The "Ramayana" and Sri Lanka

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are epic poems from ancient India. They are a part of the Hindu mythology of India. According to the Ramayana, Rama was the son and heir of King Dasaratha of Kosala. He married Sita and together with his brother Lakshmana went to live in the Dandaka forests. At Dandaka he killed several demons that were harassing the villagers. This angered the demon king, Ravana, who, in retaliation, captured Sita and took her to his kingdom in Lanka, in his aerial car. The monkey king Hanuman discovered her there. Rama built a causeway of stones across the sea to Lanka, slew Ravana, and rescued Sita. Rama is considered to be an incarnation of Vishnu.

Romila Thapar says the original version of Ramayana could be dated to about 8th century BC. The text was revised many times thereafter and today there are many versions of the Ramayana including a Jain version. The Ramayana is a literary epic and has no historical value. The Archaeological Survey of India has stated that there is to date no evidence to conclusively prove that Rama actually existed.

D.P. Mishra has pointed out that though the Ramayana of Valmiki is a poem and not a historical document, the location of Valmiki’s ‘Lanka’ had been keenly discussed by Indian scholars. Romila Thapar says the matter has been disputed by Indian scholars for centuries and Lanka remains unidentified. Mishra gives a list of the places which have been selected for ‘Lanka’. These include Sumatra, the Maldives, Australia (via the Sunda Islands) and the Lingga Island which is on the equator.

‘Lanka’ was also located in various places in India. It was found near Mahesvara on the Narmada river, in the Vindhya mountains at Amarakantaka, in Chota Nagpur in the Mahanadi delta and in Assam. Mishra says that the evidence points to the triangular delta of the mouth of the river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. The Godavari has a stretch of alluvial islands, called the Trikuta islands. These are known as the Lankas even today. However, the first meridian of Hindu astronomers is taken to have passed through Ujjain and Lanka. Ujjain is in Madhya Pradesh close to the west coast of India.

Writers have pointed out that the Lanka mentioned in the Ramayana is not Sri Lanka. To start with, Sri Lanka was not known as Lanka in ancient times. It was known as Simhala. Mishra points out that all the Indian chronicles, such as the Puranas, the writings of Varamihira and the Greek and Buddhist writings all stated that the Simhala island differed from the island of Lanka.’ Mahabaratha refers to two distinct islands called Lanka and Simhala. The Virhatsamhita of Varamihira recorded Lanka and Sinhala as two different places. Rajasekera in his play Balaramayana also showed that Simhala was not Lanka. In this play, Ravana addresses a king who comes from Simhala. Ravana would not have addressed another king in this manner if he, Ravana, had been the king of Simhala.

The Ramayana was never a part of the mythology of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka appears to have rejected the Ramayana. Vini Vitharana notes that the Sinhala and Pali sources of Sri Lanka contain nothing that corroborates the Ramayana story. R.A.L.H. Gunawardana says that in the early medieval period Ramayana and Mahabharata were denounced by the monks as useless works, which should be ignored Several of the Buddhist texts stated that the study of the Ramayana and Mahabaratha was a waste of time. In the reign of Parakramabahu VI (1412- 1467) the Vedas, Puranas and the two mahakavyas, Mahabharatha and Ramayana were studied at Vijayaba Pirivena under Sri Rahula. This too was challenged. Vidagama Maitreya, a contemporary of Sri Rahula was very critical of the Ramayana. He pointed out, inter alia, that while the monkey could swim across to Lanka, Rama needed a bridge.

However, at the end of the 20th century, Sri Lanka decided to embrace the Ramayana. A search for Ravana sites started in the Nuwara Eliya and Uva districts in the 1990s. The late Harry Hass , a Christian priest from the Netherlands, who was living in Bandarawela, said that Sri Lanka was full of Ravana and Sita sites which needed discovering. He said the image of King Ravana was a universal one which appealed to the west as well as the east. Hass was the patron of a Ravana Centre set up in Uva.

In the 1990s, a Sita Amman kovil was built at Seetha Eliya at Nuwara Eliya. This kovil had its kumbhabisheka pooja in January 2008. There was a full page announcement in the newspapers, with messages from President and Ministers. In 1997 work commenced on a Hanuman temple complex at Ramboda, Nuwara Eliya with assistance from Tamilnadu government. The complex consisted of a huge 16 foot granite statue of Hanuman, a spiritual centre, library and auditorium. This project was initiated by Gurudev Swami Chimayananda, who purchased 10 acres for the purpose. Minister S. Thondaman donated 5 more acres and provided a motorable road from the main Nuwara Eliya road to the temple site. This temple site, it is claimed, was close to the Asoka vana where Sita was kept captive and Hanuman found her.

The Ramayana link moved to the next level in the 21st century .P Ramanujan, Secretary to the ,Ministry of Tourism stated in 2006 that trails left by Rama and Sita in the Ramayana epic were being perused. In 2007, S Kalaiselvam, Director General of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority said in a statement to Press Trust of India that the Sri Lanka government had decided to develop the sites associated with the Ramayana. He said that they were restoring and maintaining these places. There was no archaeological confirmation for any of them but these sites were not imaginary and have existed since time immemorial.

The Tourist Board had appointed a research team to trace the tourist ‘trail’. 59 spots had been located. Among them were Ravana’s palaces and dairy farm, also temples dedicated to Sita which had been built in a later period. The trail also included a pond which is believed to have come into existence through Sita's tears. This pond never dries up even in the worst drought. The Tourist Ministry had identified five airports where Ravana parked his fleet of pushpak vimanas, the mythological aircraft used by him to abduct Sita. The Ministry thinks that Ravana’s flying machine may have landed at Weragantota, about 10 kilometres from Mahiyangana. Sita was then taken to Gorulupota, now known as Sitakotuwa. This is 10 kilometres from Mahiyanagana on Kandy road. Sita was thereafter housed in a cave at Sita Eliya, Nuwara Eliya. Ravana cave at Ella, served as a quick means of transport through the hills for Ravana.

In 2007 it was decided that The Ravana-Rama battle took place at Yudhaganapitiya in Matale and that Ravana was making his battle plans at Lakgala just before he was killed. . In 2008 it was decided that Rama started his attack on Ravana at Dondra and the main battle was at Yudaganawa. After killing Ravana, Rama performed penance at Muneswaram in Chilaw. Hanuman had entered Lanka at Nagadeepa. He dropped the Dronagiri Mountain brought from the Himalayas on Rumassala.

In 2008, 50 sites related to the ‘Ramayana trail’ have been selected by Sri Lanka Tourism in order to promote visits by Indian tourists. The tours were from one to three weeks duration and contained a maximum of 25 locations spread across central and western Sri Lanka. Hindustan Times stated that the Ramayana trail was a hit with Indian tourists. Batches of 50 to 120 visitors had already toured these sites. A swami from north India was planning to bring 400 of his students to go on the trail. There was an agreement with Andhra Pradesh regarding these tours.

A team commissioned by Zee TV had toured Sri Lanka in 2007, to find places connected to Ramayana. They went to Sita Eliya where there were statues of Rama, Lakshmana, Sita and Hanuman. They said that these statues had been there for 5000 years. They said that close to Sita Eliya they had seen a mountain which looked like Hanuman. The Chinmaya statue of Hanuman was a copy of the mountain, except that it was in a vertical position. They reported that hundreds come every day to worship there. They also spotted black rocks which looked like monkeys with black lips and ears. They saw Rummassala which was brought here by Hanuman. It contains trees only found in the Himalayas. There is a statue of Hanuman there as well. They were delighted to find a board saying Ravana Ella falls. But they reported that the public only came to Sita Eliya to picnic and that few knew about Rama or Ravana.

A ballet titled ‘Maha Ravana’ was presented in Colombo in May 2008 by the Sarasavi Dehena Experimental Theatre School. The choreographer, Pabalu Wijewardana, who comes from the Mihiripenna dancing tradition, said that Sri Lanka lacked a truly iconic figure and he wished to project Ravana as an icon. He had researched into the story of Ravana. He says Ravana was not a demon, but a wise king, who ruled over a vast South Asian kingdom which included Sri Lanka. Ravana was the only king of Sri Lanka, who had been able to unite Sri Lanka, wiping out all forms of division. The flying machine may have been a real one.

Ravana was first mentioned in a modern work by John M. Senaveratna in his ‘Story of the Sinhalese’ published in 1930. Present day writers say that neither Hanuman nor Sita ever came here and there was no Ravana either. They have pointed out that Sita Eliya in Nuwara Eliya district has nothing to do with the Rama and Sita story. 'Sita' is derived from 'seethala', which means cold. Rohan Jayatilleke, in his account of the heroines of the Ramayana noted that the Ramayana ‘Lanka’ is not in Sri Lanka. Lucian Rajakarunanayake made fun of the tourist trail in his newspaper column of September 2007.

The Sethusamudram canal which India plans to construct in the Palk Strait has brought the Ramayana to the attention of the Supreme Court of India. The Hindus object to the Sethusamudran canal on the grounds that it will damage the Ram Sethu bridge which is mentioned in the Ramayana. They say that this bridge is sacred and should not be destroyed. It was built by Rama and his army of monkeys. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed a petition in court to stop the project. Court took note of the objection and called for a response from the Government.

The Government of India stated that there is no scientific evidence to indicate that the events described in the Ramayana ever took place or that its characters were real. It stated that the bridge was not a man made one. Geological Survey of India did a three year study of the area between Rameshwaram in India and Mannar in Sri Lanka. The survey said that the bridge was not a man made (or monkey made) construction. The sequence of clay, limestone and sandstone which emerged could not have been man made. The survey also pointed out that studies of sea level showed that the area between Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka was exposed, not submerged under the sea, in the period between 18,000 years and 7000 years ago. About 6000 years ago, the sea level was a mere 17 meters below its present level and the sea bed was partially exposed.

NASA satellite pictures also indicated that the bridge was formed through the sedimentation of clay and lime stone. NASA said the bridge was about 1.75 million years old. The Space Applications Centre, Ahamedabad, looked through satellite and said that the ‘bridge’ is not man made. They thought the formation was associated with a previous shore line. There are similar reefs in other parts of India, such as Lakshadweep. Geologists suggest that the formation was due to circular wind driven ocean currents. Sediment may have converged in the sea to create this formation. This line of islets may also be due to tidal movements which pushed the sand into place and retreated. This sand over time formed sandstones.

Scholars suggest that the Ram Setu of the Ramayana was more likely located in a small stretch of water in Central India and not in the Palk Strait. There was also the technical issue of building a bridge across a wide stretch of water in the ancient period. They also noted that the Setu was not mentioned in some versions of the Ramayana.

The writings of A.L. Basham , R.A.L.H. Gunawardana, D.P. Mishra, KA Nilakanta Sastri, R. Thapar, and V. Vitharana, were used for this essay. News reports are from The Island and The Daily News.

Source:http://www.island.lk/2008/06/07/satmag6.html