Is the RRR movie a contemporary retelling of Ramayana?
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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors. Hare Krishna. Is the movie RRR a retelling of the Ramayana in a contemporary perspective? Answer, in terms of any conventional definition of retelling, it is certainly not a retelling because it talks about two freedom fighters who lived in recent times nowhere near the Ramayana times and their lives had their own trajectories, their own contexts. So, it’s not a retelling of the Ramayana but at the same time there are striking parallels between the way these characters and their non-historical interactions are depicted in the movie. So, I would like to talk about this at four different levels with respect to preaching the Ramayana or turning towards the Ramayana. So, for example, let’s consider those who are already having a great taste for the Ramayana and who love to directly hear the Ramayana. For them, there is no need for any contemporary retellings like these or any stories which have themes from the Ramayana but there is a lot of other things. There is romance and there is so many other things which could very well be distractions. So, just like Krishna talks in the 10th canto of the Bhagavatam, it is said that Krishna Nila can be attractive for different kinds of people, even those who are interested in transcendence, those who are interested in even sensual seeming pleasures. So, like that the Ramayana can be accessed at various different levels. But those who are already accessing and relishing the Ramayana directly in its traditional, devotional, ethical dimensions, for them this movie is not at all relevant. It could very well be a distraction. Having said that, there is a vast majority of people who don’t fall in this category. And if Lord Ram and Ramayana and themes from the Ramayana can be brought into their consciousness, that could be a valuable service. So, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that, that I am victory, I am adventure. So, Krishna is giving Arjun in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita called Vibhuti Yoga, the ability to see him and remember him in various dimensions of the world. So, in a war Arjun is going to have fight and there is thrill and adventure and there is victory. And there is exhilaration and all that which attracts people. So, and to some extent that thrill and exhilaration of adventure and victory also is experienced vicariously by people when they watch action movies. So, if we consider the top level of people who are already having taste for the Ramayana, and we talk about an outermost level of people who have no awareness of the Ramayana. But they watch this movie, they watch movies simply for the action and the thrill. So, they forget everything else and become absorbed in it. And at such times, the adventure that they watch, the thrill that they get through the adventure and the victory, that is actually their experience in Krishna. Even if they don’t know that they are experiencing Krishna. So, they may watch movies like the Marvel movies or the DC Universe or other kind of action movies and they may enjoy it. And if the Indian movie industry can make movies with that caliber of action, thrill, adventure, and within that there are some parallels with the Ramayana, then Ramayana comes into the awareness and the consciousness of the people. So, there are some striking parallels when say there are two characters in the movie, one is based broadly on Ram, the other is based broadly on Hanuman. So, the character is called Bhima. He, the Bhima and Hanuman are related, both are Vayuputras. So, he is broadly related. There are some ways in which he is related with Hanuman. So, for example, in one fighting scene where Hanuman in the Valmiki Ramayana is described and in the Kambharamayana is described even further, how Hanuman carries Ram on his shoulders and Ram fights. So, there is a very striking scene which is similar over there. Then there is also the theme where Ram is captured by Mahiravan and put in an under subterranean prison and then he is rescued by Hanuman. So, similarly, there is a theme of the character who is similar to Ram who is put underground. So, from whatever reviews I have read of the article of the movie, there are similar themes like that which are, there is of course iconographic image, which came in the trailer also about how there is very striking similarity on the depiction of the character who is modeled on Ram, similar to Ram. He is using bow and arrow for fighting. Then there are a few other places also where there are similarities. One particular place where the character who is called Bheem who is based on Hanuman says that I will reunite Sita and Ram. So, these we may say that are we stretching things and seeing similarities with the Ramayana when they are actually not there. Well, maybe, maybe not. We can’t go into the hearts of the directors and find out whether they had these intentions or not. If they had, that’s wonderful. If they didn’t have, then it’s significant still that such parallels are there. If you look at one of the prominent Christian theologians, C.S. Lewis, he wrote a series of books called the Narayana series. And in that, that is simply fiction at one level, very attractive fiction, which is widely read by children. In the Narayana, the main character, the lion is actually based on Jesus and his sacrifice toward the end of one of the, toward the end of the series is similar to Jesus self-sacrifice and crucifixion. So, there are Christian themes within that, which are depicted and C.S. Lewis himself talked about different kinds of reading material, which can be there. So, he talks about direct scriptural stories, which people will read. And there are fictional stories, which people will read, which have nothing related with God or religion or no themes like that. And there could be fiction, which points people towards religion, towards, in this case, Christianity. They said this kind of, so now many people will read Narnia tales and they will not think about Jesus at all. And some may, they may want to know more about C.S. Lewis, they may want to know more about the symbolism and they may explore. So, for some people who know nothing about Ramayana, they may be attracted only by the action and adventure and war and victory in that. But that is also a dimension of Krishna. But in most other movies, that action element doesn’t connect them with Krishna or in this case Ram. But in this case, because there are similarities with Lord Ram, people may start exploring more about Ramayana. And those who are already familiar with Ramayana, for them, this could be a catalyzing influence where they may further want to explore Ramayana. So, one is getting introduced to Ramayana. Second is exploring Ramayana further, those who already have some familiarity with it. And third is, as devotees, when we want to discuss, start discussion with people who are relatively new or who are somewhat familiar to Ramayana, the movie could be a starting point for the discussion. So, generally, to get Krishna and get spiritual concepts into the consciousness of people, to get them interested, if we have something that they are already interested in and connected with that, that is a very powerful way of reaching out to people. It intrigues them. So, this could be a discussion point to have connection between contemporary popular culture and traditional or timeless spiritual culture and spiritual wisdom. So, to summarize these four levels, is it a retelling of Ramayana? Not in a traditional sense. And for those who are directly interested in Ramayana, this could just be a distraction. But for those who wish to do outreach and share spiritual wisdom, the parallels between this movie and Ramayana could become an icebreaker, a starting point for discussion. For those who are familiar with the Ramayana, this may inspire them to explore it further. And for those who have no awareness of the Ramayana, they are simply attracted to the action and the adventure and the thrill. So, they are experiencing Krishna, but without knowing it is Krishna. However, if this experience of Krishna is presented within a narrative that is connected with Krishna, then that can start their spiritual journey. So, overall, rather than having completely mundane movies with no spiritual themes at all, movies which have some spiritual themes can be a way of raising spiritual consciousness among those who are not ready for direct spirituality. Thank you, Hare Krishna.
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna, Krishna Dharmaprabhu. Please welcome to the Monks Podcast. Your Ramayana and Mahabharata were the books that after Leelamrit, they're the books I, on the first reading, I fell in love with those books.
I had read the Ramayana and the Mahabharata since my childhood, or read and watched and heard about it. But the flair of language that you have, which you bring, you have visual evocative power to your language. That was amazing.
And so many devotees across the world, whenever they ask which Ramayana and Mahabharata to read, I recommend yours. And so many devotees after reading it, they say this is so amazing. We wish we had read this long before.
So I'm glad you like it. It's wonderful to have you here today. Thank you very much for coming, Prabhu.
Thank you for your kind words, Prabhu. Thank you very much. So, Prabhu, I thought today we could discuss about these books.
Now, in India, we use the word epics for them. But I think in the West, the word epics have some other ideas, evoke some other images. Yeah, I mean, certainly they won't think of Mahabharata or Ramayana.
They'll think of something like Homer or Gilgamesh, you know, that kind of thing. Perhaps these days, Lord of the Rings, you know, but yeah, but not. Yeah, not the Indian epics.
Yes. But yes, they are indeed epics. So can you say how you got interested in retelling them and in retelling what exactly you do? Yes, exactly.
Well, I mean, it was my very deep love for the Mahabharata and Ramayana that inspired me to write them. I read them. I can't actually read Sanskrit, so I read them in translation.
And I don't know if you've seen, for example, Ganguli or Dutt, but they're very stilted English, very old style. And I enjoyed it. I mean, I like poetry.
I read classical poets from the last century and, you know, the last couple of centuries. I really enjoy that kind of thing. So I found that most people would not be able to read that or, you know, would find it a bit heavy going.
But at the same time, I was so struck by the beauty of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, of the poetry, the descriptions of the high virtue, the characters, the drama, everything about it. I found it so, so amazing and wonderful. I thought, well, if I could share this with others, that might be a nice service.
And I knew a little bit about writing and I actually took some other writing courses around that time to try and improve my ability. And I actually first wrote the Ramayana and I had no aspirations for publication, to be honest with you. I thought, well, I don't know if anyone's going to publish this.
It's not the kind of thing that, you know, I mean, there was already a lot of other translations available, so I wasn't very ambitious about getting it published. I thought maybe, you know, it would help my children and perhaps a few other people if I can, you know, maybe self-publish or something. But fortunately, I did find someone.
There was a devotee at the time who was doing a publishing, Torchlight, a Veda Chandra Prabhu. And he picked it up and, you know, it seemed to take off. It did really well, actually.
More so the Mahabharata. The Ramayana is popular among devotees and in India, but the Mahabharata actually has been very popular even in a broader Western market. So, yeah, it was it was mostly my love and desire to share it with others that inspired me.
That's amazing. So when you wrote it, you were you had no like a clear plan for publishing also. So you wrote just for yourself? No.
OK. Yeah, I did. I mean, I just I just wanted it was just something inside me that it was kind of bursting out of me.
I had to do it. It's one of those things, you know. And so how do you.
Yeah, it's it was I was so inspired by it personally. And had you written anything in your pre-devotional life or in your devotional life till then? No books. I mean, I've written very, you know, I dabbled with it.
I poetry and articles and things like that. I've written quite a lot of commentary. I'd written for the BBC that they were getting me to do broadcasts and things like that.
So but no major works, no, no books as such. So that was my first first book I wrote was the Ramayan. So BBC and then the Mahabharata was pretty soon after.
Sorry BBC broadcast? Yeah, BBC broadcast. Was it radio or was it articles? A radio. I was doing.
Yeah, I had to write scripts for different things like prayer for the day, pause for thought, things like that. So I was I was doing that. And I wrote articles that had been published and published in The Guardian, The Independent, some newspapers in this country.
So I've managed to get a few articles published by them. So, I mean, I had a real interest in writing. I enjoyed it very much, but I've never really thought of writing a book.
I didn't want to write a novel. I've never been interested in fiction as such. But then the Ramayan was perfect.
I mean, I've read, like, for example, Lord of the Rings and some of the other epics, Sophocles, that kind of thing. But they'd always been very empty and soulless. Although the language was nice and I quite enjoyed reading them.
But still, there was something missing that I found in the Mahabharata and I found in the Ramayan that it had a deeper spiritual meaning. It was actually something profound and not just like Lord of the Rings, for example. There's themes running through that.
It was written by Tolkien, who was a Christian. So he, you know, he wove in different themes of virtue and that kind of thing, but nothing explicit and certainly no spiritual messages were there. So it leaves you feeling a little empty.
It's not satisfying on a spiritual level. But, you know, the Indian epics, the Mahabharata, the Ramayan, they really are. And I think that was one of the main things that appealed to me.
That's interesting. So in a sense, when I read your books, there is no preaching in the books, in either the Ramayan or the Mahabharata. There is no commentary or there is no, the word preaching has a negative connotation, but there is no direct teaching of values.
So you feel even through just the storyline and the discussions, some values get conveyed and you feel even devotional values get conveyed even for a Western audience? They do. Yeah. I mean, I think the whole aim of those epics is to show, not tell more than anything through the lives of the characters, through, you know, the different results that they achieve in their lives, whether they're the villains or the good guys, they get very different results from their activities.
And you can see in that that that conveys the lesson through stories. The best way really to convey teachings, morals, ethics, spirituality is through stories. And I think this is the earliest example of that.
Vyasadev knew that well and Valmiki telling these stories in such a beautiful, poetic way, with nice dramatic effects and everything. It gets across the messages. You don't have to explicitly tell them.
It's sufficient just to read the stories and hear about these great personalities. Yes. You know, when I think about the epics, there are multiple things which are attractive in the story itself, which is attractive.
The values conveyed through the stories are attractive. And also, as you said, Ramayan is exquisite poetry. So the format of the literature also is attractive.
So in some way, we as a movement, we have transmitted the wisdom in various languages, but to transmit it in a beautiful format, that in a like, as you said, a poetic format or a literary appealing format that especially in English has not been done much. If I look at India, you know, the Sanskrit Ramayan is popular, but it is quite the vernacular Ramayans that actually spread the appeal of the Ramayan all over the country. So in some ways, English is our international language.
So maybe the vernacularization of Ramayan in English may not be the right word. But I think your book is one of the first and most prominent contributions in presenting it in a form that is appreciable simply for its literary value also. The writing and the elegance in it.
Yeah, thank you. I mean, yes, of course, prior to me, there had been other versions, but one of the things I'd noticed about them, I read the Mahabharata by Kamala Subramanian, for example, and R. K. Narayan is another author. I forget his name, but there was another famous one, shorter version.
But all of them, I found, didn't really convey the real spiritual import that's implicit in the text. You know, there's a certain message there, which the author is trying to get across. And I found it obscured in these other versions.
And that was something that troubled me. And that was another reason why I felt inspired to try and present the epics and retain that message. And, you know, keep it intact.
The the actual spiritual teachings that are most important, in fact, and that I found have been obscured or misinterpreted or even just twisted a little bit in other versions, to be honest. That's true. You know, it was since after I read your Ramayan, I also started Ramayan in Mahabharata.
I started speaking it on extensively and I found that even a direct spiritual message, if it is conveyed through stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, it becomes so much more attractive. And we can use some stories from non-scriptural sources also to convey certain points and lessons. But if we have stories available from our scriptures, then then using them is even more authentic and enriching and purifying.
Yes, that's what I thought. Yeah. I mean, you're saying we can come up with other stories of our own.
Perhaps we can write some novels or different things like that or borrow from other cultures. But the most powerful way to convey the message is through the stories that are found in our own writings, in our own texts, like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Srimad Bhagavatam, which we can talk about after as well. Yes, definitely.
So, you know, with respect to the values, I also started writing on the Ramayana now. I've published one book. Another book is soon to come.
Yes, I've seen that. They're very good. Yeah.
So, you know, I thought of three levels. There is there are devotional values. Then we could say there are ethical or human values.
And then beyond that, there are certain culture specific values. So that means certain decisions which the characters take in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, this can seem very difficult for us to… why did they do like that? So there are some spiritual values which are easy to understand, some ethical values. Say, for example, Ram obeying his father or Bharat sacrificing, but not wanting to take the kingdom that fell upon him, that came to him.
So selflessness, dutifulness, some values are relatively easy to understand. So there are directly devotional values, there are ethical values. And then if I may use the word, there are controversial values.
That means why the characters over there act that way. It can seem, say, for example, say, why Ram banished Sita or something like that. Or some of the situations when in the Mahabharata, some of the characters on the Kaurava side are killed in ways that seem less than ethical.
So now, when you were translating it, at that time, did you… because you are not really giving a commentary to it. So did you anticipate what kind of questions your audience would get? And did you try to address that? Or your focus was let the story speak for itself? Yeah. OK, so you're asking that there are some spiritual points in the epics which are difficult to comprehend and which seem intuitively the wrong thing.
Like, why did Ram banish Sita? That creates a great deal of doubt. Or why did Yudhisthira gamble, lose his brothers and everything? So, yeah. So you're saying, did I think that that needed some commentary, some explanation? Yes.
Or did I just allow the story to explain it for itself? And I think the way I handled that was to try and give an insight into the inner dialogue of the characters. What was moving them to do what they did? Like, with Ram, I mean, it's a little difficult with divinities like Lord Ram to give the inner dialogue. But you get some insights from the author and from the commentators, from the Acharyas.
So working with that, I was able to hopefully convey some of the deeper, you know, the deeper reasons behind those activities, which is difficult to understand, such as Sita's banishment and such as the way that Yudhisthira acted in the Mahabharata and that kind of thing. And you can see by the way he's thinking, like Yudhisthira I'm talking about now, he's connecting with Krishna. And he's thinking always in terms of what does Krishna want? What does God want for me in this situation? Because a personality like that can't think in any other way.
You know, a great soul, a great devotee of Krishna can only think in terms of what does Krishna want. He never thinks in terms of his own senses, his own mind, his own desires. So on that level, and he's also being moved from within by the super soul.
So, you know, all of these things, in other words, are going on as a part of a much higher divine plan. So the, you know, the challenge was to try and get that across, to show that and help people to understand that this wasn't a personality who was overcome by lust, by greed, by anger or envy like us, because that's the problem. We tend to superimpose those things onto those characters because that's how we would act in that situation.
That would be how we would think, but they don't think in the same way. They're very different to us. So the, you know, what I tried to do is to show that, to bring that out, that here is a person not like you, not like me, who's acting from another level completely, which is completely pure and without any trace of ignorance.
And then it becomes a little clearer what's happening. Yes. So overall, do you see over the years, the popularity of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the Western world has also increased or how do you see the overall effect on the culture? Has it increased? I mean, I think it's slowly increasing.
There's nothing dramatic happening in that respect. There's definitely an interest which is consistent. It has a little bit recently, I think.
With my books, I find, you know, there's been, I've just changed publishers. My previous publisher, unfortunately, went out of business. And so now I'm with Mandala, a different publisher, and they've just re-released my books.
So for a little while, they weren't actually available. They were out of print, but they've just come back. But all throughout that time, I've actually had them available as audiobooks.
And there's been a growing interest in that, that the sales of the audiobooks have been steadily increasing. But I mean, it's not massive. It's not selling on the level of Harry Potter or anything like that, I wish.
But for what it is, it holds up surprisingly well. So yes, in the Western market, especially the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is not so well known. That in the West, it doesn't sell so well.
But in India, obviously, it's very popular. And in Asia, you know, all around Asia. That's interesting, because Ramayana is, in some ways, far more popular in India than the Mahabharata.
That's correct. Yeah. During the COVID pandemic, when the Indian government had imposed a lockdown in India, because many people have small houses and not very good ventilation, keeping people inside is difficult.
So one of the things the government did was it rebroadcast the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, popular serials which had been coming in the 1980s and 90s. And they had the Ramayana rebroadcast had the all time highest viewership among all programs all over the world. So it seems that it is enormously popular.
So in India, Ramayana is much more popular than Mahabharata. So you are saying in the West, it is opposite. Any reason for that? I think the Mahabharata, why is it more popular? I think because people are more aware of the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps.
And obviously, that's a chapter in the Mahabharata. And the Mahabharata actually was broadcast on television in this country. I think it was by Chopra, that one that had 90 episodes.
And it was very popular. It attracted up to 2 million viewers. Surprisingly, even though it wasn't the most polished of things in terms of the special effects and everything else.
But the story itself is so wonderful, so profound and so perennial. The messages and everything that it appealed to quite a broad audience. And I think that helped.
Another thing that helped was there was a play by Peter Brooks of the Mahabharata. It's like a five hour long presentation. And that was it was done in a very sort of art nouveau, avant garde kind of way.
But it appeals to the Western mind. And I think that also served to increase awareness of that book. And one thing or another, it's kind of stayed there in the public mind.
And I find that Mahabharata sells probably three times as many as the Ramayana overall in the West. But as you say, in India, it's a different story, of course. So this is not just for your book in general.
From what you know, Mahabharata is more popular in the Western world than Ramayana. Not just your book. Well, I mean, I don't know particularly.
I mean, since I've written mine, other authors have come onto the scene. Dave Dutt and Nayak has written one that's quite popular. And another author whose name eludes me currently.
But there's been a couple of popular versions come out. And I've watched their sales, you know, to see how they get on. And I think it's generally true of all versions, to be honest with you.
I think so. And so when we talk about the, in India, many of the epics, even I grew up reading the Ramayana in the Mahabharata. We knew that the Ram was God.
But often the focus was not on primarily devotional values. It was also on, as I said, human values. So family values about how a younger brother should obey the older brother.
Or how, say, a wife should be chaste to the husband. Or how one should obey one's parents, like from the Ramayana. Or how one's family should be united from the Pandavas.
So in some ways, it does seem that a culture cannot directly or exclusively focus only on spiritual values. It also needs ethical fabric. And these epics, they work at both levels.
At one level, they strengthen the ethical fabric of society. At another level, they also provide spiritual inspiration. So now there are a number of authors in India who put the spiritual aspect aside.
And they focus on drawing, we could say, not just ethical lessons, but almost utilitarian lessons. So, for example, we have Mahabharata for managers or Ramayana for leaders or Ramayana wisdom for today's world or something like that. And to some extent, some of the lessons drawn from them are sound.
Some of them are a little stretched. Some of them almost misrepresent the characters and their motivations to draw some lessons. So in general, what are your thoughts about, say, using the epic to teach certain lessons? What would be the limits for doing that? So in your case, you let the story teach itself, but not everyone may pick up the lessons so well if they're not explicitly brought out.
So any thoughts about that? Yeah, OK. So, yeah, you're saying that nowadays there's a tendency to extract from the epics ethical lessons, moral lessons, even lessons in management, business, that kind of thing. And people write books which are focused on those particular areas.
And they use the epics to illustrate them through the examples of the various characters in the way they deal with each other and that kind of thing. And they leave out even, you're saying, you know, they exclude the spiritual message. They don't really focus on that at all.
So, you know, one of my thoughts, I think, first of all, ethics without spirituality is really meaningless. I mean, the ethics and the morals of the Vedic literature, of the epics, come out of the spiritual foundation. If you remove that, then, you know, religion without, philosophy without religion is speculation.
You're really left without much basis for what you're presenting. So I don't see that it's possible to divest the ethical message, the spiritual message from the ethical message. The two are intertwined in my mind.
And it's essential to keep them that way so that people understand. Because you were asking questions about the activities of some of the major characters, principal characters, which, from a mundane ethical point of view, are questionable. And you can only make sense of those if you understand the spiritual foundation that underlies.
Otherwise, you're going to be, you know, left thinking, well, there's something wrong with that. But why? Because you have your own idea of morality and ethics, which is who knows where that's coming from. You know, from your cultural conditioning, perhaps from some other scriptures, you know, like in the West, people's ethics and morality tends to be coming from a Christian background.
Whether or not they're aware of it or they're prepared to admit to it. That's where it's coming from. So morality really does stem from spirituality.
So I don't think you can divorce the two. But I do think you can get lessons which are pertinent to modern life from from the ethics, ethical and moral lessons. I really do.
And I think that was part of the reason why they were composed. Like, for example, the Mahabharata specifically was composed for certain classes of people who would find it difficult to directly approach more elevated Vedic texts like the Vedanta Sutra or the Vedas themselves. So the Mahabharata was written for persons much like ourselves in this day and age who really find it hard to read the Upanishads or to read Vedanta Sutra.
So it's got these wonderful stories and these high moral examples are in the book. And these are meant to inspire us to a higher behavior because to really get to the spiritual, you have to go to what we call, of course, the mode of goodness. You have to rise up to goodness in your thoughts and deeds.
You have to be acting not from the position of passion, ignorance, lust and greed and that kind of thing, but from somewhere else, from a higher position. So the ethics can inspire you towards that, bring you up towards that so that you're more susceptible to the spiritual messages. You can begin to understand and grasp those.
So I do think it's important that we glean from them the moral teachings, the ethical teachings, but at the same time not lose sight of the spirituality that these come from. Yes, that is very clear. And I remember reading one of the reviews of your books.
You got some awards also for your books. But one of the reviews was that these epics are very violent and there is not just violence or elaborate description of violence. There's also celebration of violence.
So in today's world where there's religious extremism and there's fear of violence in the name of religion, do you face that as an obstacle for people in appreciating the epics? Yeah, it's possible. Funnily enough, someone came to me the other day and they said that, oh, I've just been listening to your Mahabharata. And wow, it's really been very helpful because before I was always wondering why the Bhagavad Gita was spoken on a battlefield.
And, you know, it's like this profound spiritual text. And it's in the context of a great battle where millions of people are being killed. So I think, you know, the Mahabharata does, of course, explain the background for that.
But violence, I don't think it's celebrated so much in the epics. I mean, it's there, obviously. And, for example, this Battle of Kurukshetra, out of which the Bhagavad Gita came, was an 18 day war fought only among warriors whose specific calling and ability and training and everything was towards that kind of activity.
They were warriors at heart. That was what they liked to do. So they may celebrate, you know, you hear them glorifying battle and everything because that's their nature.
That's what they like to do. But there was no, like today, for example, bombing of civilians and attacking of innocent people. At that time, it was really conducted among the warrior classes and only for a specific period of time.
I mean, that particular battle was considered to be very long, extended fight. It was 18 days. I mean, nowadays, a war goes on for years and years.
It's ridiculous. But then it was, OK, let's just deal with this. Every other avenue would be explored.
And the Mahabharata says, who is that fool who would fly to war when any other option is open? So every other option was explored, every kind of diplomacy. They would start, you know, try to make friendship, give gifts and, you know, different things. And then whatever, you know, the different forms of diplomacy would be employed.
And if all that failed, then it may have to be settled with cold steel on the field of battle. You know, they would say, OK, let's come to that. You know, but but that was very last resort.
And only if there was no other way. And I think we have to say that, you know, no, no society can possibly endure without some measure of violence. You know, the police force, the armies are required.
I mean, how would you feel? How would anyone feel if they were faced with an attack by some opposing element, the terrorism or something? And there was no violence available to repel them. There was no army. Of course, we need that.
So it's an essential part of any society, really. Yeah. But, you know, judiciously.
Yeah, I agree with you fully on this point. You know, one of the things I used to explain that you rightly said is that it was between never civilians were involved. It was fought among warriors.
And even then they had code of ethics. Another thing is that it is it was not really we could say. It was not so much a war like in today's war when it's some violence in the name of religion.
It is based on, we could say, religious intolerance that you don't agree with my beliefs. Therefore, I will destroy you. But there, as you rightly said in the Mahabharata, Ravan, it's not so much about one's particular, say, who.
It's more about wrongdoing, not so much about believing. Because the Kauravas, they did serious wrongs. The Ravan did serious wrongs.
So in a sense, although the war is fought to establish dharma, it is not religious violence in the sense that it is today. Religious violence today is that where one religion wants to wipe out another religion. Whereas there, it was more of to establish order in society.
It is not necessary that I want to impose your religion, my religion on your religion. So although the epics themselves are religious, the wars themselves are not fought to say further a religious agenda of imposing one religion on another. They are fought more to remove wrongdoers and establish, you could say, a proper order in society.
That's correct. Yeah. You're saying that nowadays so-called religious wars are conducted between two opposing parties who are trying to assert their particular faith, their understanding over the other.
And it's intolerance, really, that we're talking about. That they're trying like the Crusades or the Islamic conquests of centuries ago. That was more about asserting their beliefs over others.
But the wars and fights that we find in the Vedic scriptures, in the epics, is about establishing righteousness and trying to dharma, the code of dharma, as you stated. And that's a fact. I mean, of course, they'll argue that today.
They'll say, no, our religion is dharma and theirs is atarma. So, you know, before we can really enter into that kind of discussion, we have to establish, well, what are we talking about when we say dharma? You know, what is God's will and how can we execute that? What does it mean? What does it look like? Otherwise, it's because they will say that. I think both sides, like the Crusades, for example, we're establishing Christianity, which is the only true and right path.
You know, Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the light. And so all of these other heathens, they need to be converted. So they saw it in those terms.
But we have to question, well, were they right? I mean, was their understanding of dharma, of religion actually correct, according to the scriptures, even the scriptures that they follow themselves? Were they getting it right? And what was the result? What did we see as a result of that? Did it usher in an age of piety, of happiness? Like, for example, when Eudicte, after winning the battle, we hear about the reign of Eudicte and how there was no, amongst the people in general, everyone was happy. There was no suffering. There was great wealth and opulence.
When you read about the great kingdoms of the past that were ruled over by Dharmic rulers, by, you know, the Vedic rulers, they were wonderful societies where everyone was peaceful and happy. In fact, it's said that they were so connected with the hierarchy of cosmic, you know, authority going up to God that there wasn't even premature death. There wasn't, you know, natural calamities, natural disasters.
All of the things we experience now due to the leadership. That was enlightened leadership. That was Dharma, you know, so that they were aiming for that ideal to get to that sort of level so that everyone would be peaceful.
Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be aligned with the purpose of life and satisfied, fulfilled. You know, these were the markers that we need to look for.
If someone's claiming, yes, we have the right path. Okay, can you show us that now? Are these markers visible in your society? Is this the case? Is this what you're trying to give to the world? You know, what are you actually trying to give to the world? You know, you look at their society and it's riven by conflict, by so many problems, you know, by violence, by so many nasty things that are going on. That's their society.
And they want to give that to the rest of the world. You know, so we can, you know, we have to be intelligent to really analyze these things and see them in terms of, in terms of the Shasta scriptures, really. Yeah, that's true.
Actually, everybody will have, everybody will believe that what they are doing is right. So any religion that is fighting will claim that God is on their side or claim that their side is virtuous. But we need some parameters.
So can we say that those objects say like the four pillars of Dharma, say truthfulness, mercifulness, purity, we can say that those are almost non sectarian parameters, isn't it? Yes. Universal principles. Yeah.
So we talk about them in the terms of the application of the four regulative principles. And the same in the four regulative principles are meant to further certain values. And those we could say are universal virtues.
So in that sense, if a war is being fought, then, and it is in the name of, in the name of God's will or whatever, what is the result? Is it fostering these values or is it, is it only perpetuating the, perpetuating, say, the tyranny of one ruler of one religion or another, one ruler or another? Yes. It's about false ego, just, you know, asserting their way is the right way. And that's it, you know, and exploitation.
It's marked by exploitation of large sections of the population by the leaders and suppression, oppression. All of these things are visible. I mean, in India, you know, you've had to put up with invaders and conquerors on a number of occasions.
And you know what it feels like, you know, it wasn't exactly an enlightened leadership. That's true. And just taking this point forward about the violence.
Now, the, when we discuss the epics, there is a certain amount of, we could say, creative license that is there in, say, in reading, in depicting the minds of the characters or in rendering the speech into contemporary appealing English. You know, I read in one, I read one translator's book about translation and he said that every translation is an interpretation because what word you choose, that also determines to a certain extent. So I believe that this, you are doing this even more, especially in the Bhagavatam.
But can you say about how much creative license you use to make the Mahabharata and Ramayana appealing and what you are doing with respect to the Bhagavatam? Okay, yeah. How much creative license, poetic license did I use? With the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, they are themselves very, already very dramatic, you know, works. And you don't need to add a great deal of that kind of thing.
I mean, as you say, there was a certain amount of license in revealing the inner dialogue of the characters. But as much as I possibly could, I adhered closely to the text of the original. I think that was my primary concern when I was writing over and above anything else was to ensure that I did not change the messages that were being conveyed.
I mean, hopefully I understood the messages in the first place so that I didn't misrepresent those in any way. But I wanted to ensure that I got that right. And so I would even like with the Mahabharata, for example, as you know, it's not really been preserved in parampara.
It hasn't been that the text is not intact from its original. There's been interpolations and losses over the years, accretions, you know, as well. So I was very conscious of that.
And I would refer to Srimad Bhagavatam, which has been preserved by a line of teachers. So I would defer to that if there was some detail which differed in Mahabharata to Bhagavatam. I would stick with the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavata Purana, because I assumed that to be more accurate.
And I would also refer to commentaries by the Acharyas and teachers. So the point I'm trying to make here is how faithful I was trying to be to the original so that it's not that by my creative license I took liberties. I can just change that a little bit.
It's not so important. I was very cautious that I wasn't going to misrepresent the characters, especially and impute to them the wrong motifs and, you know, different ideas of my own creation, my own interpretation. I would, you know, I really wanted to retain the power and the beauty of the original.
Yeah, it's wonderful. And so how are you now? Currently, I believe you are rendering the Bhagavatam. So and the Bhagavatam in one sense is is a much more philosophical book.
Of course, there are stories and some of the stories are very dramatic. Some of the stories are the Bhagavatam is more of a book which talks about renouncing or focusing on the spiritual world and turning away from this world. So to make it to render it in a way that is appealing.
Was that a significantly bigger challenge? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've been working on this for 20 years. It's gone through different incarnations and metamorphosis.
I completed it at one point and then, you know, it's ready to publish. And then I thought, I'm not happy with it. And I went back and started again completely from the beginning to work on it because, you know, I'm not qualified, really.
I don't. The Srimad Bhagavatam is the most elevated writing of all writings. It's giving us the distilled essence of the absolute truth.
And as you say, it's, you know, it does have some nice stories in there. But as you say, it's it's really meant for taking us away from the mundane, away from the trivial and the material things, you know, that attract us in this world, which you find in the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata has romance, has intrigue.
You know, it has kinds of things, has violence, as you say, the wars and that. And it's it's very appealing to the to the mundane mind. And although the Srimad Bhagavatam seems to have some of that, it's much more focused on the pure spiritual message.
So but it's a challenge to read it, never mind for me to write it and present it to others. And that was the reason why I thought, well, let me try to do that. Because I, you know, I discovered that many people can't read it at all.
Like my own children. I've got three children. They're all grown up now.
And I, you know, I realized they weren't reading Srimad Bhagavatam. It was too daunting. They would pick up the first canto and start trying to read it.
And then it was like, oh, it's just too much, you know, too difficult really to to get into. And with the so many the plethora of alternatives that are now there in terms of social media and, you know, so many different things that, you know, Netflix, YouTube, which is vying for their time. The Srimad Bhagavatam hardly gets a look in.
So I thought, well, maybe I can help by making it a little bit more easy to read and accessible. But then I discovered that that was much more of a of a challenge than I'd originally realized. And because it's it's full of so much beautiful prayers and philosophy.
But it's that, you know, a lot of it, it has just the very sparsest amount of detail in terms of the drama, you know, the backdrop. And so I've had to use more creative license in this case, actually, than I did with Mahabharata and Ramayana. And try to imagine more, more imagination is required.
The scenery, you know, with like Devahuti and Kapila, what's going on there? What's what's impelling Devahuti to speak in this way to reveal her heart to Kapila? And, you know, what did it look like? You know, where were they? You know, to try and visualize what was happening and where it was taken. And in each of the stories, it's been like that to really there's been much more requirement for creative license in some ways. But having said that, with the same, you know, real desire to ensure that there's no deviation from the actual text, that I stick very, very closely to the meaning, to the philosophical points that are being presented there.
So that's the challenge, really, to, you know, to couch those philosophical points in attractive language and with dramatic, you know, with a dramatic backdrop, but not lose the messages at the same time. So that's what I'm trying to do, and I don't think I'm qualified. I wish someone else could do it.
Your humility to say you're not qualified. I think you have both, you have the literary capacity and you have the spiritual experience for four and a half decades now or more than that. Yeah, that's correct.
Yeah, I actually came to Krishna consciousness in 1979, actually. So 42, 41, 42 years ago. Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is a very. Yeah.
Sorry. Yeah. I was just going to say that I find it's very purifying for me that that's what's really keeping me going.
Yeah. You know, this is always a challenge. What you said that, say, your children were not able to read Bhagavatam, which is too daunting.
So that that is always a challenge that that. How do we make things accessible without keeping them sort of. What is the word for it? Consistent with the original.
So if we focus too much on only on consistency, then it may be that nobody. OK, we keep the book completely pure in pure and double quotes, but nobody reads it. Then how much is the relevance of that? And in some ways.
Yeah. And in some ways, in our own tradition, there is the whole tradition of writing dramas. And Chaitanya Chandrodaya Natak and Lita Madhav, Vidakta Madhav, so many of these dramas, you know, they are, in a sense, they are themselves called as Natakas or dramas.
So it's not that necessarily these are exactly historical events that are revealed and have been written. They can be, of course, but there is a rich tradition of of dramaturgy of dramaturgy in our in our tradition also. And where certain certain characters are dressed in particular ways, we don't have an exhaustive description of how somebody was dressed.
We use our imagination to decide how they should be dressed. And then not all the dialogues in a drama will be exact replicas of the dialogues from the from the books. So there is a certain amount of not only sometimes the word license uses a license involves the word that, OK, you can do it within limits, but doing it is not just something which is allowed, but it is actually essential.
Without doing that, the epics won't be relevant. So it's a I read your Bhagavatam and it's striking. You know, it is it is a you can be easily drawn into the conversation and the thought flow.
And then one thing is one major difference I found in the Bhagavatam in the Mahabharat is in the Bhagavatam you are given a lot of end notes where you explain. So for those who want to do the deeper study, then the end notes are there. And for those who want to read it in a dramatic way, that is also there.
So in a sense, this book offers something for the light reading and it offers something for the serious readers also. Yes, that was what we I'm doing this with my wife, by the way, it's it's a collaboration. But, yeah, we wanted to eventually we decided that we wanted to ensure that it would be valuable as a study guide, as a companion book for the original, you know, for Srila Prabhupada's, basically.
So, yeah, we've gone through every verse and tried to unpack the meaning to the best of our ability. And then where necessary, we've provided those end notes and appendices also to explain where we're getting some of our understandings from, because we've referred not just to Srila Prabhupada, but also to some of the other Acharyas, you know, to the commentaries of other Acharyas, which we've had access to. So we've therefore we've provided the references all the time, you know, to ensure that no one thinks that we're making things up ourselves, because we're not we're not able to do that, of course.
But as you say, I mean, there is a tradition of drama in the Vedic culture and our Acharyas have shown that. And of course, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are nice examples of that to start with. And then, as you say, like the Goswamis and Rupa Goswami with his writings that you've just mentioned and others.
And Bhaktunath Thakur wrote a novel, you know, which illustrates the philosophy. So one of the great teachers in our line, he wrote a novel. So, yeah, it's it's it's definitely part of our thing.
I don't think there's any problem with that. And as you say, if you, you know, you can just keep it very pure and then that's great. But nobody reads it.
And what's the point? And I think that really comes down to the dichotomy which always exists. In fact, in religions, you find that this on the one side, the school of pure and small, you know, exclusive, that those who are like sincere and everything that they'll relish it and that's OK. And those are not.
Well, never mind. One day maybe they will be. And then the other side are like, no, no, let's open it up as much as we can to make it available to everyone.
But but you have to draw a fine line because, you know, there's something to be said for both sides. And you don't want to go too much either way. You don't want to go all the way to the side of appealing to other people so much so that you water everything down.
You compromise your messages and nothing's left because then you lose the power. Because these texts, they're not just stories. They're very powerful, transformative texts that can completely change your life.
If you if you enter into the understanding and the meaning of them, then like the Srimad Bhagavatam said, it's meant to bring about a revolution in consciousness, you know, to completely transform your paradigm from what it is now to something else, to something glorious, to something uplifting that takes you to another world. So you don't want to lose that. You want to make sure that you're still getting the full force of that power.
But at the same time, it has to be in an assimilable way, in an accessible way. And Prabhupada himself obviously tried for that. I mean, why did he translate them into English, you know, from the original Sanskrit and write his elaborate purports because of that very reason so that we can access that, you know.
So there is that tradition, as you say. Yes. So I just maybe to conclude, how can devotees in India get your books? You said you have a new publisher now.
Are they also available? Yeah, they are actually available. They've just recently been released. I think you'll find them on Amazon and they're probably in most major outlets.
I think bookshops should be having them now. They've got a new cover from what they used to have, but they've got my name on the cover. So you'll find them.
Yes, they're definitely available in India. Even the Bhagavatam also? The Bhagavatam, yes. It's not available in hard copies, unfortunately, because at the moment we're self-publishing it and it's print on demand.
So the only way you can get it in India is Kindle is the e-book. Unfortunately, we do have hopes to make them available in the future. But at the moment, we're not able to do that.
So but you can get the e-book. Most people have Kindle these days. So I'm sure that devotees, especially who want to not only study the Ramayana Mahabharata, but the Bhagavatam also will find this very helpful to absorb oneself in the mood and the characters of the Bhagavatam so that we can.
Absolutely. I mean, the Srimad Bhagavatam frees us from all pain and suffering. That's the whole point of the book.
And, you know, I couldn't recommend it highly enough. So I'll just try to summarize what we discussed. And then if you have any concluding words, you can add that.
I think we discussed on the topic of, say, the relevance of scripture in today's world. And I thought we discussed how you because you're out of your personal inspiration with the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and not finding anything which was not too stilted, you rendered the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. And it's interesting that it seems in the West, Mahabharata is more popular, India, Ramayana is more popular.
But still, these epics have enduring values, which can appeal to all of humanity's spiritual values, ethical values. And I like the point you said about the epics. You don't tell me, show me.
So they teach values not in a didactic way, but simply through the narration. And you focused on whenever there are any controversial issues through the dialogues and through the epics narrative frame itself, you try to anticipate and address those. And we discussed the issue of violence, that these are more like to establish righteousness.
And if you look at the broader context, the point is to establish. The point is not to glorify the violence, but this point is to recognize that every society for maintaining law and order does need some amount of violence. So then lastly, talk about the creative license and the Bhagavatam.
So the challenge between keeping something pure and making something accessible. So by entering into the characters and framing their framing dialogues, the scripture can become much more appealing. So it is wonderful having this discussion with you.
Anything you would like to say? Just thank you very much for having me on. And if anyone's interested to find out more about my books, I have a Web site. If you just Google my name, in fact, Krishna Dharma, then you'll find all different links.
And anyone who wants to directly contact me with any questions regarding anything I've said today, of course, and plus from my books, they're very welcome to do so. You can find me, as I say, via my Web site or Facebook. I have a page.
It's called the Krishna Dharma page. Yeah, make it easy. And I'm also on Twitter.
So various places. And I always welcome any questions, queries and indeed suggestions and corrections, because I'm only too aware that there may be faults in my presentation. So I'm happy to hear about those also.
But thank you very much for having me on today. Thank you very much. Hi Krishna.