Genre
The Ramayana belongs to the genre of Itihasa, narratives of past events (purāvṛtta), which includes the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, and the Puranas. The genre also includes teachings on the goals of human life. It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal son, servant, brother, husband, wife, and king.[17] Like the Mahabharata, Ramayana presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages in the narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and ethical elements.
Structure
In its extant form, Valmiki's Ramayana is an epic poem containing over 24,000 couplet verses, divided into seven kāṇḍas (Bālakāṇḍa, Ayodhyakāṇḍa, Araṇyakāṇḍa, Kiṣkindakāṇḍa, Sundarākāṇḍa, Yuddhakāṇḍa, Uttarakāṇḍa), and about 500 sargas (chapters).[18][19] It is regarded as one of the longest epic poems to be written in history.[20]
Dating
Rama (left third from top) depicted in the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu. Painting from Jaipur, now at the Victoria and Albert MuseumScholarly estimates for the earliest stage of the available text range from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE,[21][6] with later stages extending up to the 3rd century CE.[7] According to Robert P. Goldman (1984), the oldest parts of the Ramayana date to the early 7th century BCE.[22] The later parts cannot be composed later than the 6th or 5th century BCE, due to the narrative not mentioning Buddhism (founded in the 5th century BC) nor the prominence of Magadha (which rose to prominence in the 7th century BC). The text also mentions Ayodhya as the capital of Kosala, rather than its later name of Saketa or the successor capital of Shravasti.[23] In terms of narrative time, the action of the Ramayana predates the Mahabharata. Goldman and Sutherland Goldman (2022) consider Ramayana's oldest surviving version was composed around 500 BCE.[24]
Books two to six are the oldest portion of the epic, while the first and last books (Balakanda and Uttara Kanda, respectively) seem to be later additions. Style differences and narrative contradictions between these two volumes and the rest of the epic have led scholars since Hermann Jacobi to the present toward this consensus.[25]
Recensions
The Ramayana text has several regional renderings, recensions, and sub-recensions. Textual scholar Robert P. Goldman differentiates two major regional revisions: the northern (n) and the southern (s). Scholar Romesh Chunder Dutt writes that "the Ramayana, like the Mahabharata, is a growth of centuries, but the main story is more distinctly the creation of one mind."
There has been discussion as to whether the first and the last volumes (Bala Kanda and Uttara Kanda) of Valmiki's Ramayana were composed by the original author. The uttarākāṇḍa, the bālakāṇḍa, although frequently counted among the main ones, is not a part of the original epic. Though Balakanda is sometimes considered in the main epic, according to many Uttarakanda is certainly a later interpolation and thus is not attributed to the work of Valmiki.[18] This fact is reaffirmed by the absence of these two Kāndas in the oldest manuscript.[26] Many Hindus don't believe they are integral parts of the scripture because of some style differences and narrative contradictions between these two volumes and the rest.[27]
It is also thought that the Uttara Kanda is a direct contradiction in terms of how Rama and Dharma is portrayed in the rest of the epic. M. R. Parameswaran states that the adaptation in societal values such as the positions of women and Shudras in society shows that the Uttara Kanda is a later insertion rather than part of the original epic.
Since Rama was revered as a dharmatma, his ideas seen in the Ramayana proper cannot be replaced by new ideas as to what dharma is, except by claiming that he himself adopted those new ideas. That is what the U-K [Uttara Kanda] does. It embodies the new ideas in two stories that are usually referred to as Sita-parityaga, the abandonment of Sita (after Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya and Rama was consecrated as king) and Sambuka-vadha, the killing of the ascetic Sambuka. The U-K attributes both actions to Rama, whom people acknowledged to be righteous and as a model to follow. By masquerading as an additional kanda of the Ramayana composed by Valmiki himself, the U-K succeeded, to a considerable extent, in sabotaging the values presented in Valmiki's Ramayana.[28]
