Whoever offers it to Me with devoted love (bhaktyā),
That offering of love from a humble self,
I am glad to receive (9.26).
Whatever you do or eat or offer in sacrifice or give in alms,
Whatever penance you perform,
Do that, Arjuna, as an offering to Me (9.27).
Those who take refuge in Me, even though born from sinful wombs
– Women, Vaiśyas and Śūdras too – reach the highest goal (9.32).
Those who are devoted to Me, having cast all their works on Me,
Who worship Me, contemplating Me singlemindedly,
I speedily become their Rescuer, Arjuna – of those whose minds abide in Me – from
the ocean of repeated death (12.6–7).
Having cast every observance to be followed (dharmān) on Me,
Make me your only refuge.
I will release you from all your sins. Do not worry (18.66).
(iii) The ethics that the Gītā recommends provides fitting support for this theology. It is an ethics of selfless action by which one must live in the world without being party to its self-centred ends. Once a person has acquired tranquility of mind by viewing all things dispassionately (2.71) – such a person is a sthitaprajña: ‘someone established in wisdom’ – he is able to act without desire for the gainful fruits of action: ‘Your proper concern lies in the action alone, never in its fruits. Your motive should not be the fruit of action nor should you be attached to inaction’ (2.47). Thus the best way to live in this world is through selfless action, in doing one's proper duty, following the example of Kṛṣṇa himself, as stated above; the next step is to offer Kṛṣṇa devotedly the fruits of one's deeds to dispose of as He thinks fit. The best path in life for the Gītā is not the traditional path of the ascetic who turns his back on the world in order to discover and repose in his inner self, but the path of selfless and active duty for Kṛṣṇa's sake.11
Let us recall the context in which the Gītā has been transmitted in Hindu tradition. It is the religious heart of an originally Kṣatriya epic of which a primary concern is exploring the dharma of violence. In this context, the Gītā teaches that violence may be perpetrated not for worldly or personal ends such as wealth, power, revenge and so on, but for the sake of duty, that is, morally as a last recourse. Indeed, the Gītā transposes the ethic of conflict into the ethic of the moral combat that each individual must wage in the context of his or her responsibilities in life (dharmakṣetre kurukṣetre: ‘On the field of dharma, on the Kuru field’ is how the Gītā begins). As for the worldly consequences of violence, these must not be our primary concern, they are to be resolved under Kṛṣṇa's guidance, while in the domain of spiritual combat the thrust of the Gītā’s teaching gives the impression that it is the purified composite – the whole individual purified from its karmic burden by the discipline of selfless love for the deity, with its ātman undeluded – that attains ‘salvation’, i.e. lasting communion with Kṛṣṇa. In other words, whatever else the Gītā may be, it is a call to engage with life in the world out of a sense of selfless duty under the guidance of a watchful Providence. These are the constants that reappear time and again in all its sometimes philosophically mutually incompatible commentaries through the centuries.12
If scholars suggest that the Kṛṣṇa of the Gītā comes across differently from the Kṛṣṇa of other parts of the epic or indeed of other important devotional works in Hindu tradition – the one being a sober manifestation of the Godhead, the other a more human, somewhat morally erratic or even carnivalesque figure – the mind of devotion remains unfazed. Hindus are not strangers to the idea of the deus immensus et incomprehensibilis – the unfathomable God – who cannot be reckoned with, and whose divinity is shrouded by the distorting veils of mundane existence only to burst forth, now in this way, now in that, in splendour and wondrous power. This is why this living heart of the epic transcends discussions about its historical contextuality for those impressed by its teachings – ‘Is the Gītā originally the work of one or more hands?’, ‘Is it originally part of the Mbh. or an interpolation?’, ‘Was it originally in 700 verses or less or more?’. The Gītā has been able to inspire a wide variety of ordinary and prominent people, not only Hindu, from all walks of life, whose primary objectives have been either religious, or moral, or political, or social (not to mention some combination of these), up to the present day.13
We come now to the Harivaṃīa, viz.’[About] the Family of Hari=Kṛṣṇa, a comparatively late work produced towards the end of the time-span allotted to the epic (ca.400 C.E.), and which has passed into tradition as a supplement of the Mahābhārata. Since the Harivaṃśa has not had quite the same impact as the Gītā in Hindu history, we need not spend so much time on it, though it is important for giving details about Kṛṣṇa's birth and youthful exploits near the northern city of Mathurā, and his later sojourn in the city of Dvārakā (possibly at the southwestern tip of the presently named Gulf of Katch). We are told how he was born, and how, with his brother Balarāma, he escaped the clutches of his wicked cousin, King Kaṃsa, who wanted to kill him, for Kaṃsa had been told by a sage that he would die at the hands of Kṛṣṇa's parents’ eighth child (which Kṛṣṇa was). Lots of adventures follow of the young Kṛṣṇa (and Balarāma) while they were being brought up by their foster parents, Nanda and Yasodā, in a community of cowherds on the banks of the Yamunā river in northern India. These include favourite stories of the subjugating and killing of asuras (‘demons’ or ‘anti-gods’), ogres and so on. (These themes are repeated and added to in a key text of later Vaiṣṇavism, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, ca. ninth century.) Kamsa is duly killed as foretold, and eventually Kṛṣṇa establishes the city of Dvārakā, where he enjoys the company of his numerous wives. We are informed how he comes by them, and some of the activities of his sons are described. The main purpose of the Harivaṃīa seems to be to offer fuller information than was generally available about the life of Kṛṣṇa who comes to us as an adult in the main story of the Mahābhārata, for Kṛṣṇa's cult seems to have been flourishing well before the Harivaṃīa was produced.
The observer may well see a contrast between the sober, majestic Kṛṣṇa of the Bhagavad Gītā and the somewhat sportive and amorous Kṛṣṇa of the Harivaṃīa. As indicated earlier, Hindus deal with this contrast in various ways. While some would embrace the pietistic Kṛṣṇa and reject the sportive, others would seek to reconcile the two in one way or another, e.g. in terms of (i) devotion: ‘One doesn't question God's ways’, or ‘God can do things or be in situations that humans cannot follow’ or; (ii) theology: ‘The deity's ways are mysterious and worth pondering rather than questioning’, or ‘God acts in all human situations and we need to understand the inner meaning of his actions’; or (iii) symbolism: ‘These actions and circumstances symbolize the importance of spontaneity, or childhood, or marital relationships in God's eyes’, or ‘Kṛṣṇa's relationships symbolize the intimacy and variety of his relationships with devotees’ etc.;or (iv) myth: ‘These episodes are not historical, of course, but give us various insights into the providence or justice or sovereignty or accessibility etc. of the Godhead’.
Unlike the great epics of the West, e.g. the Illiad and the Odyssey, the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata are not a relic of the past, of primary interest only to classicists and literati. The chief episodes and characters of the Sanskrit epics are part of the very sap coursing through the Ancient Banyan, nourishing its growth and manifesting variously at different levels and centres. They have been re-cast again and again as a further expression of that distinctive characteristic of Hinduism I have called polycentrism. Let us look now more closely at this trait through its manifestation in multiple renderings of the epics.
Vālmīki's story of Rāma has received numerous devotional, literary and/or philosophical adaptations right up to modern times. There is evidence to indicate that Rāma cults existed both while
the story of Vālmīki's Rā. was taking shape and subsequently, within the first millennium of the Common Era. The devotion to Rāma as Supreme Being within strata of the epic (as noted earlier) suggests that Rāma was already being regarded as the supreme deity of perhaps more than one sect of the time. Other evidence also exists to indicate devotion to Rāma in Hinduism in the early centuries c.e. Varāhamihira, in his Bṛhatsaṃhitā (ca. sixth century), refers to the height of Rāma images in an iconometric text (as does the Matsya Purāṇa, another quite early source). Reliefs exist from the late Gupta period (fifth to sixth century) illustrating incidents from the Rāmāyaṇa (e.g. in the famous Daśāvatāra stone temple at Deogarh in Jhansi district), and among others, the Avārs of south India (second half of the first millennium), mentioned earlier, are recorded as expressing religious devotion to Rāma.
The first sign of a functioning Rāma community that we have appears to be a group of devotees in north India who produced an adaptation of the Rāma story in Sanskrit called the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa in about the fifteenth century. This group has been regarded as the precursor of the present-day Rāmānandin sect for which the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa is a central scripture. Rāmānanda (given dates 1360–1470), who may or may not have founded the group that bears his name, was born in the holy city of Prayāg, now called Allahabad, at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamunā rivers (a little north-west of Benares).
[According to tradition, Rāmananda] stressed vernacular language over Sanskrit, opened his movement to all castes including Untouchables, admitted women to his order, and argued that all worshipers stand equally before God. He taught that a devotee must assume the role of a servant in relationship to God, regardless of caste or gender. The ideal servant is identified as Hanumān, who risked his life for his master. A devotee worships Rāma and his consort Sītā as the combined supreme deity, but ... does so without any erotic implications such as one might find associated with Krishna and Radha [a later favourite consort of Krishna's]. Moreover, it is important to note that Rāmānanda identifies Rāma with the incarnation of the epic Ramayaṇa, a divine being with attributes.
(Olson 2007:199)
Olson goes on to point out that the ascetics of the Rāmānandin sect ‘represent one of the largest ascetic groups in India at the present time’ (ibid.:200). Though Rāmānanda is reputed to have stressed the vernacular, it is interesting to note that the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa is in Sanskrit – perhaps an attempt to win credibility from the Brahmin elite. As the extract above indicates, the Rāma of the Adhyātma is more a manifestation of the Godhead itself than only one of a number of divine avatāras. He combines in himself the roles of the Supreme Brāhmaṇ of the Vedānta – the Adhyātma acknowledges the authority of the Veda and claims to speak in harmony with it – and the personal focus of divine grace. This is not spelled out systematically, but then the Adhyātma makes no claims to being a systematic work. In Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa,
Rāma's dharma had applied in principle to all; here [in the Adhyātma] Rāma's grace applies in principle to all. There, those living directly under Rāmarājya [or Rāma's rule] (the citizens of Ayodhyā) had held an immediate advantage; here, the devotees of Rāma have an immediate advantage.
(Whaling 1980:181)
The saving power of the Godhead, personified in Rāma (and Sītā) is in principle universalized through the rise of this new centre of the Rāma story. Further, a trend is at work here, that of making Rāma the supreme source and focus of saving grace.
Devotion in Rāma's name followed two paths in the Hinduism of the second millennium C.E. These two paths did not exist in isolation from each other; in their historical meanderings they often intersected by way of approach or content. They represent really two kinds of attitude towards Rāma. In one, the Name became a key symbol or embodiment of the very essence of deity – for a personal, loving, accessible God who lives equally in the hearts of all irrespective of caste or sex. Here there is little or no theology of Rāma as an avatar, or recourse to the rituals of the image-worship of Rāma. The Rāma of this devotional path is not particularly rooted in the twists and turns of Vālmīki’s story. By and large, this was the way of the Sants, whom we have discussed earlier. So it was that Mahātmā Gandhi could gasp, as the assassin's bullets pierced his body, ‘Hay Rām!” (‘Oh God!’). This was not a specific cry to Rāma as God, but a cry to God in Rāma's name.14
For the other approach, the Rāma-story was adapted in some way, and Rāma and/or some other member of his Vaiṣṇava circle, e.g. Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa, Hanumān, became the focus of salvation (a cult of images could be associated with this devotion). We have seen that the devotion arising from the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa falls into this category. But this work is in Sanskrit, and as such could have only limited direct religious influence. It required mediation through the vernacular teachings of the community that venerated it. For a far wider immediate impact within this second approach, another text soon appeared in the north of the country, a text in the vernacular. This was Tulsīdās’ immensely popular Rāmcaritmānas (Rām-carit-mānas).15
Tulsīdās’ origins, as in the case of many other traditional Hindu figures, are shrouded in legend. He was born of Brahmin stock probably in the first half of the sixteenth century in a part of north India in which a form of eastern Hindi was spoken. He seems to have lost his parents while still very young, and grew up in poverty. He had a guru who inculcated devotion in him to a Rāma based on Vālmīki's story. The Rāmcaritmānas, or Mānas as it is commonly called, was begun in Ayodhyā (Rama's reputed birthplace) perhaps in 1574 and completed in Benares some years later. Tulsī became famous for this composition; at least ten other works are attributed to him, and he died in Benares, probably in the early 1620s (given dates for his life are generally 1532–1623, though these are somewhat tentative dates).
Though the basic story is on the whole the same, there are significant differences of content between Tulsī's Mānas and Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa. It is not necessary to go into these here. Suffice it to say that Tulsī's great work is clearly intended to weave together different influences and sources, so as to show a synthetic, non-sectarian face of relevant Hindu belief. These sources and influences include the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa (from which Tulsī seems to have taken the idea that the Sītā abducted by Rāvaṇa was not the real Sītā but an illusory substitute, though in his rendition he then goes on to treat this Sītā as real enough); devotion to Śiva who in the text is the original teller of the story (by this means Śiva does not become a sectarian rival of Rāma's but a devotee); an approach similar to the devotion shown to Kṛṣṇa's childhood exploits, which is parallelled by Tulsī's treatment of Rāma's childhood; Sant-like devotion to Rāma's Name as salvific in its own right, and so on. But in his insistence that everything, including devotion to Śiva and other religious figures, e.g. Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, must converge in single-minded devotion to Rāma, Tulsī makes no compromise. Summarizing the status of Rāma for Tulsī, Lutgendorf writes in his notable study of the Mānas that Tulsī's ‘hero is at once Vālmīki's exemplary prince, the cosmic Vishnu of the Purāṇas, and the transcendent Brāhmaṇ of the Advaitins. What weaves together such “inconsistent” theological strands is the overwhelming devotional mood of the poem, expressing fervent love for the divine through poetry of the most captivating musicality’ (Lutgendorf 1991:10). He notes that Tulsī's work has become the ‘archetypal Ramayan text for Hindi speakers’, displacing for all practical purposes Vālmīki's more recondite Sanskrit composition: ‘Few devotees would be able to describe how Tulsī's version differs from its Sanskrit precursor, for their conception of the story depends overwhelmingly on the Hindi poet's rendition of it’ (ibid.:12).
The Mānas is a poem in the eastern Hindi dialect of Avadhi of’ roughly 12,800 lines divided into 1073 “stanzas” ... which [like the Sanskrit Rā.] are set in seven books ... and the line-count noted above reflects a poem that in printed editions typically runs to between five and sev
en hundred pages’ (Lutgendorf ibid.:13). That the poem is not in Sanskrit but in vernacular verse is significant. It could thus have mass appeal; it could easily be memorized and quoted. It could, in short, fire and shape a devotion that could exist independently, that is, that no longer required a knowledge of Sanskrit sources or the mediation of their official intermediaries to be viable. The fact that from the second half of the nineteenth century the printing press greatly increased the availability of the Mānas added hugely to its popularity.
The Mānas is not a text overtly subversive of traditional orthodoxy. In fact, it formally acknowledges the props of this orthodoxy: the sacrosanct status of the Vedas, the authority of the Brahmins and their varṇa-superiority, in short, the framework of varṇāīrama dharma. Yet by its message in the vernacular that devotion to Rāma conquers all, it has nurtured the ‘subversive’ seed of Vālmīki's drama against the traditional order. In ostensibly proclaiming support for the framework of orthodoxy, it succeeded in bursting through this framework and before long was itself embraced as entirely orthodox by the sentinels of Hindu orthodoxy, the Brahmins. It helped to extend the boundaries of orthodoxy in religious Hinduism. Today, it is quite acceptable within the pluralistic bhakti tradition to base one's religious orientation on the Mānas, so much so that, for many northern Hindus especially, this work has become the chief mould and platform of their religious way of life. This is not done by the explicit repudiation of the Vedas but by the polycentric process of implicitly or explicitly claiming that the Mānas distils traditional Vedic teaching and makes it relevant. So the north-Indian ascetic Brahmin leader, Swami Karpatri (1907–82), well known for promoting Brahminical norms, could declare:
When that Parabrahma [Supreme Reality] who is known to the Veda became manifest in the form of Ram, son of Dashrath, then the Veda too became manifest through the great sage Vālmīki in the form of the Rāmāyaṇa. That same Rāmāyaṇa has been made manifest by Goswami Tulsīdās-ji in the form of the Rāmcaritānas. In practical terms, the meaning of the Veda is the meaning of the Mānas.
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 30