R?M?YA?A

R?M?YA?A Traditional R?m?ya?a scholarship has been marked by what Robert Goldman calls a "zeal" (1984, p. 63) to demonstrate that most or all of this epic's first book is late. Books 2–6 are taken to supply most or all of the poem's "'genuine' portions," and the closing Book 7 is taken as axiomatically late. For such scholars, Books 2–6 have presented the possibility that they narrate a largely consecutive heroic story of a man who is for the most part not yet "divinized."

This view has been challenged over the last several decades. Pivotal to this rethinking has been the completion of the Baroda Critical Edition of the R?m?ya?a (1960–1975), which this article will use for its synopsis. Most of the key passages that speak of R?ma as an incarnation of Vishnu make the Critical Edition's cut. Sheldon Pollock (1986, pp. 38–42) and Madeleine Biardeau (1997, pp. 77–119) have also introduced a consideration based on comparison with the Mah?bh?rata and the fruits of its Pune Critical Edition. Up to Book 2, each epic follows a similar archetypal design, with each Book 1 introducing the frame stories, origins, and youth of the heroes, and each Book 2 describing a pivotal court intrigue. This approach can be carried further: Book 3, Forest (in the title of both epics' third books); Book 4, Inversions (the P???ava's topsy-turvy disguises in Vir??a's kingdom of Matsya (Fish); R?ma's engagement with the topsy-turvy world of the monkeys' capital, Kishkindh?, in which the lead monkeys play out a reverse image of R?ma's own story); Book 5, "Effort" (udyoga; see R?m 5.10.24; 33.66) made in Preparation for War (by both sides in the Mah?bh?rata; by Hanum?n and all the monkeys in the R?m?ya?a) with Krishna and Hanum?n going as divine messengers into the enemy camp, where there are attempts to capture them; War Books (R?m?ya?a 6; Mah?bh?rata 6–11), and denouements (R?m?ya?a 7; Mah?bh?rata 12–18). The R?m?yan's term for its Books is k???a, meaning a "section" of a stalk of a plant, such as bamboo, between its joints; the Mah?bh?rata's is parvan, which can mean the joints themselves of such a plant. Together they could describe a complete stalk of a noded plant. Such closeness of design cannot be accidental. This article favors the priority of the Mah?bh?rata and will be presented from that standpoint, with the corollaries that R?m?ya?a Books 1 and 7 are integral to its earliest design and that the R?m?ya?a poet is not only familiar with the Mah?bh?rata's design but intent upon refining it.

Such a relation can be exemplified by the two epics' frame stories, which are opened at the beginning of the first Books and left pending into the denouements. Unlike the Mah?bh?rata's three frame stories, which present a serial layering of the first three recitals of supposedly the same text that are scattered over its first fifty-six chapters and resumed in late portions of its twelfth Book, the R?m?ya?a frame, in only its first four chapters (known as the upodgh?ta or preamble), presents two progressive unfoldings of the story—the first by the sage N?rada to the hermit V?lm?ki; the second by V?lm?ki himself, now a poet—that trace its ripening into the third full unfolding, the V?lm?ki R?m?ya?a itself.

In the first, in answer to V?lm?ki's opening question of whether there is an ideal man in the world today (1.1.2–5), N?rada satisfies the question with a brief and entirely laudatory account of R?ma's virtues and adult life, presumably to date (1.1.7–76). Saying the minimum about R?ma's killing of the monkey V?lin (1.1.49, 55), N?rada hardly hints at anything problematic in R?ma's life and omits both S?t?'s fire ordeal and her banishment. Among the great rishis, or seers, that R?ma encounters, he mentions only Vasishtha (29) and Agastya (33–34).

In the second sarga, once N?rada has left, V?lm?ki witnesses the cries of grief of a female krauñca bird (probably the large monogamous sarus crane) over the slaying of her mate by a "cruel hunter," and is provoked into the spontaneous utterance that creates "verse" (and thus poetry) out of "grief" (shloka out of shoka; 1.2.9–15). As this verse is said to mark the origins of poetry, the R?m?ya?a is called the ?dik?vya, or "first poem"—a term that does not occur in the Critical Edition, though it probably should since it occurs in a universally attested sarga where, after S?t? has vanished into the earth, the god Brahm? encourages R?ma to hear the rest of this ?dik?vya (7, Appendix I, No. 13, lines 31–39). Now, however, the same Brahm? appears (22–36) to prompt V?lm?ki to tell the story he has just heard from N?rada, and gives him the insight to see what he did not know and what is still yet to happen—confirming that his poem will all be true (1.2.33–35). Brahm? thus assures V?lm?ki that he will know things omitted from N?rada's encomium. When Brahm? leaves, V?lm?ki conceives the idea of composing "the entire R?m?ya?a poem (k?vya)" in shlokas (1.2.40cd).

In the third sarga, V?lm?ki meditatively enters into this project for the first time and has a sort of preview of the story (1.3.3-28): not a retrospective table of contents like the Mah?bh?rata's Parvasa?graha, but a kind of first glimpse of what his poem will contain. Here he provides the first reference to some of R?ma's encounters with important rishis (Vishv?mitra [4], R?ma J?madagnya [5], Bharadv?ja [8]). Most important, he closes with S?t?'s banishment (28).

Then, looking back upon the poem's completion, the fourth sarga hints at the context in which V?lm?ki's R?m?ya?a will finally be told by the twins Kusha and Lava to their father, R?ma. Just as information on the Mah?bh?rata's frame is resumed with further revelations in Book 12, the R?m?ya?a's frame will be picked up in Book 7, when Kusha and Lava do just that. The main difference is that when the R?m?ya?a frame is reentered in Book 7, it is not just a matter of further revelations about the composition that are difficult to relate to the main story. V?lm?ki's dramatic entry into the main story presents the occasion to reveal the poetic heart of the whole poem through its effects on its hero and its heroine.

V?lm?ki thus gets a triple inspiration—from N?rada, the krauñc?, and Brahm?. Yet the upodgh?ta leaves us in suspense as to when S?t? came to his ashram. Was it before or after the krauñca bird incident? The poem never tells whether V?lm?ki's response to the female bird comes before or after his familiarity with S?t?'s grief at her banishment. But in either case, now that V?lm?ki knows the whole story from Brahm?, he could connect S?t?'s banishment with the krauñc?'s cry whenever she arrived. What we do know is that, having had pity (karu?a) for the female bird, V?lm?ki will compose his poem with pity as its predominant aesthetic flavor (a?g? rasa) in relation to grief (shoka) as its underlying sth?yibh?va or "stable aesthetic emotion." Vy?sa, the Mah?bh?rata's author, provides no such developmental inspiration story. The R?m?ya?a frame is thus shorter, more focused, and more poetically traceable into the main narrative and the whole poem.

Although the upodgh?ta concludes with R?ma, as chief-auditor-to-be, inviting his brothers to join him in listening to the boys he is yet to recognize, he interrupts their narration to question them only once: when he asks them who authored this poem (k?vya; 7.85.19). Otherwise he is the rapt and silent listener. He launches their recital in the penultimate verse of the upodgh?ta: "Moreover, it is said that the profound adventure (mah?nubh?vam caritam) they tell is highly beneficial even for me. Listen to it" (1.4.26d). Who says this? Why beneficial to R?ma? The preamble leaves us with such implicit and subtle questions. In these passages, we see two of the three leading terms by which the R?m?ya?a describes itself: k?vya (poem) and carita (adventure), the third being ?khy?na (tale, narrative). Kath? (story) is also used, but with less specificity. These four terms are woven through the upodgh?ta. It is noteworthy that itih?sa (history), which along with ?khy?na is one of the two main terms to describe the Mah?bh?rata, is not only unused to describe the R?m?ya?a but is absent from the latter's entire Critical Edition. In this, it is like the absence of k?vya in the Mah?bh?rata's Critical Edition; as if the two texts were in early agreement to yield one of these terms to the other. Neither does pur??a (ancient lore) describe the R?m?ya?a, which evidently places itself outside the itih?sa-pur??a tradition that Ch?ndogya Upanishad 7.1.2 links with N?rada as a fifth Veda. Similarly, up?khy?na (subtale) is used only in the Mah?bh?rata, although there is an interpolated verse in the ashvamedha recital scene in which the twins begin singing the poem and tell R?ma that the R?m?ya?a has twenty-four thousand verses and a hundred up?khy?nas (7.1328*, following 7.85.20)—suggesting Mah?bh?rata influence.

K?vya is used only at the R?m?ya?a's two framing points: nine times in the upodgh?ta, four in the ashvamedha recital scene. It thus has a kind of bookend function of describing the work as poetry, most notably that "it is replete with" all the "poetic sentiments" or rasas (1.4.8). In contrast to k?vya, carita implies the "movement" of the main narrative. Of its four usages in the upodgh?ta to characterize the R?m?ya?a, two present a juxtaposition. The first has Brahm? enjoin V?lm?ki to "compose the whole adventure of R?ma" (1.2.30cd). The second, once it is implied that V?lm?ki has composed it, calls "the whole R?m?ya?a poem (k?vya) the great adventure of S?t?" (1.4.6). This suggests that, although R?ma's adventure is V?lm?ki's starting point, the complete poem is also about S?t?'s. The "profound adventure" that R?ma prepares himself to hear at the end of the upodgh?ta would thus include the two adventures intertwined (4.26). Carita is also the main word to describe the R?m?ya?a when these adventures are in course (2.54.18; 6.114.4)—and even in the course of hearing it. When the twins begin reciting the poem and R?ma asks who composed it, they reply, "The blessed V?lm?ki, who has reached the presence of the sacrifice, is the author by whom this adventure is disclosed to you without remainder" (7.85.19).

Meanwhile, ?khy?na is used four times in the upodgh?ta. It describes the benefits of hearing the tale's recital (1.1.78), that it is "unsurpassed" as a "tale exemplary of righteousness" (1.4.11), that it is a "wondrous tale told by the sage" that he "completed in perfect sequence" as "the great source of inspiration for poets (kav?n?m)" (1.4.20), and that R?ma urged his brothers to "listen to this tale whose words and meanings alike are wonderful as it is sweetly sung by these two godlike men" (1.4.25). It is also the first term to describe the R?m?ya?a when the recital of its main story begins: "Of these kings of illustrious lineage, the Ikhv?kus, this great tale is known as the R?m?ya?a. I will recite it from the beginning in its entirety, omitting nothing. It is in keeping with the goals of righteousness, profit, and pleasure and should be listened to with faith" (1.5.3-4). ?khy?na can also be used for tales told in course, most notably for the "glad tidings" that Hanum?n brings at various points to others (5.57.1, 59.6, 6.101.17, 113.40). Complementary to both k?vya and carita, it links the narrative to the inspiration of poets while also bringing listeners into the poem's double adventure.

The R?m?ya?a thus makes very selective use of limited terms. In contrast to the Mah?bh?rata, they are used strategically rather than as definitions, and they are not used to emphasize the interplay between the R?m?ya?a's parts and its whole. Emerging from and flowing back into the passages that frame the R?m?ya?a (the upodgh?ta and the ashvamedha recital scene), side-stories fall within a single poetic narrative that is portrayed as being addressed uninterruptedly (the one exception noted) to R?ma. It does not have multiple audiences in a threefold stacking of dialogical frames (Shulman 2001, pp. 28–33).

Synopsis

Book 1, the B?lak???a. or "Book of the Boy[s]," begins with the upodhgh?ta (sargas 1–4), which leads directly to the main narrative, starting with the origins of the Ikshv?ku dynasty and quickly narrowing to the one defect in the long reign of the current monarch, Dasharatha: he is sonless. At this time the gods and rishis (seers) are alarmed by the R?kshasa R?va?a, who harasses the seers in their hermitages. With the help of a descendant of the sage Kashyapa, named Rishyashri?ga (whose story is told in the Mah?bh?rata's Rishyashri?ga-Up?khy?na [Mbh 3.110–113]), Dasharatha's three wives bear four sons, all partial incarnations of Vishnu: R?ma, Bharata, and the twins Lakshma?a and Shatrughna. Meanwhile Brahm? directs other gods to take birth as monkeys. Once the boys start their Vedic education, the sage Vishv?mitra (whose story is told in the Mah?bh?rata's Vasishtha-and Vishv?mitra-Up?khy?nas [Mbh 1.264–273, 13.3–4]) arrives (sargas 5–17). He demands that Dasharatha allow R?ma and Lakshma?a to accompany him into the forest, and is supported by the sage Vasishtha. Once Dasharatha releases the boys, Vishv?mitra teaches them divine weapons and prepares them for a R?kshasa encounter. They kill T?tak? (a female) and Sub?hu, but M?r?ca escapes. Vishv?mitra then mentions that King Janaka of Mithil? will be performing a sacrifice at which a great bow will be presented as a test of strength (sargas 18–31).

Along the way to Mithil?, Vishv?mitra tells stories: the last of them about Ahaly?. Cursed by her husband, the sage Gautama, for being seduced by Indra (this story is told in the Mah?bh?rata's Cirak?ri–Up?khy?na [12.258] and alluded to in its Indravijaya-Up?khy?na [5.12.6]), she is redeemed by R?ma's arrival at their hermitage—a cautionary tale about marriage and sexuality (Sutherland Goldman, p. 72)—before R?ma learns more about Janaka's sacrifice. Janaka's minister Shatn?anda then tells R?ma the story of Vishv?mitra's former rivalry with Vasishtha (a topic, again, of the Mah?bh?rata's Vasishtha-Up?kh?yana [Mbh 1.64–73]; sargas 32–65).

Janaka's sacrifice turns out to be S?t?'s "self-choice" of a husband, where R?ma wins S?t? by breaking the great bow of Shiva. To unite the houses further, Janaka provides wives for R?ma's brothers. Vishv?mitra departs, and on the way back to Ayodhya, R?ma is confronted by R?ma J?madagnya (who appears repeatedly in the Mah?bh?rata, notably in the K?rtav?rya- [Mbh 3.115–117], [Bh?rgava-] R?ma-[12.48–49], and Vishv?mitra-Up?khy?nas [13.3–4]). This older Brahman R?ma blocks the new Kshatriya R?ma's path and demands that he break a bow of Vishnu—which R?ma does, making the older R?ma yield. The young couples then return to Ayodhya for happy honeymoons. But Dasharatha sends Bharata and Shatrughna with Bharata's maternal uncle back to Kekaya, the country of Bharata's mother Kaikey? (sargas 66–77).

Rishyashri?ga's contribution to the four brothers' births, the stories told along the way by and about Vishv?mitra, and the encounter with Bh?rgava R?ma have often been viewed as "digressions" or "interpolations" because they depart from a straightforward R?ma saga. But this view overlooks an emerging pattern. The sequence of rishis—Rishyashri?ga (a descendant of Kashyapa), Vasishtha, Vishv?mitra, Gautama (with Ahaly?), and R?ma J?madagnya (son of Jamadagni)—has linked R?ma's early years to sages from five of the eight great Brahman gotras, or lineages, whose eponymous ancestors are connected with the composition of the Rig Veda and are regarded as the main pravara rishis—the ones to whom all Brahman families make invocation (pravara) when they give their line of descent.

At the beginning of Book 2, the Ayodhy?K?nda, or "Book of Ayodhy?," Dasharatha—with the whiff of a scheme—announces his intention to make R?ma his heir-apparent with Bharata away. Kaikey?'s maidservant Manthar? arouses Kaikey?'s jealousy and reminds her that Dasharatha once granted her two boons, which she has yet to claim (2.9.9–13). In a wrenching scene that launches the R?m?ya?a's unending skein of pity and grief, the aged Dasharatha hears her two demands: R?ma's fourteen-year banishment and Bharata's installment as heir-apparent (10.28–29). At the news, R?ma calmly says he will honor his father's word, and does so even when Dasharatha urges him to ignore it. S?t? demands to accompany R?ma, who then approves Lakshma?a's offer to attend them. Nearing their departure, Kaikey? contemptuously gives S?t? bark to wear over her sari, and when R?ma has to help S?t? put it on, Dasharatha gives S?t? garments and jewels to cover the bark (sargas 1–34).

The departure is then a long scene of grief from the principals down to Ayodhya's citizens. Crossing the Ga?g?, the trio heads toward their first destination, the hermitage of the rishi Bharadv?ja. When R?ma asks Bharadv?ja to "think of some good site for an ashram in a secluded place," the seer directs them to Mount Citrak??a, "a meritorious place frequented by the great rishis" (2.48.25). Meanwhile, back at Ayodhya, Dasharatha dies after tortured recollections, leaving a widowed city, and messengers are sent to Bharata (sargas 35–65).

Bharata learns of Dasharatha's death at Ayodhya and grieves, denouncing Kaikey?. Affirming the Ikshv?kus' custom of primogeniture, he tells his deputies that he rather than R?ma will fulfill the terms of exile and orders them to prepare an army to help him bring R?ma back. Following the same route, Bharata reaches Bharadv?ja's ashram. Bharadv?ja tests him, conjuring up a feast for the army and a royal palace for him. Bharata rejects the royal seat, foreshadowing how he will steward R?ma's throne. Having seen Bharata's worthiness, Bharadv?ja again gives directions to Citrak?ta (sargas 66–86).

Descrying Bharata's approach with an army, Lakshma?a fears that he wants to kill them. R?ma attests to Bharata's trustworthiness. Bharata reaches R?ma alone, leaving the army camped below. Upon meeting, they embrace, and R?ma learns of Dasharatha's death. After long discussion, Bharata agrees to be regent for the exile's duration, and R?ma gives him his sandals. Having worn these on his head all the way back, Bharata leaves R?ma's throne empty and takes up residence in a village outside Ayodhya, where he consecrates the sandals and apprises them before giving any order (sargas 87–107).

Soon sensing disquiet among the Citrak??a rishis, R?ma learns that R?va?a's younger brother, Khara, has been cannibalizing ascetics in nearby Janasth?na. The sages retreat to a safer ashram and R?ma moves on to the ashram of Atri, where Atri's wife Anas?y? tells S?t? the duties of a faithful wife and gives her more apparel and jewels. R?ma gets his next directions from the ascetics there, who recommend, all other routes being treacherous, "the path through the forest that the great rishis use when they go to gather fruits" (111.19; sargas 108–111).

With this close of Book 2, R?ma has now been linked with seven of the eight pravara rishis—Vasishtha, Kashyapa, Vishv?mitra, Gautama, Jamadagni, Bharadv?ja, and Atri—or their descendants. These original seven, who together constitute the northern constellation of the Seven Rishis (Big Dipper), have pointed R?ma south.

The first line of Book 3, the Ara?ya K?nda, or "Book of the Forest," finds the trio entering the "vast wilderness" of Da??aka. As they move on from a circle of ashrams, a R?kshasa named Vir?dha ("one who thwarts") looms before them and seizes S?t?. Pained by seeing her touched, R?ma fills Vir?dha with arrows, and the brothers each break off an arm to release her. Vir?dha realizes he has been slain by R?ma, which relieves him from a curse. Before going to heaven, he tells R?ma that the great rishi Sharabha?ga "will see to your welfare" (3.3.22–23). Sharabha?ga relays R?ma to the hermitage of Sut?ksh?a, who offers his ashram as a residence; but R?ma says he might kill the local game. The trio lives happily for ten years in another circle of hermitages before returning to Sut?ksh?a (10.21–26). Storytellers have now told R?ma about Agastya's ashram and he asks Sut?ksh?a how to find it in so vast a forest (29–30). Sut?ksh?a heads him due south, and along the way R?ma tells Lakshma?a stories told about Agastya that also occur in the Mah?bh?rata's Agastya-Up?khy?na (Mbh 3.94–108). R?ma intends to live out the remainder of his exile with Agastya (R?m 3.10.86), but Agastya, after meditating a moment, says that he knows R?ma's true desire and directs him to a lovely forest called Pancava?? near the God?var? River, where S?t? will be comfortable and R?ma can protect her while safeguarding the ascetics (12.12–20). These words of the eighth, last, and southernmost of the great pravara rishis resound with forebodings, as does the trio's meeting on the way to Pancava?? with the vulture Ja??yus, who offers to keep watch over S?t? whenever they are away (sargas 1–13). However kindly, a vulture is normally a bad omen (3.22.4).

At their Pancava?? ashram, the trio is soon visited by R?va?a's sister Sh?rpa?akh?. Motivated by her rejection by both brothers to devour S?t?, she provokes R?ma to order Lakshma?a to mutilate her, and Lakshma?a cuts off her ears and nose. She rushes to her brother Khara in Janasth?na, where he heads a R?kshasa outpost in Da??aka Forest. Khara and fourteen thousand R?kshasas are annihilated by R?ma. Sh?rpa?akh? then goes to La?k? and, with talk of S?t?'s beauty, inspires R?van make her his wife. R?va?a engages M?r?ca to disguise himself as a golden deer, anticipating that S?t? will send R?ma and Lakshma?a to capture it. M?r?ca knows R?ma from Book 1, and tries to warn R?va?a against this plan. But unable to avoid R?vana's threats, he boards his celestial chariot. S?t? is enchanted by the golden deer. R?ma chases it. Its dying words convince her she hears R?ma crying for help, and she goads Lakshma?a to aide R?ma by accusing him of desiring her. R?va?a comes disguised as a mendicant, sprouts ten heads, carries her off by her hair and thighs onto his chariot, and flies away. S?t? calls to Ja??yus, imploring him to tell R?ma and Lakshma?a all that has happened (47.36). Having slept through her abduction, Ja??yus flies up to challenge R?va?a, destroys his chariot, and forces him to the ground. But R?va?a severs his wings. Able to fly without a chariot, R?va?a grabs S?t? to continue his journey. When she sees five monkeys on a mountain, S?t? drops some of her jewels and a garment, hoping they will mark her route. Once in La?k?, R?va?a leaves her in a grove of ashoka trees outside his palace, giving her twelve months to yield or be chopped into minced meat for his breakfast (sargas 14–54).

R?ma goes mad looking for S?t? until the brothers come upon Ja??yus, who, before he dies, tells them of her abduction by R?va?a and that he headed south. They head south on an "untrodden path" (65.2), passing into the Krauñca Forest, still hoping to find S?t?. Instead they run into a D?nava-turned-R?kshasa, Kabandha ("headless trunk" but also a name for a sacrificial post). He guards the way past him as Vir?dha did for the Da??aka Forest at the beginning of Book 3 (and as Kirm?ra and the Yaksha do at the beginning and end of the Mah?bh?rata's Book 3). Kabandha is a headless torso with a single-eyed face in his stomach, a huge devouring mouth, and long grabbing arms that suddenly seize the brothers, who quickly sever them. Realizing that this amputation by R?ma ends a long curse, Kabandha tells his story, and after R?ma has asked if he knows anything about R?va?a and has cremated him, Kabandha rises lustrously from his pyre to say that R?va?a's abode may be found if R?ma allies with the monkey Sugr?va, whom R?ma should quickly make a "comrade" or "commiserator" (vayasya), sealing their pact before fire (68.13). Kabandha then directs them to Sugr?va's haunt on Mount Rishyam?ka. This path takes them through Mata?ga's Wood to Mata?ga's ashram, where all the rishis have passed away except the "mendicant woman" Shabar? ("the Tribal Woman"). As Shabar? soon corroborates, Mata?ga and his disciples ascended to heaven just when R?ma reached Citrak??a, but Shabar? has awaited R?ma's arrival so that she can go to heaven after seeing him. For this, R?ma permits her to enter fire (70.26)—indexing an association between fire-entry and purification that will also apply to S?t?. R?ma now sees Mount Rishyam?ka (sargas 55–71).

Book 4, the Kishkindh?K???a, or "Book of Kishkindh?," the monkey capital, begins with R?ma exploring Rishyam?ka. Sugr?va, thinking the brothers could be his brother V?lin's spies, sends his minister Hanum?n to scout out their intentions. Learning of the similarities between R?ma and Sugr?va's situations (forest exile; stolen wife), Hanum?n says Sugr?va will help R?ma's search, and Lakshma?a remarks that this help will come with Sugr?va's own purpose. Hanum?n brings the brothers to Sugr?va and tells him that they desire his friend-ship. As advised by Kabandha, "Sugr?va and R?ghava (R?ma) entered into vayasya by reverently circling the blazing fire" (5.16). Sugr?va tells R?ma he will recover his wife, like the lost Vedas, whether she is in the underworld or the heavens. He further recalls that he saw a woman drop her shawl and jewels when she saw him and four other monkeys on the mountain. She was crying "R?ma, R?ma! Lakshma?a!" while being carried off by R?va?a. R?ma weeps, recognizing the articles as S?t?'s (6.1–19).

Sugr?va now tells his account of how V?lin wronged him, which is only his side of the story. R?ma accepts it, even before fully hearing it, and promises to kill V?lin (8.23–26). Once V?lin was fighting the asura M?y?vin in a cave outside Kishkindh? and had stationed Sugr?va out-side the entrance. After a year Sugr?va noticed signs of what he thought was V?lin's death, so he blocked the cave to prevent the demon's exit. Back at Kishkindh?, he replaced V?lin as king. But it was M?y?vin who had died, and when V?lin got out, he reclaimed the throne, took Sugr?va's wife, and drove Sugr?va away. R?ma accepts that Sugr?va is innocent, assures him that V?lin sinned in taking his wife, and repeats that he will kill him (9–10). But behind this story lies another, in which Sugr?va discloses why Mount Rishyam?ka provides him asylum. M?y?vin opposed V?lin because he had killed M?y?vin's older brother, "a buffalo named Dundubhi" (4.11.7). Dundubhi terrorized Kishkindh? with his horns; roaring like a kettle drum (dundubhi), he lured V?lin from his drunken amours. Grabbing Dundubhi's horns, V?lin crushed him until blood oozed from his ears and hurled away the carcass. But "blood drops from the wounds fell out from its mouth and were lifted by the wind toward Mata?ga's hermitage" (41). Mata?ga then cursed V?lin to be unable to enter his Wood on pain of death. Sugr?va now points to Dundubhi's bones, which R?ma kicks off to a great distance with just his big toe.

Mata?ga's departure thus defines his hermitage, along with Mount Rishyam?ka, as a place cursed for its pollution. Though Mata?ga is a rishi, he is not a Vedic rishi or even a Brahman. Rather, his name denotes the "untouchable" just as Shabar?'s denotes the tribal. Dundubhi's killing has behind it a buffalo sacrifice—a quite archaic one, with death by wrestling rather than the sword—in which this "untouchable rishi" takes on the pollution of this non-Vedic village rite. R?ma thus forges his "friendship" with Sugr?va in a place that is both cursed and beyond the range of the Vedic rishis, who up to now have marked his trail. In entering this topsy-turvy monkey world, where Vedic practices are distorted at the advice of Kabandha, a speaking sacrificial post, R?ma is all the while being drawn into a sequence of non-Vedic killings of questionable dharma in which he himself is to make V?lin the next victim. R?ma tells Sugr?va to challenge V?lin to single combat and R?ma shoots V?lin from ambush. Against V?lin's complaints that R?ma is a dharma-hypocrite (4.17.18), R?ma has only dubious replies: he acts as Bharata's proxy; princes go about the world guarding dharma, which is subtle; V?lin is only a monkey and cannot understand dharma, yet deserves this punishment for the sin of taking his brother's wife; R?ma had promised Sugr?va to kill V?lin and his truth is unexceptionable (sargas 1–18).

Sugr?va is reconsecrated, and V?lin's son A?gada is made heir apparent. With these events the main story enters the monkeys' cave capital Kishkindh?. But R?ma does not. In keeping with his minimal contact with Mata?ga and Dundubhi, and on the pretext of having promised Dasharatha he would not enter any village or city during his exile (4.25.8), he lives outside Kishkindh? with Lakshma?a in a cave on Mount Prashrava?a to await the end of the rainy season, when Sugr?va will summon the world's monkeys to begin searching for S?t?. But when Sugr?va extends his debaucheries, R?ma grows angry and sends Lakshma?a to threaten him into action. Sugr?va says he has not forgotten, and summons the monkeys (sargas 19–38).

Sugr?va orders monkey squads to search each direction and return after a month. Noticing that Sugr?va pays special attention to the southern party, which includes Hanum?n, R?ma gives Hanum?n a "ring engraved with his name" (43.11) to show to S?t? so that she will know whose message Hanum?n bears and not fear him. A month later, all parties have returned but this southern one, which now emerges from a magical cave near the ocean. Dejected over their failure, they start fasting to death but are observed by a wingless vulture, Ja??yus's older brother Samp?ti, who thinks better of eating them and says that he and his son saw R?va?a taking S?t? to . k?, adding that the fierce rishi Nish?kara told him to wait in this spot until R?ma's monkey helpers should arrive. Mission accomplished, Samp?ti sprouts new wings and flies away. The monkeys then decide that one of them must leap to La?k?, and decide it is a job only for Hanum?n (sargas 39–66).

Sundara K???a, "The Beautiful Book" (Book 5), then begins with Hanum?n's leap to La?k?. Landing and determined to search for S?t?, he makes his way at night to R?va?a's palace where he sees, sleeping after their carousals, R?va?a, his harem, and a most beautiful woman—R?va?a's queen Mandodar?—whom Hanum?n joyfully mistakes for S?t?, until he thinks through the implications, and soon recovers his propriety after taking such fascination at another man's boudoir. Satisfying himself that there was nowhere else to begin looking for a woman, he goes to a nearby ashoka grove and finds a woman surrounded by r?kshas?s, looking gaunt from fasting, unornamented and dirty, whom he barely makes out to be S?t?—as if faced with "some Vedic text once learned by heart but now nearly lost through lack of recitation," or "as one might make out the sense of a word whose meaning had been changed through want of proper usage" (13.36–37; sargas 1–15).

As Hanum?n looks on, R?va?a pays another visit. Again, once S?t? defies him, his words turn to threats: before she becomes his breakfast she now has only two months to come to his bed. He orders the R?kshas?s to bend her will to his and walks off with one of them, who has begun seducing him. The browbeating goes on until an elderly R?kshas? named Trija?? recounts a dream that portends R?ma's reunion with S?t?, R?va?a's death, and La??'s destruction. Trija?? observes that certain auspicious bodily signs indicate that her dream has encouraged S?t?, and these signs intensify even after S?t? has spoken of hanging herself while "holding the fillet for her hair" (26.17; sargas 16–27).

Hanum?n, whose presence these omens register, now reflects that he must comfort S?t? lest she take her life. Not to alarm her, he starts a short "sweet" account of R?ma and S?t?'s story, down to her being found by the unknown voice she is hearing (29.3–9). When S?t? sees a monkey above her, she faints and first thinks it is a dream—in which monkeys, she says, are inauspicious according to the sh?stras (30.1–4). But verifying that she is S?t?, they intertwine stories until Hanum?n shows her R?ma's signet ring. S?t? tells Hanum?n to tell R?ma to make haste; she has only two months (35.7). As tokens for R?ma, S?t? tells an intimate story that only she and R?ma could know and, saying she has now but one month left, gives Hanum?n a precious hair ornament that she has kept carefully concealed. Leaving S?t?, Hanum?n rampages through the palace grounds, killing R?kshasa warriors sent to capture him until R?va?a's son Indrajit immobilizes him with divine weapons. Brought before R?va?a, Hanum?n tells him he faces the worst if he does not return S?t?. R?va?a sets Hanum?n's tail afire and has him marched through La?k?. Making himself small, Hanum?n slips his bonds; leaping from house to house, he torches La?k? with his tail. Then, thinking of S?t?, he reassures himself that she will survive since "fire cannot prevail against fire" (53.18; sargas 28–53).

Hanum?n then recrosses the ocean to join his companions and bring them up to date. Nearing Kishkindh?, they break into Sugr?va's honey grove to get drunk. The guardian reports to Sugr?va that they have destroyed the grove, but Sugr?va joyfully senses that this can only mean their mission's success. Sobered and told that Sugr?va excuses their exuberance, the southern party reports back to him and the brothers. Hanum?n tells R?ma the confirmatory story, gives him S?t?'s jewel, tells him she has but one month left, and poses the challenge of devising a way to cross the ocean.

R?ma clasps the jewel to his heart. S?t? had described it as "born from the sea" (63.22)—perhaps a pearl. Confirming these origins, R?ma adds that Janaka gave it to her at their wedding when it was "fastened to her head" (64.4). When Hanum?n presents a fuller account of the jewel's transfer, he says that when S?t? released it from her garment, she "gave me this jewel fit for being fastened (or, for the fillet) around her braid (ve?yudgrathanam)" (65.30). That compound also described the fillet when she thought of hanging herself. She thus seems to send the jewel that she would fasten to this fillet without sending the fillet, which would still be keeping her hair back in an ekave?? or "single braid"—a kind of ponytail that signals a woman's separation in anticipation of her husband's return, and in S?t?'s case is once said to be "matted" (55.27; sargas 54–66). Left pending, as it were, is the symbolism of fully loosened hair that could denote a woman's widowhood or mourning—or, if one thinks of Draupad?, her K?l?-like anger.

The Yuddha K???a, or "Book of the War" (Book 6), begins with prewar consultations on both sides, out of which R?va?a's younger brother Vibh?sha?a emerges as a righteous, but rejected, adviser. Once the brothers and monkeys reach the seashore, Vibh?sha?a receives asylum from R?ma. Helped by his advice to call on R?ma's ancestor S?gara (Ocean), the latter grants permission for a bridge to La?k?, which the monkeys then construct. R?va?a seems unable to focus on R?ma or the war until his wise maternal grandfather M?lyav?n, counseling peace with R?ma and S?t?'s return, says the gods and rishis desire R?ma's victory, differentiates dharma and adharma as divine and demonic, alludes to the (Mah?bh?rata) idea that the king defines the age ( yuga), says that throughout the regions the rishis are performing fiery Vedic rites and austerities that are damaging the R?kshasas, foresees the R?kshasas' destruction, notes the sinister omens surrounding La?k?, and concludes, "I think R?ma is Vish?u abiding in a human body" (26.31). M?lyav?n not only gets it right but provides analogs to features of the Bhagavad G?t?: a theology for the war about to happen; a prediction of its outcome; and a dis-closure of the hidden divinity behind it—in this case, hidden so far mainly from himself. R?va?a will hear none of this (sargas 1–30).

R?va?a orders his warriors into action. Most just go through a routine of boasting, ignoring omens, and getting killed. Exceptions are his gigantic brother Kumbhakar?a, who must be wakened from his half-year sleep, fed, and toppled, and R?va?a's magician son Indrajit, who immobilized Hanum?n. Indrajit figures in the two main episodes that threaten R?ma's side: he nearly kills the brothers with snake arrows until the celestial bird Garu?a rescues them by routing the snakes; and he lays low nearly all the monkeys until Hanum?n returns from the Himalayas carrying a whole peak, capped with healing herbs. The fighting is also interrupted by reminders that S?t? is at stake. Finally, R?ma kills R?va?a and consecrates Vibh?sha?a La?k?'s king (sargas 31–100).

Now S?t?, who hears from Hanum?n of R?ma's victory and rejoices at her deliverance, is brought to R?ma by Vibh?sha?a—who relays R?ma's directive that she appear adorned with divine unguents and jewels and a washed head (102.7). She would rather see her husband unbathed, but takes this advice and wears (seems to choose) a white garment (13)—soon a symbol of what troubles R?ma: her purity, one supposes, though white is also worn in widowhood. When Vibh?sha?a announces her, R?ma is filled with "joy, misery, and anger" (16). As she advances, an "unseemly commotion" (Shulman 1991, p. 91) breaks out as Vibh?sha?a's servants aggressively clear her way among the monkeys, bears, and R?kshasas struggling to see her. R?ma censures Vibh?sha?a for injuring "my own people (svajano mama)" (25); since women can be seen in public during disasters, wars, and weddings, there is no reason to shield S?t? "in my presence (mat sam?pe)" (28). As she stands anxiously before him, beginning to weep, R?ma gives "utterance to the anger in his heart" (103.1). Barely mentioning her misfortune, he insists on how he fulfilled his honor, acting as a man should. Seeing more tears and hearing S?t? reply that such words are rather less than manly, R?ma's mood further darkens: he fought not for her sake but to remove insults; she is now free to choose Lakshma?a, Bharata, Sugr?va, or Vibh?sha?a! R?va?a would not have left her alone in his own house (103.22–24). Meeting only R?ma's silence after a last appeal, S?t? tells Lakshma?a to light a pyre; stricken by these false charges, she cannot live (104.18). R?ma gestures consent. S?t? takes Agni as witness that her heart has never strayed, asks his protection, circumambulates the fire and enters it—as the R?kshasas and monkeys scream (20–27). And all at once R?ma is beset by deities who have come to ask him, their hands cupped in adoration, "O Creator of the entire world and the very best of enlightened beings, how do you ignore S?t? as she is falling into fire? How do you not know yourself to be the best of the host of gods!" (105.5). R?ma replies, "I think myself a man, Dasharatha's son R?ma. Who am I? From whom and whence do I come? Let the blessed one (Brahm?) tell" (10). Whereupon Brahm? names N?r?ya?a, Purushottama, and Krishna as identities by which R?ma can now know himself as Vishnu; you have "entered a human body for the sake of killing R?va?a" (26). Agni now restores S?t? unscathed (her garment now red) and attests to her fidelity and purity. Speaking in her presence for the first time since his insults, R?ma seems to seize on the outcome to offer excuses: had he taken S?t? back unpurified (avishodhya; 106.12) the good would have considered him foolish and driven by desire; he knew her fidelity all along; he could no more abandon her than his own fame (18)! Shiva now tells R?ma to return to Ayodhya to perform a horse sacrifice (107.6), and announces Dasharatha, now redeemed (t?rita) by R?ma, who has come from Indra's heaven. Dasharatha embraces R?ma, and in the embrace of his two sons says, "I am now freed from misery (duhkh?d)" (107.15); he now understands that R?ma is none other than the supreme being ordained (purushottamam vihitam) by the gods to have come to earth to kill R?va?a (17); R?ma should see that everyone is reconciled back at Ayodhya. R?ma then gets Indra to resurrect the slain monkeys, and Vibh?sha?a arranges for the trio to fly to Ayodhya in the Pushpaka chariot—most recently R?va?a's. The monkeys and R?kshasas then persuade R?ma to let them accompany him (110.16–20). Before they arrive, they stop at Bharadv?ja's ashram and learn that Bharata has continued to honor R?ma's sandals. Bharadv?ja recounts the trio's whole adventure, which he knows by his penances (112.14). From there, R?ma sends Hanum?n to Nandigr?ma (Bharata's village residence outside the capitol), to tell Bharata their story and to assess his expressions. At last R?ma is enthroned in the presence not only of his rejoicing family and people but the monkeys, R?kshasas, and rishis. Twice it is said that R?ma ruled for ten thousand years (82, 90), the second time in this Book's very last words (sargas 101–16)—surely sounding like a happy ending, as many Western scholars and some Indian vernaculars have taken Book 6 to be.

But the Uttara K???a, or "The Final Book" (Book 7), opens with R?ma just consecrated and a series of departures and dismissals. First, the rishis come to his palace—Agastya and the original Seven among them (17.1.3–4). R?ma asks about the R?kshasas he conquered, launching their former near-neighbor Agastya on a lengthy R?kshasa genealogy, with tales of R?va?a's boon and his violations of women. These lead to stories about Indrajit and end with others about Hanum?n and the monkeys. R?ma is repeatedly filled with wonder. Then "all the rishis went as they came" (36.46). R?ma also dispatches a hundred kings, and the R?kshasas, monkeys, and bears—Hanum?n parting with the famous words: "As long as I hear R?ma-kath? on the face of the earth, so long will my breaths reside in my body" (39.16). Next R?ma dismisses the Pushpaka chariot while keeping it on call (sargas 1–40). And next he dismisses S?t?, who will not remain on call. All these dismissals subtract down to a great unraveling.

There is a time of felicity between R?ma and S?t?, but at news that Ayodhya's citizens gossip about S?t?'s chastity in R?va?a's house, R?ma banishes her to protect his royal reputation. S?t? has just announced that she is pregnant and would like to visit some pilgrimage spots, so R?ma orders Lakshma?a to take her to the forest on that pretext and abandon her. Painfully, Lakshma?a leaves her at V?lm?ki's hermitage. Next R?ma hears that there are still some ascetics who live in fear of a R?kshasa named Lava?a. Shatrughna goes to tackle Lava?a, and stops over in V?lm?ki's leafy hut on the night S?t? gives birth to the twins. V?lm?ki goes to bless and name the infants, and at midnight Shatrughna hears the good news and comes to bless S?t? and the boys. At dawn he resumes his journey, kills Lava?a, and establishes a kingdom at Mathura. Twelve years later he decides to visit Ayodhya. On the way, in a passage rejected by the Critical Edition even though it appears in all the manuscripts collated, he stops at V?lm?ki's hermitage, overhears the twins' elegant recitals, and promises that he and his army will keep their birth secret (7, Appendix 1, no. 9; Shah, pp. 26–27). When Bharata sees R?ma, he mentions nothing about V?lm?ki, S?t?, or the twins (sargas 41–63).

A Brahman now comes to R?ma's palace gate with his dead son in his arms, announcing that R?ma must have committed some great fault for a child to die in his kingdom (64.9). The narrative thread seems to suggest that R?ma's fault could be his abandonment of S?t?, for which, in order to keep ignoring it, he would have to find a scapegoat. If so, the always clever N?rada provides a fitting cue: R?ma should look for someone unlawfully performing tapas (austerities), a Sh?dra who would only be able to do this in the Kaliyuga (65.22), an age yet to come. N?rada knows of a Shudra doing tapas somewhere and recommends that R?ma tour his kingdom. Recalling the Push-paka chariot, R?ma finds the Sh?dra Shamb?ka, who announces his intent to become divine. R?ma beheads him, reviving the Brahman's son and delighting the gods. Following the latter to Agastya's hermitage, R?ma stays there to listen to more of Agastya's stories before returning to Ayodhya and again dismissing the Pushpaka (sargas 64–73).

R?ma now tells Bharata and Lakshma?a he wishes to perform a R?jas?ya sacrifice, but Bharata tells him a horse sacrifice is less destructive and Lakshma?a adds that the ashvamedha removes all sins and purifies (75.2). R?ma approves the ashvamedha. He orders Lakshma?a to make invitations to Sugr?va and Vibh?sha?a to bring their parties, and to the regional rishis and their wives, and to prepare a vast sacrificial enclosure in the Naimisha Forest. Bharata is to lead a procession trailed by all the mothers from the inner apartments and "my golden wife (k?ñcan?m mama patn?m) worthy of consecration (d?ksh?) in sacrificial rites" (19). S?t? thus has a replacement-statue even while still alive. With the sacrifice proceeding, V?lm?ki suddenly arrives with his disciples (84.1) and directs the twins to sing "the whole R?m?ya?a poem at the gate of R?ma's dwelling" (3–5)—twenty sargas a day (9). R?ma hears the boys sing the first twenty sargas beginning "from the sight of N?rada (n?radadarshan?t)" (11)—that is, from the beginning of the upodgh?ta on. Once the twins tell R?ma who authored this poem that contains his whole adventure (19), they offer to continue singing it at intervals in the rite (21). After many days, R?ma recognizes them, misses S?t?, and summons her to attest to her purity by oath in the midst of the great rishis, R?kshasas, and monkeys, plus unnamed kings and the four castes in thousands (87.6–7). But when V?lm?ki brings S?t?, he attests to her purity himself (19), and tells R?ma only that "she will give proof of her fidelity" (15, 20). No longer demanding the oath just announced, R?ma accepts V?lm?ki's word as tantamount to being S?t?'s: "Surely I have proof of fidelity in your stainless words. Surely Vaideh? gave proof of fidelity formerly in the presence of the gods" (88.2–3)—who by now have also come to witness (5–7). Indeed, in a phrase that occurs nowhere else in either epic, this conclave occurs "in the middle of the universe ( jagato madhye)" (1, 4). Though not demanded to make an oath, S?t? nonetheless makes one implicitly in her only and last words: "If I have thought with my mind of none other than R?ma, let the goddess M?dhav? [Earth] give me an opening." (10). R?ma, who had hoped for "affection" (pr?ti) from S?t? (4), has thus accepted the author's word as S?t?'s, only to be overwhelmed with grief and horror by what her word—and the poet's—actually is. This is the moment at which he comes to realize what it means to be caught up in his own story, which, if he heard it from the frame on, as we are told, he would know it to have also been S?t?'s story and to have been inspired by the grief of a female bird. R?ma now threatens to destroy Earth unless she returns S?t? intact (7, Appendix I, No. 13, lines 18–20) until Brahm? repeats what he told him after S?t?'s fire ordeal, that he is Vishnu, and invites him to listen with the great rishis to the rest of this "first poem," which will now tell what is yet to happen (21–40). Once Brahm? returns to heaven, the rishis in Brahmaloka obtain his permission to return for the rest as well (43–49; sargas 74–88). Though the Critical Edition rejects this sarga, it is universally attested. For R?ma, the relation between S?t?'s two ordeals seems to be that whereas his first self-recognition as Vishnu emerges out of a human identity crossed with uncertainty and confusion as to his all-too-human emotions, his second comes after he has learned of his divinity and has repeatedly pared his life down to a perfect rule through his dismissals of others, yet without consideration of what this has cost him since the banishment of his wife—not to mention what it has cost her. If so, the poem could be saying that V?lm?ki's initial question to N?rada—whether there is an ideal man today—was not really convincingly answered.

Once the ashvamedha ends, R?ma finds the universe empty without S?t? and again dismisses the kings, bears, monkeys, and R?kshasas (89.1). He never remarries, but at all his sacrifices there is a golden S?t?( j?nak?k?ñcan?; 4). For ten thousand years he rules a harmonious kingdom. Finally Death or Time (K?la) comes to him as a messenger from Brahm? and tells him they must meet alone; anyone hearing them must be killed. While R?ma posts Lakshma?a at the door, "Time who destroys all" (94.2) tells R?ma it is time to return to heaven as Vishnu. As the two converse, the congenitally ravenous sage Durv?sas tries to barge in, threatening to curse the kingdom if he is prevented. Lakshma?a chooses his own death rather than allowing that of others and admits him. Durv?sas wants only something to eat after a thousand-year fast, which R?ma happily provides. At Vasishtha's advice, R?ma then banishes Lakshma?a as equivalent to death, and Lakshma?a, meditating by the Saray? River, is taken up to heaven. Bharata then advises R?ma to divide Kosala into two kingdoms to be ruled by Kusha and Lava. Bharata and Shatrughna then follow R?ma, who enters the Saray? and resumes his divine form (sargas 89–100).

The R?m?ya?a and the ?mop?khy?na

The relation between the R?m?ya?a and the Mah?bh?rata's R?mop?khy?na is usually posed as one between just these two Sanskrit R?ma stories, and as a question of whether there is a genetic relation between them. Which came first? Or do both rely on some prior R?makath?? On these questions, this article's position is twofold. First, the primary relation is not between the R?m?ya?a and the R?mop?khy?na, but between the R?m?ya?a and the Mah?bh?rata, which it views as the slightly earlier of the two epics. On this point, it was noted that their similar designs could not be accidental. It is easier to imagine V?lm?ki refining k?vya out of a multi-genre Mah?bh?rata than to imagine Vy?sa overlooking this achievement to spread disarticulation. In this vein, the R?mop?khy?na opens with material about R?va?a that the R?m?ya?a saves for Book 7. It thus cannot be explained as an epitome of the R?m?ya?a, since it lacks the structure that the R?m?ya?a shares with the Mah?bh?rata.

Second, this article holds that it is helpful to reflect on how up?khy?na material is used in both epics. As observed, the R?m?ya?a uses this term only in an interpolation. Rather than having stand-out "subtales," the R?m?ya?a folds all its secondary narratives into one consecutively unfolding poem. This is especially noteworthy in its stories about the eight great rishis encounterd by R?ma, many of which include material that the Mah?bh?rata relates in its up?khy?nas. Other than Vasishtha, a fixture in the Ikshv?ku house, the R?mop?khy?na does not know these rishis. It has no Vishv?mitra, Gautama and Ahaly?, R?ma J?madagnya, or for that matter, Vasishtha involved in the stories from youth through marriage; just this: "In the course of time [Dasharatha's] sons grew up very vigorous, and became fledged in the Vedas and their mysteries and in the art of archery. They completed their student years, and took wives" (Mbh 3.261.4-5). It has no Bharadv?ja; just this of Bharata: "He found R?ma and Lakshma?a on Mount Citrak??a" (216.63). And from Citrak??a on, there is not a peep from Atri and Anas?y?or Agastya. There is also no V?lm?ki, Mata?ga, or Nish?kara. It is improbable that the R?mop?khy?na would have strained out all these figures and episodes if it were a R?m?ya?a epitome. V?lm?ki would seem to have worked such up?khy?na material into something he claims to be new: k?vya, "the first poem." And this would seem to be the best way to think about what he did with the R?mop?khy?na: go beyond it to author a poem in which R?ma and S?t? move through their double adventure along paths signposted by rishis who impart Vedic authority as dharma, who represent "all the rishis," high and low, who motivate the divine incarnations to cleanse the world of noxious R?kshasas, and who in turn are represented by V?lm?ki himself, who frames all the paths that R?ma and S?t? take as ones that begin with his inspiration to tell their adventures in a poem that will lead them ultimately to him.

Alf Hiltebeitel

See alsoBr?hma?as ; Hinduism (Dharma) ; Mah?bh?rata ; R?m?ya?a and Mah?bh?rata Paintings

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biardeau, Madeleine. "Some Remarks on the Links between the Epics, the Pur??as and Their Vedic Sources." In Studies in Hinduism: Vedism and Hinduism, edited by Gerhard Oberhammer. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997.

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