latest from Maria Wirth) “Where you are from? Do people there also know about Ram?” Some boys had discovered me sitting at the back of a shrine at the outskirts of Chamba near Tehri and typically for Indian kids, who are never shy, had asked this question. “No, where I am from people don’t know about Ram”, I replied. They looked disappointed. Only then I realised that the crackling of loudspeakers that I heard from a village down the hill, was in preparation for the Ramlila. That incident happened in September 1985. A year later, I attended the grand Ramleela in Varanasi over 30 evenings and wrote about it for a German magazine to let some Germans also know about Ram. Recently I read this article again and realised that it is still valid today. I reproduce it here in English in a shorter version, since it just was again that special time of the year, when Ram’s story was staged in Varanasi and other places all over the country, probably in very much the same way as it has been way back in 1986. Far from becoming obsolete over time, the Ramleela is set to conquer the western world as well. In July 2013 an International Ramleela Conference was held at the University of the West Indies and a World Ramleela Councel was established. The major aim was to promote the Ramleela as a cultural heritage internationally. Ram, the prince of Ayodhya, lived many thousand years ago. Yet even today most people in India know in detail his eventful life story, which is recounted in the Ramayana. Not only in India – in Nepal, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia, too, Ram had great influence on art and literature. An international Ramayana festival last year in Bangkok made clear, how alive Ram is even today and which great importance the Ramayana has in Southeast Asia. ‘If Asia has an epic in common, it is the Ramayana’, was declared in Bangkok. In the land of its origin, however, the Ramayana is more than a grand epic. It is a sacred scripture that contains all what one needs to know to live a dignified life and to conduct oneself in an ideal way in the different relationships. Ram is not only an exemplary human being, but an avatar, a conscious embodiment of the divine principle that comes down to earth whenever the bad is gaining the upper hand, and humanity strays from the dharmic path. Valmiki, supposedly a contemporary of Ram, narrates in 24.000 Sanskrit shlokas vividly the life story of the prince, who later becomes the king of Ayodhya. In the 17th century Tulsidas wrote the story of Ram in colloquial Hindi and made it even more popular. Ram is an ideal, an outstanding example for others – noble, just, brave, ever protecting the weak, and doing the right thing at the right time. He is ready rather to die than to break his word and prepared to wage a war to rescue his wife Sita who had been kidnapped by a demon king. Sita, the princess who marries Ram, possesses all the virtues, which a woman is supposed to have according to the ancient rishis. She is modest, chaste, always intent on the wellbeing of her husband, warm hearted, full of trust in god, considerate, graceful – and exquisitely beautiful.READ FULL ARTICLE @ hinduhumanrights.info/following-ram-the-prince-of-ayodhya/
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 05:57:04 +0000
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