महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

lxi] History of the Rāma-story the horse-sacrifice (a Jain could not perform a sacrifice involving the death of any living animal), but merely and simply because people told him about her forlorn state; and he finally loses her again, not because Sītā disappears into the earth, but because, after her purity is attested anew by the fire-ordeal, she is convinced of the vanity of the world and becomes a Jain nun, tearing out her hair with her own hand. Rāma himself takes the mendicant vow soon after. We may note in passing that the Jain accounts tell us that the monkeys and bears and demons who took part in the battle at Laṅkā were not really monkeys or bears or demons. They were human beings who carried the images of a monkey or a bear or a demon on their banners. 26. Later modifications of the Rāma-story : 3. Hindu forms.—A whole treatise could be written discussing the various forms which the Rāma- story assumed in the later Hindu tellings of it, either in Sanskrit or in the different vernaculars of the country. And the special interest of such a treatise would lie in the attempt to show how the story came to be modified in accordance with changing beliefs and varying standards of judgement. We shall content ourselves with indicating merely the several tendencies that are discernible in the process. . 26, A. Exaggeration.—In these later tellings of the story mere exaggerations are what we naturally expect. Thus, even in the present form of the Rāmāyaṇa, the battle at Laṅkā is spun out and made to last for months, the intervals being filled in with one superhuman deed after another on both sides. There is a good deal of repetition. The same applies to some of the later descriptions of the battle of the twins with the army attending the sacrificial horse of Rāma. The twins are made to defeat all the great heroes who fought by Rāma’s side at Laṅkā, including Māruti, Lakshmaṇa, and even Rāma himself. Or, to take another instance which is significant in connexion with Bhavabhūti’s treatment of the theme, Rāvaṇa himself is represented as having been present at Sītā’s svayaṁvara, but unable to bend the bow (see § 18, C), which Rāma alone did. 26, B. Deification.—The beginnings of this process are already observable in the later portions of the Rāmāyaṇa, especially books i and vii, where Rāma is exalted into an Avatar of Vishṇu or the Supreme Spirit. This tendency was in course of time so much exaggerated that it eventually defeated its own purpose. Rāvaṇa also came to be considered as a regular devotee of Rāma; for, works on devotion admit intense enmity as a form of worship no less efficacious than friendship or service. So Rāvaṇa longs to be killed by Rāma and thereby to attain salvation (see U.R.C. ii. 11).