​Rama: Fact, not Fiction

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai Jai Jai Ram, with the love. There has to be a particular… We will consider the reach of the Ramayana. We will consider the acceptance of the Ramayana.
And we will consider the method for understanding the reality of Lord Ram’s existence. So, let’s consider the reach. In the reach, we have historian Nandita Krishnan.
She explains, the Ramayana is geographically very correct. Every site on Ram’s route is still identifiable and has continuing traditions or temples to commemorate Ram’s visit. Around 1000 BC or earlier, no writer had the means to travel around the country inventing a story, fitting it to local folklore and building temples for greater credibility.
So here, the point which we are making is if we try to understand the Ramayana from the point of view of modern, empirical, historical methods then we could look at it from the perspective of what it tells. What we see is that Ramayana describes geography. It describes the path that Lord Ram took, for example, where he was born and how he went from Ayodhya to the forest, how he came to Chitrakoot.
From Chitrakoot, how he came to Dandakaranya. From there, how he went to Kishkindha. And further, from there, how he went to Lanka to regain the abducted Sita.
So now, this is clearly describing a geographical path. And what is significant is three things, as I said earlier. It’s not only a very clear and specific description of geography that geography is correlatable with the places which are largely at a similar location as I mentioned in the Ramayana.
And not only that, at each of these places there are the temples or traditions or other things associated with the Ramayana. Just a few of these places, as we know, we can see, are the Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Nasik and Sri Lanka. At each of these places, there are enormous amounts of temples.
For example, Nasik, there is Panchavati where there are the Panchavati means the five trees which are celebrated, Panchavata, the five banyan trees that celebrated Rama’s Leela. Five trees, whatever species they might have been. Not exactly correlatable in terms of today’s taxonomy.
But importantly, they are mentioned. Even Nasik, the word, the name Nasik comes from Nasika and that means nose and that is the place where Shurpanakha’s nose is said to have been cut by Lakshman under instruction of Rama. Shurpanakha Artevidaya Karama, as it’s said in the Naam Ramayana.
So, now we may say, oh, this is all just imagination. It is all just mythology. But we have to consider what is being actually present over there.
That, okay, anyone can spin a yarn of imagination and if they have some knowledge of geography, they might have been able to do it. If we are going to use modern conceptions of history and historical knowledge and scientific progress, if for argument’s sake we accept them all to be true, then the question comes that whenever the Ramayana was written, certainly even the most sceptical of historians say that Ramayana has been there for at least more than 2000 years ago and much longer also if we look at the oral tradition. But at that time, according to the conventional notions of historical and scientific progress, there was no way anyone could have had such detailed knowledge of geography.
And not only have a detailed knowledge of geography, but also to create, have temples built along that path. Wherever Rama has gone or wherever even his associates have gone, where anything associated with Rama is there, temples have been built. And the local traditions which testify to the passage of Rama from those areas.
So how did all these three, the local tradition, the archaeology and the literature, how did anyone bring them about together? If there is absolutely no, if the story of Rama is entirely, as I said, simply mythological, then how did it have no historical basis to it? How did such a synergy of these three things, symbiosis of these three things come about? Local tradition, the archaeology. Local tradition means there are traditions associated with where Rama came. Certain activities are done by the people over there.
Certain rituals are performed. Certain rites are conducted. And there are archaeology, there are temples and there are often in many of these places, there are temples which are buried which have also been excavated and further there is literature.
So all these three are the synergy, the concurrence of all these three is significant. So the concurrence of local literature, archaeology and local tradition, they testify to the reach of the Ramayana. And now it’s interesting, Ramayana has a reach not only in India, but far outside India.
It is known by different names and yet we have in Burma, we have Yama. It’s called as Yama Zadao. In Cambodia, it’s called Ream Kher.
In Indonesia, there are multiple places where Ramayana is known by various names. There is Kakavin Ramayana and Ramayana Svarana Dweepa. In Laos, it is called Phralak Phralam.
In Malaysia, it is called Hikayat Seriram. In Philippines, it is called Mahardyalavana. Thailand, it is called Ramakeen.
So the Ramayana is known all over the world, practically large, large parts of the world. And even in Africa, there are traditions associated with the Ramayana. So how did all this spread? That’s why the historian Mark McDonnell has said, probably no work of world literature, secular in its origin, has ever produced so profound an influence on the life and thought of a people as the Ramayana.
So no work of literature has this level of significance, this level of influence, this level of reach. And that is not the only significance. There are many, not just traditional Indian historians who talk about how the Ramayana is, as it is called traditionally, Itihas.
Itihas means that which happened. Itihas, that which had happened long ago. It is called Itihas, it is called history.
And history means describing events that happened long ago. So it is not only traditional Indian historians who talk about how the Ramayana is history. Even western historians who have studied the Ramayana, they have also come to the conclusion of its historicity, of its being rooted in history.
So Ralph Griffith was a prominent translator of the Ramayana into English. And he is, what does he say about the Ramayana? He asks a rhetorical question. It’s a long question, but it conveys a very important thread of thought.
How could an epic so dear in India to the memory of the people, so deeply rooted for many centuries in the minds of all, so propagated and diffused through all the dialects and languages of those regions, which had become the source of many dramas, which are still represented in India. So he’s talking about the reach of Ramayana. And it is so dear to people.
It is not just one class of people, not just the Brahmanas, not just the upper caste, but all people across the country, many, many groups of people, it’s very dear to them. And it’s permeated into the dialects, local dialects that are there, languages, and is depicted in dramas, not just the Ramayana that is depicted famously in Varanasi, but all over the country, there are depictions through dramas. And these are not just an ancient tradition, it is a living tradition going on.
And he continues the question, how could an epic, which is itself represented with such magnificence, year after year, and to such crowds of people in the neighbourhood of Ayodhya, a poem which at its very birth was welcomed with such fervour as the legend relates. And this is not just its popularity, it’s not just a passing phenomenon. It, as is right from the beginning, it just spread and became immensely popular and has gone on for century after century after century, for millennia after millennia.
And what does this signify? How could an epic, that the recitation of it by the first wandering Rhapsodists has consecrated and made famous all the places visited by them and where Ram made a longer or shorter stay, how, I ask, could such an epic have been purely allegorical? So, since the original singer of the Ramayana, the composer was Valiniki, the singers were Love and Kush. And wherever they went, they sent people into Rhapsody, into poetic ecstasy. And not only that, that’s what’s been happening for generation after generation, century after century, millennia after millennia.
And it has happened all over the country, far and wide and beyond also. So, something that has so much reach, how could it be purely allegorical? As we say, where there is smoke, there must be fire. So, if it were just the result of imagination, then it would have appealed to a few people.
It may have appealed for a short time, but that it has appealed to so many millions of people, billions of people for millennia. And not just appealed, it has described geography, there is a tradition corresponding with it, there is architecture, and archaeology corresponding with it. Such a pervasive concurrence of literature, archaeology and local tradition, this points strongly towards the historicity of Ram.
That’s the first point we discussed, that is the reach. The next point we discussed will be acceptance. Even non-Vedic tribes and non-Vedic religions such as Jainism and Buddhism don’t question Ram’s historicity.
So, it’s interesting, normally if one school of thought becomes very influential somewhere, then other competing schools of thought often try to find faults in that dominant school of thought and they try to point out the holes in it and they try to pull it down. So, like that there has been a healthy tradition where India has always featured a vigorous tradition of intellectual debate between the various traditions. And when, say, the Jains also have their Ramayana in which they give a spin to the Ramayana which suits their purposes, but still, while they criticise the Valmiki Ramayana in some ways, pointing out some actions of Ram which they consider not moral or whatever, they are definitely not themselves devoted to Ram the way they do not consider Ram to be God.
They are not devoted to Ram the way the Rama bhaktas are. So, critics might accuse that oh, because Ram was a king, he had money and because he had money, so, he had power and he had bards singing his glories and because of the bards singing his glories, his glories were propagated. And that’s how the Ramayana has spread.
If somebody argues like that, then the counter is why would those who are opposed, those who do not see Ram the same way as is described in the Valmiki Ramayana, as is described in the Rama tradition, wherein he is revered as the supreme, those who do not revere him that way, they try to retell the story in their own way, they criticise some of Ram’s actions and yet, they never question the historicity of Ram. If we want to falsify someone’s teachings, the simplest way is that the person himself is false. So, his teachings are false.
Whatever we learn from it is also false. So, this accusation that Ram was fictional has not been levelled within the Indian historical tradition, even by those who were not within the Vedic tradition, not within the tradition of Ramabhakti and who were in fact actively having agendas different from or even opposite to the vision of the Ramabhakti tradition. So, even they have not criticised it.
A similar argument is used for talking about the historicity of Krishna also. There are books like Lalita Vistar and others, which are Jain and Buddhist books. They strongly criticise the apparent immorality of Krishna’s actions and yet, they never question his historicity.
This means that even in the past, those who did not accept Ram as God, those who did not accept Ram as necessarily an ideal person or Krishna for that matter, they still did not question his historicity. So, the point is, why do we now question his historicity? Why is it that now, accusations are raised that Ram is simply a fictional character, Ram is not a historical character and that has, that brings us to the last part, last major part of, major division of our talk, that is on method. So, M is method and here, we need to understand that the method that we use has to be appropriate for understanding the thing that we are trying to pursue.
So, for example, if we use a fishing net, for catching fish, but suppose that fishing net has holes, which are bigger than, which are, say, 5 cm by 5, 1 cm by 1 cm or whatever. Then, within that, if there is any fish smaller than that, the fish will go out, the fish will not be caught. Why? Because that is the smallest size of the fishing net’s holes.
So, we, using our post-Newtonian, fact-centred methods of historiography, that means, we, after the Newtonian revolution in Western thought, after the advent of science, as it is understood today, with that advent, a particular mode of approaching history was used and that was fact-centred. That means, this date this happened, this city was here, this was the time people went from here to there, from there to there, from there to there. So, this fact-centred approach to history, where history was studied for precise record-keeping, that is a modern way of looking at history, that is a post-Newtonian way of looking at history.
Prior to that, the purpose of history was not historical accuracy. The purpose of history was moral elevation, that we study history not to just keep a rote record of exactly what happened when we study history, so that we can learn something valuable, something that can improve the quality and vision of our life. That’s why, whether it is in India or whether it is in the West, if you look at the ancient, say, Germanic sagas, the Iliad or Odyssey, or many other ancient literature from the Western world also, we see that they do not have this obsession with precise historical fact-keeping as is present in today’s conceptions of history.
So, with today’s conceptions of history, when we try to evaluate the historicity of Ram and the historical validity of the Ramayana, then we are using a wrong method. Indeed, by that method, even our own ancient ancestors, their existence we cannot prove. We, if we look back several thousands of years ago, then we cannot really prove that our specific ancestors at that time existed.
We know conceptually that because we are existing, we have come from someone and they have come from someone and therefore our ancestors must have existed. But if we start arguing that because there is no evidence for the existence of my ancestors, maybe say five thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago, does that mean that my ancestors did not exist? No, we cannot demand precise archaeological proof for the existence of our ancestors. And just because they didn’t exist, that does not mean that just because their evidence doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Now here an important principle in history is absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have to carefully understand this basic principle.
And moving forward, if we look at the overall understanding of the appropriate method, if instead of sceptical dismissal of ancient history just because the narrative of history as we understand it or the worldview that we have, just because that doesn’t match, because of that if we reject ancient history, then many cities, many of the landmarks of ancient world were rejected and then subsequent historical research when it was done in a sustained way that excavated those very landmarks. Let’s look at two examples of this. So much of ancient history was dismissed as mythological sustained.
Archaeological research debunked the dismissal, debunked the dismissal. That means the dismissal was proven wrong. So Troy, the ancient city that around which the Trojan horse legend is talked about.
So Troy was considered a myth for a long time after the post-Newtonian way of approaching history gained mainstream acceptance. At that time, Troy was relegated to the pages of mythology. But then in 1873, when historians actually, a pioneering young boy who had heard about Troy, he decided to, made his life mission to actually find out the city of Troy and he found it out.
And then Troy was lifted out of the pages of mythology and brought in the pages of history in 1873. How did that happen? That by open-minded research. Similarly, the Mesopotamian city Ur was excavated by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1923.
So prior to that, it was considered as myth. And it is only at this time that it was accepted as history. The two examples of cities where what was considered mythology today or yesterday became history today.
So we see something similar happening in India also. It was researched by Professor Rao and his associates that led to the discovery of underwater Dwaraka near the coast of today’s Dwaraka. So, even Krishna, actually within the tradition, Krishna is considered to be later, the Mahabharata is a later occurrence, the Ramayana is an older occurrence.
Within the Mahabharata itself, there is a mention of Ramopakhyan, that is the story of Ram that is told in brief while the Pandavas are in forest. So which indicates clearly that the Krishna Leela and the Mahabharata happened later. But even that which happened later, Krishna’s Leela was considered to be mythology by many.
But it is archaeological studies done by Professor Rao and others. They excavated, not excavated, they dove under the ocean close to city of Dwaraka, under the water. So on the surface of the city which we have Dwaraka, that is named Dwaraka but it doesn’t resemble in any way the magnificent city Dwaraka that is described in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana.
And when underwater research was done, at that time many seals were found which described the Yadu princes who were ruling and which have indicators and insignias similar to what are described in the Puranas and the Itihasas. So now almost all historians except Krishna, that there was a person Krishna who historically existed and that finding has more or less debunked the idea that Dwaraka and the whole Mahabharata was mythology. So Mahabharata has a basis in history and this which has always been accepted and proclaimed by the tradition, this sustained research was done, often not with much support from either the mainstream media or the mainstream academy.
But this research was done. Actually the historicity of Dwaraka as an ancient city that was established. And actually if we see further, that Dwaraka’s being underwater also concurs with the Mahabharata’s description.
It is described that after Krishna departed from the world, the Mahabharata itself says that Arjuna saw the ocean rising up and claiming Dwaraka. So that Dwaraka should be under the ocean. That’s what is described in the Mahabharata and that’s what is proven.
So the point which you are making is our topic here is discussing about Ram. But the relevant point is just as the sustained historical research, sustained archaeological research, lifted many cities which were in the European history considered mythology, lifted them out of its mythology into the pages of history. Just as Dwaraka, the research established the historicity of Dwaraka, similarly sustained research is needed to establish the historicity of the various places associated with Ram.
One challenge of course is that in India often funds are not available for such research. And Professor Ram had to wait for years. Even when his underwater findings gave very significant results, the funding was not available.
And each major dive which he had his team undertake, there was a waiting period of years in between. The research took a long, long time. And later on when the government changed and because of politics associated with the whole thing, the project was stopped for a good amount of time, unfortunately.
Now, moreover, another problem is that the cities of Ayodhya and Dwarka as they exist, because these events happened so far, so long ago, that these cities have been repeatedly rebuilt. And that’s why finding archaeological remains was going to be a challenge. Unlike that most of the cities which were described in the ancient Germanic and other sagas, they were in the wilderness.
So these cities had already been laid to the ruins. And in the ruins, there was no further reconstruction. So when excavation was done, the ruins were discovered.
So that is a formidable challenge. But still we can consider from these, whatever has been found through sustained historical research, that we can say that anybody who claims from the absence of evidence to that absence of existence, those who claim that there is absence of evidence and therefore we should say there is absence of existence, they are actually overstepping the humility that is central to the method of science. Science means without any conclusive evidence, we do not disprove anything.
And if the history of science has taught us anything, it has taught us not to be arrogant, not to be dismissive about the things that we don’t know. And the trend or the direction which historical research is going is that whatever we think was recent, as we go deeper and deeper into history, we are finding that it is quite ancient. And our vision of the expansiveness of history is expanding with advances in scientific knowledge.
And that’s why at the very least, even the sceptical need to approach the subject of Ram and especially the concurrence of local tradition, archaeology in terms of architecture, temples that are there and local tradition, which strongly points to some historical basis. Given all this, a certain amount of humility and not scared, cynical scepticism or dismissive, that is the appropriate intellectual response when one wants to examine the historicity of Ramayana. Now moving forward with respect to the method, one of the reasons why sceptics often argue that the Ramayana must be mythological is that they say that there are so many things which are described in the Ramayana which don’t make sense according to this perspective.
So for example, Ram built a bridge across Lanka, across the ocean that led to Lanka. So now how is that possible? It’s not possible. So a politician, he said that, which engineering college did Ram go to to learn how to build a bridge across the ocean? So now this question reveals a cynicism and a superciliousness that are actually serious impediments for the advancement of human knowledge.
They are contrary to the scientific spirit of enquiry and humility which leads to the expansion of human knowledge. As it is said, we should not reduce the world to fit our vision of the world. Rather, we should expand our vision of the world so that the world as it really is, our vision can take in the world as it really is.
So if we understand the concept of God, what it means, then we’ll understand that miracles are not against science. They are above science. Miracles, just as Ram is building a bridge on the ocean, this is not against science.
It is above science. What do we mean by above science? Science has a particular method by which it approaches the world. And that method is science focusses on natural explanations for natural phenomena or we could say material explanations for material phenomena.
Science focusses on material reality and by observing the material reality, it comes across patterns and after coming across patterns, it tries to explain those patterns. But beyond that, there is also the understanding that science observes laws in nature. But where do those laws come from? Science observes laws.
Where does the law of gravity come from? Where is the mathematical formulation that say E is equal to mc square or for gravity F is equal to gm1 m2 upon r square. Where does this come from? So as we say that as we have Indian mathematician Ramanujan, Srinivas Ramanujan, he says that an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God. An equation has no meaning.
It means where does the equation come from? Why does nature obey laws? Why should nature not just be random and chaotic? Why does nature obey laws? Where does those laws come from? And why are those laws so precise that they can mathematically mathematically expressed? Mathematics is very precise. So these laws are of mathematical precision. So where do they come from? Srinivas Ramanujan answering that that a law has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God.
It represents a thought of God. So Ram is that supreme being. He is the source of gravity.
He is the sustainer of gravity. And when he wants, he can be the suspender of gravity. So it is by his will that the laws of nature function and it is by his will that the laws of nature can be suspended when he requires.
These are exceptional situations where the one who has made the laws can choose to suspend them for special purposes. So it is not that people were naive and they believed whatever they wanted or whatever stories were told to them. Even at that time, the fact that stones would sink, that was well known.
And that’s why there was great apprehension when the Vanaras initially had to cross over the ocean. They were hesitant. They said that we cannot jump across this ocean.
So it’s so big, we’ll fall in the middle of the ocean. Who can jump across it? And if at that time people did not understand that stones would sink, that they themselves would sink, they would have just rashly entered the ocean. They did not.
So they hesitated. So basically they knew that stones sink, people sink into the ocean. And yet that’s what made, even for them, when the bridge was built, the Ramayana describes an elaborate process by which the bridge was built and it describes certain factors which are beyond what is understood today by science because science looks for material explanations of material phenomena whereas God himself is a non-material reality.
And because he is a non-material reality, he can act in ways that are not necessarily restricted to the normal laws of nature. So even at that time there was astonishment. Ravana was astonished when he heard that Ram had built a bridge across the ocean and that is not an ordinary bridge.
It is not that they built a bridge in which the stones extended all the way from the top to the bottom of the ocean. The stones, it is described in the Ramayana, they floated. And that was because Ram is the source of gravity, he is the sustainer of gravity and in that case he chose to be the suspender of gravity.
Now we may say this is all mythology but that is simply because we are approaching the Ramayana through a particular worldview. If we look at a black and white TV and then we say I don’t see any colour images there and therefore colour images don’t exist. Well the very apparatus that we have chosen that makes colour images impossible to see.
It is not that colour images are non-existent but within a black and white TV colour images are impossible to see. So similarly if one is going to stick to a matter bound view of the cosmos where everything has to be explained only in terms of material laws, one does not open one’s mind enough to consider where those material laws, laws of nature come from. If one wants to explain everything in terms of simply the laws of nature then that by definition is like sticking to a black and white colour TV.
We are just not open to expanding our knowledge beyond our stereotyped ways of thinking. So just as a black and white TV can’t show us colour images, similarly a matter bound vision of nature and of reality cannot explain to us the miracles. But they are not against science, they are not anti-science, they are trans-science, they are above science.
And that’s why the sceptical question that is asked, which engineering college did Ram go to? So we have to ask which school did you go to to understand about God? If we had any basic understanding of God then you would know that God is the source of all knowledge. He is the source of all knowledge that is there available in all engineering colleges. He is the source of all the knowledge of all the engineering professors.
And therefore He does not need to go to any engineering college. He knows everything. One of the basic qualities of God is that He is omniscient.
Another quality is that He is omnipotent. That He knows everything and He can do anything. And because of that for Him building a bridge is itself no difficult feat for Him.
He can do it. And rather than with a supercilious cynicism dismissing aspects of the Ramayana that we cannot comprehend, we need to be more open-minded. And if this were just imagination, somebody might argue that this is all just imagination and people in the past were very gullible.
That’s why they accepted this. That’s why they believed in this. That’s why they chose to accept the Ramayana.
But then the question comes, it is not that those who accepted miracles like that, things which do not make sense according to the modern sceptical world view, it’s not that those things are in circulation now. It’s not that they were in circulation in the past also. They are in circulation now also.
And what we see is today also attraction to the supernatural is natural. What does that mean? You know, for example, it is described that Vishnu descended as a half-man, half-lion. And when people hear about a half-man, half-lion, they say this is mythology.
But they themselves sit down and watch the archer half-man or half-bat, a batman or a half-man, half-spider, a spider-man or nowadays they want a double. So they want a half-man, half-bat and a half-man, half-spider both together in the same spin, in the same illusion that is being depicted. So why is it like this? Why are such things being depicted? Why are people consuming such things? We could say that this is simply imagination and people don’t believe it is true.
But why do people long for something like this? Why do people want to believe in things like this? Why do people want to enjoy things like this? That’s because within our heart itself is a longing for the supernatural. The natural is predictable, the natural is normal, but the heart longs for something higher. And that is the heart’s longing for the Supreme, for Ram, for the Supreme Being who can do astonishing things which we cannot do, who is by His beauty, by His grace, by His greatness, by His oceanic qualities, that aganita guna gana bhushita Rama, that Lord Ram who is ornamented with uncountably infinite qualities, that Lord, He is the person to whom we are originally attracted.
But not knowing Him, having dismissed Him as mythology, we now create our own mythology and we consume that. So there are three levels. There is the normal functional reality that we are in, there is a higher spiritual reality, that is where God exists, and there is an imaginary world which we create using our imagination, wherein we have Batman or Spiderman or whatever.
Now, when we have this, our heart longs to rise to this higher level of reality. But having dismissed that higher level of reality, we go into a deeper mode of illusion, creating imaginary stories and trying to enjoy that. But actually, our heart longs for this.
And Ram, who is at the highest level of reality existing, He is the eternal object of our love. And this is, whatever is described about Ram is not fiction. Why is that? Let’s conclude this talk by comparing the level or comparing the difference between, say, worship of Ram and worship of some ordinary fictional character.
Three main differences. There is the quality of lovers, there is the exploration of life, and there is the elevation of consciousness. So that means, in the quality of life, what we can see is, sorry, quality of lovers.
That means, if we look at the calibre of people throughout history who have devoted themselves to Ram, if we look at, say, the writings of Ramanacharya, Madhavacharya, Jiva Goswami, Vyasa Teertha, all these great sages, great scholars, if we just read their books, even a cursory reading of their books will show that they were not just sentimental people who believed anything and everything. They have written profound books of philosophy. And they have explained Ram not just as real, but as supra-real, as realer than reality, as the supreme reality.
And they have given elaborate systems of philosophical exegesis explaining how Ram is at the summit of reality. Shuddha Brahma Paratpara Rama. He is the highest reality.
So this has been explained. So the calibre of people who have devoted themselves to Ram are not people who would just spin a story and believe the story themselves. They are people who have done the most rigorous philosophical reasoning by which they have concluded the supra-existence of Ram.
And their quality is not just in their intellectual analysis, but also the quality of the selfless love and service that characterise their life. Those who were devoted to Ram, they did not care for worldly things. Normally when people create fictional characters, they enjoy the fictional characters and they become more and more attached to worldly things.
But these were people who had no attachment to worldly things. They were not interested in making money or getting power or getting high TRP ratings by creating a fictional character. They were interested simply in attaining a reality beyond this world’s reality.
And they were renounced most of the pleasures of this world. So in terms of their intellectual capacity, they had critical intellectual faculty. They were not gullible believers of anything and everything.
And secondly, they had selfless attitude of love and service. So that is the calibre of people who in history have devoted themselves to Ram. And along with that, there is an explanation of life that is given.
A fiction, when we watch fiction, there is no explanation of life. There is no deep thinking about the nature of life. There is simply a call to stop thinking and just by suspending belief, enjoy.
So yes, there is a higher enjoyment or higher fulfilment available even in the hearing of Ram Leela. But along with that, there is a coherent, cogent philosophy of life which explains who we are, why we are here, what we are meant to do, how we can find happiness, why our search for happiness is misdirected and how we are meant to act in life. So there is the whole knowledge of Dharma that comes with the knowledge of Ram.
So Ram is in that sense, the fulcrum, the central point of a majestic worldview that explains life in a intellectually satisfying and emotionally fulfilling way. And that’s why today we have not just millions or billions of people in India who worship Ram or Krishna, there are people all over the world when this explanation of life is provided to them. In millions, people from various parts of the world come to spiritual India to understand its spiritual legacy because there is such a coherent and cogent explanation of the purpose of life.
We are at our core non-spiritual beings, non-material beings, we are spiritual beings and we are meant for eternal spiritual happiness in relationship with the supreme spiritual reality who is known by Ram, Krishna and other names in various traditions. And lastly, there is the elevation of consciousness that happens. The elevation of consciousness means that this is the material reality where we are at and there is a higher spiritual reality and there is a process of Bhakti Yoga which enables us to raise our consciousness from material reality to spiritual reality.
And to the extent we follow this process, to that extent we can actually rise to higher and higher spiritual reality and we can experience within ourselves a connection with Ram, reciprocation with Ram and ultimately there is transportation to the world of Ram and this Bhakti, Pareshanubhava, Virakti, Ranyatraja. We may say all this is just imagination but the Bhagavad Purana describes the internal and the external characteristics of Bhakti. So it says the internal characteristic is Bhakti, Pareshanubhava.
Pareshanubhava is Bhakti gives us experience of God. Millions of people when they sing the glories of Ram, when they hear his glories, when they pray on his temples, when they go on pilgrimage, they experience a reciprocation within their hearts and that’s why they do these things. Pareshanubhava and what is the result of Pareshanubhava? Virakti, Ranyatraja.
One is no longer attached. The pleasure that drive materialistic people crazy in their pursuit, one becomes detached from that because when one experiences Ram, the word Ram means Ramati, Ramayati, Iti Ram. One who gets pleasure, one who gives pleasure.
One who delights, one who gives delight. That person is Ram and that Ram when we develop a Bhakti connection with him, we experience higher fulfilment and that brings us detached from the worldly cravings that torment people in general and when we see this transformation in our own hearts, the unworthy desires, the lower attachments that drag us down, that hold us back when we try to actualise our potential, these are removed, these fall away as we start practising Bhakti more and more seriously. Suppose there is a patient who goes to a doctor and that doctor gives a prescription and by that the patient gets cured and then after that some sceptic of that doctor, some person who is sceptical about that doctor and about that medical process comes and says you know the prescription that you have given is wrong, the treatment that you are taking is wrong.
Prescription is wrong, prescription is wrong, he is saying, the patient will say, but the patient will say I am cured. So prescription wrong, the accusation is wrong when the patient is cured. So similarly whether Ram is fact or faction, there may be sceptics who may keep saying Ram is fiction, Ram is fiction, Ram is fiction.
But when we chant the names of Ram, when we experience the ecstasy that comes, the great inner peace and joy that comes through devotion to Ram, that experience is the ultimate confirmatory test, the ultimate CT for the veracity of Ram’s existence and when we get that, even if somebody says prescription wrong, patient cured and therefore the accusation that prescription is wrong is wrong. I will summarise. So we started by talking about how do we talk about Ram as fact and not fiction.
We discussed three parts. Ram, R is reach. We discussed how the Ramayan describes historically the places of say, describes the geography of all the places and there are temples over there, there are local traditions over there and this concurrence of the tradition, local tradition, the architecture, archaeology and literature, this is remarkable.
According to current modes of, levels of scientific progress in the past, no one had that capacity. So how did that come about? And we discussed this reach, even western scholars, they have acknowledged how far the Ramayan’s influence has been and we discussed Griffith’s elaborate quote that such is the pervasive influence of Ramayan and he said that such a sober influence could not have been achieved simply by allegorical means, by something that was simply allegorical. We discussed the influence not only in India but it has reached far and wide, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia and far and wide its influence has spread.
That was the reach. Then we discussed about the acceptance. It has been accepted not just by those who were devotees of Ram, but even those who were not within that tradition of Ram Bhakti, those who were actively opposed to the tradition of Ram Bhakti, they may have criticised Ram in some places, they may have criticised Valmiki Ramayan and tried to create their own versions of the Ramayan but still none of them have questioned the historicity of Ram.
So critics were, that proves that they did not consider Ram to be fictional. Then why do we consider Ram to be fictional? That we came to the method. In the method we discussed that we can’t catch a fish smaller than 1 cm when the fishing net has a hole of 1 cm.
Similarly, we need an appropriate method. By the method of, depending on history as understood in post-Newtonian western methods of knowledge, even many things in ancient Greek history and other places cannot be proven. Even our own distant ancestors existence cannot be literally proven if we stick to those methods.
But still sustained research is done instead of just sceptical dismissal. Then we discussed how Troy and Ur, both these cities were discovered and shifted from the pages of mythology to the pages of history. And similarly, Dwarka findings were also done when serious archaeological research was done.
So like that if serious archaeological research is done, even there can be further evidence found for Ram’s historicity. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Especially when there is a concurrence of local tradition, literature and architectural archaeology that is already present in a significant degree.
And lastly, in the method we discussed how dismissing Ram as fictional because there are things which are miraculous such as Ram’s building a bridge across the ocean. That leads to the question, what is the source of one’s knowledge? That miracles are not against science. Miracles are above science.
Science insists that God act according to the laws of nature. To restrict God’s actions only to those which are defined by the laws of nature is like insisting that colour image appear on a black and white TV. It’s an impossible demand.
God is beyond the laws of nature. As Ramanujan said, an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents the thought of God. And then to those who ask, which engineering school did Ram go to to learn to build a bridge across the ocean? You can ask, which school did you go to learn the concept of God? The very basic definition of God that God is the source of all knowledge of everyone and he knows everything that anyone can teach in an engineering college.
So God is a source of gravity, he is a sustainer of gravity and when he wants he can suspend gravity also. And that’s what he does when he performs miracles. And the activities of Ram may be fantastic but they are not fantasy.
They are not imaginary. They are beyond our conception and we all long attraction to the supernatural as natural. Why? Because that’s how we see, that comes from our core, from our souls longing for the superior, higher spiritual reality.
When we cut off our access to higher spiritual reality then we created a fantasy wherein we reject the half man half lion and we adore the half man half bat. But instead of such a misdirection, if we understand the profound difference, there is ordinary reality, there is higher reality, the highest reality where Ram exists. And those who are devoted to the higher reality, we discussed, the quality of the devotees of Ram is that they have profound intellectual, rational, philosophical acumen to establish Ram as the highest reality.
They have profound, they have exalted levels of selflessness by which they devote themselves to the service of humanity. Then we discussed the explanation of life. There is a coherent, cogent philosophy which explains the origin, nature and purpose of life.
Something that is not present in any other fiction, any fictional narrative or even what we call as ordinary world living. And lastly we discussed elevation of consciousness. When we become devoted to Ram, we experience peace, we experience joy and our consciousness becomes elevated.
And that’s why if a patient has been cured and then somebody says the prescription is wrong, they are simply wrong. So like that when we experience Ram within our heart by chanting his names, any doubt, any allegation that Ram is fiction, we understand that such an accusation itself is fiction. Thank you very much.