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Published January 1st 1954 by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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Salvator Aubrey Clarence Menen was born in 1912 in London, of Irish and Indian parents. After attending University College, London he worked as a drama critic and a stage director. When World War II broke out, he was in India, where he organized pro-Allied radio broadcasts and edited film scripts for the Indian government. After the war ended, he returned to London to work with an advertising agen..more

<ul><li><p>th </p><p>Ramayana </p></li><li><p>Books by AUBREY MENEN </p><p>THE RAMA YANA </p><p>DEAD MAN IN THE SILVER MARKET </p><p>THE DUKE OF GALLODORO </p><p>THE BACKWARD BRIDE </p><p>THE STUMBLING STONE </p><p>THE PREVALENCE OF WITCHES </p><p>Charles Scribner's Sons </p></li><li><p>th amayana </p><p>AS TOLD </p><p>BY </p><p>AUBREY MENEN </p><p>chaRles scRJsneR's sons, new yoRk </p><p>1 9 5 4 </p></li><li><p>Copyright, 1954, by AUBREY MENEN A.ll rights reserved. No part of this boolc may be reproduced in any form without the pennission of Charles Scribner's Sonr </p><p>Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 54-)Ql9 </p></li><li><p>FO R P H I L I P D A L L AS </p></li><li><p>contnts </p><p>Introduction The Indian Enlightenment </p><p>BOOk I th palcC or liS </p><p>CHAPTER ONE The Old Story, Made New, Begins TWO The Ups and Downs of a Concubine THREE A Procession Is Postponed FOUR The Parrot Is Explained FIVE Intrigue and Innocence SIX Sit a SEVEN The Noble Gesture of Prince Ranuz </p><p>BOOk II th tclS or Vclffilkl </p><p>CHAPTER ONE The Hermitage of the Gluttons TWO The Conspiracy Revealed THREE The Tale of the Passionate Ascetic </p><p>and the Hidden Wife FOUR The Tale of the Hidden Wife </p><p>Continued FIVE Discoveries SIX The Tale of the Sage, the Cow, </p><p>and the Studious Locust </p><p>3 </p><p>9 </p><p>27 36 </p><p>43 51 61 69 73 </p><p>81 </p><p>95 </p><p>103 </p><p>115 126 </p><p>lJl </p></li><li><p>Contents </p><p>SEVEN The Tale of the Studious Locust Continued 145 </p><p>EIGHT The Fight in the Glade 151 NINE Sita's Rape 162 TEN The Nocturnal Adventures </p><p>of the Four Jealous Fishermen 16</p></li><li><p>JOtRObUCtiOn </p></li><li><p>JntRObUCtiOn </p><p>This is the story of Rama, a prince of India, who lived his life according to the best advice. He reverenced his intellectual betters, who were called Brahmins, and did what they told him to do. He took his morals from the best moralists, and his politics from the most experienced politicians. As a result he was ruined, exiled, and disinherited : his wife was stolen from him and when he got her back he very nearly had to burn her alive from the highest of motives. In the teeth of the soundest and most reliable guidance from his moral and mental superiors, he finally recovered his country, his throne, and his common sense. He lived more than two thousand five hundred years ago but everybody will recognise his experiences. </p><p>Twenty-five centuries is a long time ago, but the Indians were in many ways as civilised as we are today. There were great cities with immense bazaars in which the shopkeeper cheated his customers and was in turn cheated by the merchants. The merchants were robbed by a vast civil service, and the civil servants kissed the big toes of the politicians, who were known as courtiers. The courtiers were Brahmins, and the Brahmins were the top dogs. They made the laws, taught the ignorant, dictated morals, controlled the temples, and terrified the king. In those far-off days they had not yet become a rigid and hereditary caste. Any man could become a Brahmin provided he set himself up to know better than his fellow men, and was sharp enough to get away with i t. But a Brahmin was usually the son </p><p>3 </p></li><li><p>4 The Ramayana </p><p>of a Brahmin, because the tricks of the trade took a long time to learn, and a man could not start too early. </p><p>Besides the Brahmins, there were men of genius. These were usually thought brainy but a danger to society and they were customarily driven to live in the wilderness, another sign that this ancient civilisation was not much below our own. One such man of genius was Valmiki, who wrote the story that I am going to re-tell . </p><p>I t i s said that the tale of Rama's adventures i s the first story ever put together. I do not know that this is true: but it is certain that Valmiki was the first human being to be recognised as a literary genius. He was therefore penniless and much disliked. He l ived in a thatched hut and had to grow his own food. He could move among his fellow men only if he were heavily disguised, and then at the risk of his life. He was an outlaw. </p><p>The Brahmins said ( and their views have survived down to our own times ) tha t he was a brigand in his youth, and in his maturity he became an assassin. This may mean that when he was young he stole other people's property and, ,.,hen he was older, killed someone. On the other hand it may mean only that his verses scanned better than anything the Brahmins could write themselves. We have no sure means of knowing which interpretation is the true one, but it should be noted that some of Valmiki's poetry is extremely good. </p><p>The Brahmins said that the man he killed was one of their fraternity. The killing of a Brahmin was the most heinous crime that the Brahmins could think of: but subsequently, millions of Indians who are not Brahmins have not taken too gloomy a view of it. His crime, if he did commit a crime, has not diminished his fame and has added, for some, to his personal charm . He has obstinately remained the greatest of Indian authors . Unfortunately, generations of Brahmins have re-written his poem </p></li><li><p>Introduction 5 so that in parts it says the opposite of what Valmiki plainly intended. While restoring his tale I shall not attempt to revive his language: I shall aim at reviving his attitude of mind. </p><p>This will mean rejecting whole sections of the work that the Brahmins have written into it, and inventing much that they destroyed: a drastic course, but then I am not, myself, a Brahmin. </p></li><li><p>note </p></li><li><p>th 1nb1an enlJqhtenment </p><p>The Ramayana is a poem of twenty-four thousand couplets. The first version, now quite buried, was very much shorter. I t was written during a wave of philosophic scepticism which is sufficiently remarkable to be called the Indian Enlightenment, a movement which threw doubt on the </p><p>,very foundations of society. The better to understand how extraordinary this was, let </p><p>us imagine such a revolt happening in our own times. First we must see what the sceptics would disbelieve; what particubr pillars of our own beliefs they would shake; in whal way they would scandalise even such intelligent, broad-minded persons as the reader and myself. </p><p>To do that we must first determine which things in our own civilisation we take for granted because we believe them to be good. I can best arrive at this by describing a man I met in Corsica. </p><p>A few years ago I had retreated for the purpose of quiet reflection to a small vil1age on the warmer s ide of Corsica . This was the village of Cargcse, which has one hotel and this hotel </p></li><li><p>10 The Ramayana </p><p>has only two bedrooms. In the dining room of this hotel I met a Scandinavian . H is name meant nothing to me but he was clearly a man of remarkable capacities. I had been living among a backward tribe in India and we struck up a conversation on the subject of primitive peoples. The Scandinavian was most interested to know if my tribe ate maize. I was able to assure him they did not, a t which he lost interest in them. But he kindly expounded for me his own theory about the migration of tribes in the Pacific, in the earlier periods of human history. I was interested by his theory but astounded at his proof. He maintained that the inhabitants of the Pacific islands had colonised them from South America by floating across the ocean on a balsa raft. He had built a raft and floated across himself. </p><p>Like most brave men Mr. Thor Heyerdahl is serious and practical. While he left me to guess the perils of sailing a raft across the Pacific, he told me of the meticulous organisation behind his adventure. This had begun ( if I remember correctly ) years before with the help of learned societies. I t had involved the transportation of his crew by airplane : it called for cinematography and for radio telegraphy : it demanded official contacts with more than one department of more than one government: and i t naturally had ties with the major news journals of the world. The danger, the vision, the courage, and the glory were those of one man and his chosen companions; bu t his vision brought into play a vast social apparatus : and not the least striking thing about the Kon-Tiki expedition was that this apparatus had been turned for the first time after many years of war to the peaceful services of civilisation at its finest. It did not surprise me to learn from }.1r. Heyerdahl that he had found this side of his enterprise the most exhausting. </p><p>Now if we are proud of anything in our times, I think thi is wha t we most take pride in-this community of civilised men </p></li><li><p>The Indian Enlightenment 1 1 </p><p>that any of u s can call upon, either to assist us to send a letter to a friend in the next town or, if we have Mr. Thor Beyerdahl's imagination, tenacity, and powers of organisation, to cross the Pacific on a balsa raft. When we think of Mr. Heyerdahl and his fellow navigators, we are moved by the picture of a few men in the middle of a limitless sea. But we must not forget that Mr. Heyerdahl's object was not to prove the trip a difficult one, but to show that it was easy enough to have been done first by savages, and in that, he maintains, he has succeeded. What, then, distinguishes Mr. Heyerdahl from the original savage? In point of courage, nothing. In point of culture, everything. The savage did little more than shift his body from one point to another; Mr. Heyerdahl moved half the world, in every sense. He used the skills and the brains of uncounted men who make films, operate radio, print newspapers, follow the progress of ethnology, chart currents, own libraries, pilot airplanes, bank money, and reward brave men. Nothing, of course, can detract from the pioneering merit of his feat; but it is significant of our times that when this highly individuai scientist kindly left me his address, I found that it was 'The Explorers Club, New York.' </p><p>Ve have organised the world. Even if we aim, in the end, to blow the world to pieces, that will still call for a greater organisation than history has ever seen, and we shall no doubt be capable of it. </p><p>Now suppose some sceptical thinkers arose amongst us and said: 'The whole elaborate organisation is, in our opinion, preposterous nonsense. You arc all mistaken. It must be scrapped and we must start again on different lines.' Vould we have a parallel to the Indian Enlightenment? By no means. Vc should have merely a few cranks. </p><p>Suppose, on the other hand, these sceptics spoke rather dif-</p></li><li><p>12 The Ramayana </p><p>ferently. Suppose they said : 'We have nothing against the elaborate toy which you call civilisation. It is very pretty, especially when all the parts are in working order. We do not suggest for a moment that you pull it to pieces and start anew. We do not suggest that you improve it . We do not suggest you do anything at all. So far as we are concerned our only wish is, with the greatest good will, never to see your face again. If you are curious to know what we propose to do, we shall endeavour to explain, but not very often. We intend to set about the proper business of a human being, which is the improvement of his own soul. In this you cannot join us because you cannot call your souls your own . Since you depend every minute of your existence on everybody, you yourself are nobody. However, we will agree, in parting, that you are a jolly good fellow.' </p><p>This is a true parallel. It will occur at once to the reader that there is another one. The first Christian monks turned their backs on the greatest civilisation the world had seen in the same way except that I could not quote the language that many of them used in doing it because it is not fit to print. They, too, considered Roman civilisation preposterous; they also had no desire to alter it; and they too did not encourage earnest seekers after the light to follow them. St. Jerome, writing to a female admirer, who wished to make a pilgrimage, told her sourly that a visit to Bethlehem was not an absolute essential for holiness, Bethlehem being, at the time of writing, his place of residence. </p><p>What is it that caused thinking men at two apices of civilisation, that of Brahminical India and that of Imperial Rome, to dismiss the whole conglomeration from their minds as trash, and to leave it. It needs no effort of the imagination to see a man wanting to put civilisation right. Ve all do. This is called Progress. It is more difficult to understand how a man can hold </p></li><li><p>The Indian Enlightenment </p><p>that the civilisation of which he is a member is so unimportant that it is not worth his trouble to put right even if he knew how it should be done. Ve cannot even dismiss them as saints. Saints generally aim with holy determination to put things right. If I say, 'He is a saint : he docs not give a click of his beads whether you or even his own mother burns in hell or not,' does it not conjure up a somewhat confusing picture? So these people are not what you ordinarily call saints, whatever your religion : unless, of course, you are a Hindu, when you will not find it confusing at all. </p><p>The best way to avoid confusion in thinking about the ways of human beings is to remember that the number of the ideas that have really moved mankind is very small and most of this small number of ideas are very simple. The difficulty is that you and I have room in our heads for only one or two of these simple ideas at the same time. </p><p>For instance : one of the most powerful notions in the history of thought is that of the Devil. Another powerful idea is that of Nature obeying fixed laws. If you believe in Nature obeying fixed laws and I believe in black magic, and if we both want to obtain a nugget of gold, you will go prospecting in some place which your study of the laws of geological action has led you to believe has auriferous rocks. I will put a lump of lead in a basin, and sacrifice a cock at midnight on a bare mountain. You will think me an unsavoury charlatan; I will think you an uninspired fool. Nowadays our friends would expect you to find the gold : in the Middle Ages they would (privately ) have put their money on me. Because I cannot see your simple idea and you cannot see mine we shall not only differ in our ways of getting gold, we shall differ a bout nearly everything under the sun. Since you believe that if you know how Nature </p></li><li><p>The Ramayana </p><p>works she will do as you bid her, you will be confident that if things are left to you and your co-workers, everything can be made bigger and better and everybody made happier. I, on the other hand, believe in the power of evil and I shall say that men are wicked and nothing will make them better and the fact had best be faced. Your idea may lead you to discover antibiotics or nerve gas : mine can make me a great leader of men. But the two ideas that arc the base of our differences can be explained to an intelligent child. </p><p>The simple idea that led the first monks to turn their backs on civilisation was Heaven. Heaven was a place much better than Rome. It was obvious that everybody was not going there, but it seemed to the monks that those who did not try with all their might and main were as lacking common sense as a man who owned a palace but lived in the basement because he could not take the trouble to climb upstairs to bed. Like all men who have..</p></li></ul>