or Vy?sa are of Titanic proportions. Other poets can create a beautiful flower or a garland of flowers, or a beautiful garden or a fine palace, but the beauty of V?lmeeki's poetry lies in the wild beauty of a thick forest, a vast stretch of wild flowers in wild profusion, in the beauty of valleys, hills, mountains, caves that can swallow up even armies, ocean resembling the sky and the sky resembling the ocean, the head of a R?kshasa being like a cliff of a mountain and all such things in fantastic aspects and proportions. Such gigantism is quite out of bounds for the poetic muse of others. Even mighty poets will run away on seeing V?lmeeki's Kumbhakarna, just as the monkey-chiefs in the great battle. No earth can contain his characters, whereas a small stage is sufficient for the characters of other poets. I want to illustrate my idea with just one small example from each epic, R?mayana and Mah?bh?rata (Vy?sa).

Sage Visw?mitra was anxious to go to the Himalayas and there do penance by the side of his sister Kousiki, who became a river and was flowing there, bringing plenty of prosperity to the people. But before vacating his holy hermitage (Siddh?sR?maj, he surveyed the whole scene in his mental vision. The Lord had come down to earth to free it from R?vana and his hordes; the celestials generated their models in the form of monkeys and bears to assist him, but there were rubbing shoulders with the R?kshas?s on account of their ruler's (V?li's and R?vana's) friendship, oblivious of their mission of enmity towards them even the Lord (R?ma), though in his teens, was whiling away his time, of course, being ignorant of the purpose of his coming down to earth, learning statecraft and other things from what Vasishta could offer him. It seemed the divine grinding stone of dharma and nemesis was not moving. It must be set in motion and Visw?mitra took on himself that task to make the world thrive and be happy (??? ?????). His aim was to sow the seed of enmity between R?ma and R?vana as also to join R?ma and Sita in wedlock. That was why Visw?mitra overstayed in Siddh?sR?ma, which as its name connotes, will fulfil the desires or it might be that, the hermitage being the most sacred one, any violation of its sanctity or defilement of its precinents, would attract wide notice and compel ruler (Dasaratha) to comply with her demand for protection. R?ma did not know that two mighty giants, mareecha and Subahu went roaming his kingdom to suppress all Yagnas and was much less aware of the stationing by R?vana of a mighty garrison in Dandaka forest, in his (R?ma's) realm to harass the rishis and stifle their sacrifices. So Visw?mitra started a yagna, which naturally came to the malefic notice of the two giants, as intended and expected by the sage and was wiped out just when it was coming to an end.

The sage rushed to the court of his guardian king Dasaratha and beseeched him to send his (Visw?mitra) bewitching idol Sri R?machandra to protect his renewed yagna. Now is my point. His entreaties were in wild sequence. He poured forth all his arguments, as if an invented bottle with a narrow neck was emptying its contents with much noise and disorder. A court-poet, if a gifted one besides, will present this theme, borrowed as it is, as a superb piece of dramatic representation, with cogent reasoning and fine dr?matic thrill. But we will be greatly missing the epic grandeur of the situation and soul-stirring, child-like, even divine simplicity of the hermits and sages of the forests, though it is more convincing in a worldly-wise way.

It is only from the mouth of an epic poets, of the caliber of V?lmeeki, that we hear that the earth shook at the fury of the frustration of Visw?mitra. Even the celestials quaked with fear. What can other poets do except meekly coping verbatim, the admonition of Dasaratha by Vasishta that, even assuming that R?ma was incapable of facing the giants, mareecha and Subahu, he will be safe and sound being shielded by Visw?mitra, like the legendary vessels of Amruta by the Fire-God? I have written this in extense, to stress the beauty of invention of this episode and the poets art of suggestion. V?lmeeki is the ideal fountain-head of most of the poetic devices found in later poets, especially poetic suggestion. In this episode, the motive of Visw?mitra, R?ma's divinity and the future course the story will take under the aegis of Visw?mitra are suggested with exquisite skill and beauty. The suggestion behind Visw?mitra's confession to Dasaratha, that these two giants would take on themselves to defile the proposed yagna, if R?vana did not think fit to do so in person, is highly thought-provoking. The extreme sanctity of the hermitage, coupled with the unique spiritual might of Visw?mitra (and he can also create new and unheard-of astr?s then and there) might deter R?vana or it might be that R?ma's confrontation with him would be too premature according to the divine plan and especially when his divine cannon (Sita) was not even heard of. No poets could fare better with this poetic suggestion (?????).

The poetic skill of Vy?sa is very similar. So I will deal with one example from mah?bh?rata of Vy?sa. Here again the incident itself is poetry and poetry of a high order.

The king Parikshit was cursed to die of the deadly bite of Takshaka, the most dreaded chief of the snakes of P?t?la, a nether world. The snake-chief started, incognate as a revered old man to deceive the king's bodyguard, on his fateful mission, on the day fated to be the last day of the king's life. He was passing through a forest and met on the way the great Brahmarshi by name K?syapa. Lord Brahma granted to him the boon of a spell and cure (mantra and Tantra) for the poison of any powerful snake in the celestial regions or in this world or in the Nagaloka, the nether world of snakes. He could bring back to life even those who lost their lives by snakes. He was also going to the king to save him from the impending disaster through the snake-chief Coming to know of this, the serpent-chief disclosed his identity to him and boasted that it was futile on the part of the rishi to go to the king, since there was no one on earth that could save, the victim of his death-dealing bite and challenged him to a test of his abilities. The sage agreed to the challenge. Takshaka bit a huge tree nearby and the sage was astonished to see it reduced to ashes in a trice. But concealing his astonishment, the sage proceeded to gather the ashes into a heap and with the same ease as in the case of the serpent-chief and in a trice, restored the tree to its former state through the power of his mantras and art. Takshaka was stunned. He had not even heard that it would be possible. He dissuaded the hermit from interfering with fate and having learned that the sage was going to the king, also by the lure of a reward of riches from the king, offered him ten times the riches, he expected from the king.

The sage with his spiritual foresight, saw what Takshaka told him about fate was true and went back taking the money of Takshaka with him. The way became clear for both the curse and the serpent-chief moving inexorably to their goal. The king and even his palace were reduced to ashes in the twinkling of an eye when Takshaka bit him and vanished then and there. Poets would be astonished at this episode just as Takshaka at the miracle wrought by the sage K?syapa. I think the ring-episode in "Sakuntala" of K?lid?sa can have no better claim to merit than this.

There is something more. When asked to write how this incident came to be known, even great poets would most probably say that they learnt it from Va?samp?yana muni, the narrator of mah?bh?rata, who had heard it from his great guru Vy?sa implying that Vy?sa saw it in his spiritual vision. But what has Vy?sa said? He said the following and if it is not poetry, what else is it?

At the time when the serpent-chief and the sage were talking, a brahmin was sitting in the tree. He was from Hastin?pura, the capital and came there to gather some twigs for purposes of his daily ritual of Homa. Along with the tree, he was reduced to ashes by the poison of Takshaka and along with the tree, became whole again through the miracle of the sage. He ran to the city and told his people this hair-raising experience of his.

These two great epics, R?mayana and mah?bh?rata are not mere chronicles, like horinshed chronicles or the Aeosop's fables. They contain poetry and that of the highest order and constitute the fountain-head of it. They are the great oceans of poetry, from which the various protean-shaped clouds of poetry, gather in the intellectual heavens and nourish the humanity and its varied civilizations.

All this is not to say that their sole poetic talent lies in spinning out stories. Their characterisation, the forte of the subsequent princes of poets and dr?matists, is also superb. They also explored the various moods of man and dealt with the various emotions (rasas) and passions. But they were far from the civilisation and were the semi-clad denizens of the forests, with an outlook on life, quite different from that of the fully robed courtier-poets in a glittering court-atmosphere. So these epic poets lack the subtlety the refinement and the finesse of those poets and dramatists in the light of their civilisation. Thus V?lmeeki and Vy?sa dealt with the moods and passions in their primordial nature and aspect. They were utterly incapable of smiling and laughing in thirty different ways and attitudes or shedding forty kinds of tears or crying or moaning in fifty different methods. Again moods of their characters like their physical dimensions and forms, are of vast proportions and are of a quite different order. The frown on the faces of Havana resembles a rolling billow of the ocean, earthquakes. The great elements get out of order. The ways of living, the moods, the sentiments, the passions found among the Lilliputians, have nothing in common with those found among the Brobdingnagians (of the "Gulliver's Travels" by Swift), though both are homo-sapiens.

The child-like simplicity, bordering on the divine, which is the main features of these epic poets, is nowhere to be seen in the other poets. Their thoughts and actions are at times fantastic, childish or may be even silly. But under that cover, we find a sublime truth shinning forth, a mind-boggling situation stretching forth before us or a problem confronting humanity and even celestials throughout the corridors of time. The Rishyasrunga's episode or for the matter of that, Ahalya's apparent betrayal of her husband, Goutama, are but small examples.

In the infancy of man, a cloud takes on a colour or form different from that in his youth or manhood, or old age. To a child it appears as his paper-boat on a rainy day, sailing the sky. When on this fancy or imagination of the child, is superimposed all the vedic. wisdom, gained by uncommon spiritual disciplines, there and there only, we find V?lmeeki or Vy?sa. That is the reason why all the poets, invariably pay homage to these divinely poetical personalities.

Extracted and abridged from: Valmiki Ramayana, Commentary by L.Ananta Rama Rao

Bala Kanda, Sargas (3-4)

http://www.ramayanaepic.com/sarga_k1_s3-4.htm