Showing posts with label Arjuna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arjuna. Show all posts
Saturday 5 June 2021
Thursday 13 April 2017
On Ramayana and Mahabharata - India’s epic dilemma
Peter Ronald deSouza in The Hindu
Our stories are richest when they are read as ethical texts, not ideological guides
Some days ago, during a discussion on the many ways to interpret episodes in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the issue came up of whether these are ethical texts or merely ideological ones. Should one regard them as repositories of moral conundrums, on the human condition, that needed to be decoded and debated by every age for itself, or whether their messages, about the nature of the dharmic order to which all must conform, were clear and without ambiguity. What gave rise to this debate were two stories that were being discussed: the case of Eklavya who willingly offered his thumb to Drona on the Guru’s request, thereby assuring an anxious Arjun of his supremacy as an archer, and that of Ram beheading Shambuka for falling out of dharmic line. I wondered if one were a feminist, a Dalit scholar, a passionate nationalist of the current variety found among Ministers of State, or even a European Marxist, would one find morally grey areas in such episodes or would one see them as containing clear messages of how power and social relationships in a ‘just’ society should be ordered?
At this point let me step back a bit and carefully probe the distinction between an ethical and an ideological text. An ethical text is one which presents episodes as forks in the road where each path offered is attractive because it contains desirable goals. Choosing one path presents one with a quandary because the benefits offered by the other path would now have to be willingly foregone. Each path at the fork leads to the same destination. One only needs to decide what gains and losses one wished to forego.
For example, path A would offer to cut a journey short by four hours. But it would mean travelling on a bad road full of potholes and perhaps risking a bad back and a breakdown. Path B, in contrast, is longer and would get the traveller home past midnight. But it would be a smooth ride on a freshly metalled road that went through a forest. Travelling at night would risk a dacoit hold-up. An ethical text does not give a clear moral message. It compels one to weigh options before making a choice.
The ideological text, in contrast, is like a road within the National Highway system. Clearly numbered exits are given to one’s destination. You know where and when to leave the highway. Here there are no moral conundrums. There are just clear signposts prepared by a highways authority which tell you where to stop, at what speed to travel, which lane to follow, and where to exit. The highways authority offers a distinct route map for the whole society. It does so with the certainty of one who knows.
Our stories are richest when they are read as ethical texts, not ideological guides
Some days ago, during a discussion on the many ways to interpret episodes in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the issue came up of whether these are ethical texts or merely ideological ones. Should one regard them as repositories of moral conundrums, on the human condition, that needed to be decoded and debated by every age for itself, or whether their messages, about the nature of the dharmic order to which all must conform, were clear and without ambiguity. What gave rise to this debate were two stories that were being discussed: the case of Eklavya who willingly offered his thumb to Drona on the Guru’s request, thereby assuring an anxious Arjun of his supremacy as an archer, and that of Ram beheading Shambuka for falling out of dharmic line. I wondered if one were a feminist, a Dalit scholar, a passionate nationalist of the current variety found among Ministers of State, or even a European Marxist, would one find morally grey areas in such episodes or would one see them as containing clear messages of how power and social relationships in a ‘just’ society should be ordered?
At this point let me step back a bit and carefully probe the distinction between an ethical and an ideological text. An ethical text is one which presents episodes as forks in the road where each path offered is attractive because it contains desirable goals. Choosing one path presents one with a quandary because the benefits offered by the other path would now have to be willingly foregone. Each path at the fork leads to the same destination. One only needs to decide what gains and losses one wished to forego.
For example, path A would offer to cut a journey short by four hours. But it would mean travelling on a bad road full of potholes and perhaps risking a bad back and a breakdown. Path B, in contrast, is longer and would get the traveller home past midnight. But it would be a smooth ride on a freshly metalled road that went through a forest. Travelling at night would risk a dacoit hold-up. An ethical text does not give a clear moral message. It compels one to weigh options before making a choice.
The ideological text, in contrast, is like a road within the National Highway system. Clearly numbered exits are given to one’s destination. You know where and when to leave the highway. Here there are no moral conundrums. There are just clear signposts prepared by a highways authority which tell you where to stop, at what speed to travel, which lane to follow, and where to exit. The highways authority offers a distinct route map for the whole society. It does so with the certainty of one who knows.
Civilisational abundance
So are the epics ethical texts or ideological ones? I believe they are the former. I believe each episode is a site for debate, an opportunity for each moral position in society to be heard and to solicit adherents. An Irawati Karve can see in Bhishma an egoistical, old man who, never having fought a war, still accepts the generalship of an army at a ripe age extending into the eighties, a measure of his narcissism. The Jain Ramayana has Laxman, instead of Ram, killing Ravan because that was the only way for them to reconcile the central Jain doctrine of Ahimsa and still valorise the Maryada Purusha. It is only an ethical text which allows for an A.K. Ramanujan’s 300 Ramayanas, suggesting that the story is alive in the country as people and places interpolate into the text their own aspirations and values. Individuals and social groups, of all ages, have drawn from the epics to fight their moral and political battles. This is what makes the epics so relevant to contemporary India. Today we need new interpretations to fight our political battles. The epics today need to be contemporanised.
An ethical text is the organic fertiliser of a society. Being fully open-ended, it delights, beckons, and recaptures the deracinated Indian from the lure of the ideological camp. While it generates passion, it also respects diversity of interpretation. It represents life but, in contrast to life’s chaos, also offers options. An ethical text is a living text. India is fortunate to be the land of several epics such as Silappatikaram in Tamil or Palnati Virula katha in Telugu and so on.
I am not saying something very new here but only presenting, in a binary way, the contrast between an ethical and an ideological text so that we can fight our current politics. Because the Indian tradition has always seen the epics as ethical texts, in contrast to the political trend today, we have great commentaries such as that of V.S. Sukthankar. The sophisticated elaboration by Mehendale on the rules of war and the consequences in terms of punishment of their violation, in his wonderfully slim book Reflections on the Mahabharata war, is another illustration of the Indian tradition of diverse interpretations. Critical commentaries, dissent, alternative readings are merely different forks in the road as we explore our national cultural heritage. Unfortunately today, with the rise of cultural vigilantes, these great epics are being converted into ideological texts. Because they receive tacit support from the powers that control the state, they attempt to push everyone onto the highway and away from the byways of Indian society.
It bears repeating here that the National Highway is good for the movement of goods and traffic, for practical and efficiency purposes, but not for cultural journeys for which it is the byways that matter. They nurture the richness of our cultural life. It is through the byways that we will discover the cultural ecosystems that local communities have created through complex negotiations with each other.
So are the epics ethical texts or ideological ones? I believe they are the former. I believe each episode is a site for debate, an opportunity for each moral position in society to be heard and to solicit adherents. An Irawati Karve can see in Bhishma an egoistical, old man who, never having fought a war, still accepts the generalship of an army at a ripe age extending into the eighties, a measure of his narcissism. The Jain Ramayana has Laxman, instead of Ram, killing Ravan because that was the only way for them to reconcile the central Jain doctrine of Ahimsa and still valorise the Maryada Purusha. It is only an ethical text which allows for an A.K. Ramanujan’s 300 Ramayanas, suggesting that the story is alive in the country as people and places interpolate into the text their own aspirations and values. Individuals and social groups, of all ages, have drawn from the epics to fight their moral and political battles. This is what makes the epics so relevant to contemporary India. Today we need new interpretations to fight our political battles. The epics today need to be contemporanised.
An ethical text is the organic fertiliser of a society. Being fully open-ended, it delights, beckons, and recaptures the deracinated Indian from the lure of the ideological camp. While it generates passion, it also respects diversity of interpretation. It represents life but, in contrast to life’s chaos, also offers options. An ethical text is a living text. India is fortunate to be the land of several epics such as Silappatikaram in Tamil or Palnati Virula katha in Telugu and so on.
I am not saying something very new here but only presenting, in a binary way, the contrast between an ethical and an ideological text so that we can fight our current politics. Because the Indian tradition has always seen the epics as ethical texts, in contrast to the political trend today, we have great commentaries such as that of V.S. Sukthankar. The sophisticated elaboration by Mehendale on the rules of war and the consequences in terms of punishment of their violation, in his wonderfully slim book Reflections on the Mahabharata war, is another illustration of the Indian tradition of diverse interpretations. Critical commentaries, dissent, alternative readings are merely different forks in the road as we explore our national cultural heritage. Unfortunately today, with the rise of cultural vigilantes, these great epics are being converted into ideological texts. Because they receive tacit support from the powers that control the state, they attempt to push everyone onto the highway and away from the byways of Indian society.
It bears repeating here that the National Highway is good for the movement of goods and traffic, for practical and efficiency purposes, but not for cultural journeys for which it is the byways that matter. They nurture the richness of our cultural life. It is through the byways that we will discover the cultural ecosystems that local communities have created through complex negotiations with each other.
Isn’t this anti-national?
The smell of the mahua tree, for example, means a great deal in central India but has little significance in coastal India where the smell of fish is more exciting. Unless of course the rishi Parashar aroused by Satyavati replaced her fish smell of matsyagandha with the heavenly smell of yojanagandha, making coastal people like me to think this to be a parochial tale. Such playful stories can only be told when the epic is an ethical text. The cultural vigilantes have created a climate of anxiety which the people in control of the state have done little to diminish, for it pays them political dividends. Do they not realise that while they may gain the country, they will lose a civilisation? Do they not realise how anti-national this is?
The smell of the mahua tree, for example, means a great deal in central India but has little significance in coastal India where the smell of fish is more exciting. Unless of course the rishi Parashar aroused by Satyavati replaced her fish smell of matsyagandha with the heavenly smell of yojanagandha, making coastal people like me to think this to be a parochial tale. Such playful stories can only be told when the epic is an ethical text. The cultural vigilantes have created a climate of anxiety which the people in control of the state have done little to diminish, for it pays them political dividends. Do they not realise that while they may gain the country, they will lose a civilisation? Do they not realise how anti-national this is?
Saturday 1 February 2014
Arjuna Ranatunga - From 'sarong Johnnie' to national icon
Sri Lanka always had cricketers who made the world sit up and take notice.
Sidath Wettimuny, refined and understated, and Duleep Mendis, buccaneering and devil-may-care, were the early heroes of a nascent Test nation. Aravinda de Silva, one of the most graceful batsmen to play the game, was Sri Lanka's first true great. In an era of Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, Wasim Akram described de Silva as the most difficult batsman to bowl to. More recently, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara have compiled over 10,000 Test runs each, putting them among the top ten run accumulators in history. And no discussion of Sri Lankan greats could even start without reference to Muttiah Muralitharan, arguably the greatest spin bowler of all time, who carried Sri Lanka's bowling attack almost single-handedly for much of his 18-year career.
But top-level sport is won and lost in the mind. One man was responsible for changing the mentality of the Sri Lankan team he captained and the individuals in it. In so doing, he forged a team that believed it could defeat all comers. Under Arjuna Ranatunga's leadership, Sri Lanka went from charming amateurs to World Cup winners. It didn't happen by chance.
Arjuna was born in Gampaha, a town outside Colombo, and went to school at the unfashionable Ananda College. In the pre-Test match era, schoolboy cricket was the pinnacle of the sport in the country, and the anglicised elite schools dominated both cricket and the back pages. Ananda College, established by the Buddhist Theosophist Society specifically to counter missionary activity, was the antithesis of the elite schools. It is well documented that a 15-year-old Arjuna was dismissed as a "sarong Johnnie" by an elderly member of the Sinhalese Sports Club when he first arrived. Colonial attitudes run deep in the colonised. Perhaps these early outsider experiences shaped Arjuna's belligerence.
He made his Test debut in the inaugural Test in Colombo in February 1982, at the age of 18. Though still a schoolboy, he led Sri Lanka's first Test fightback. Coming in at 34 for 4, Arjuna hit a fluid fifty, incidentally also Sri Lanka's first Test fifty. It was a mature and assured debut. When the match finished, he went back to school. But it is not for his batting that Arjuna is remembered.
Arjuna captained Sri Lanka on their 1995-96 tour to Australia, a pivotal tour in the team's development. On arrival, they were regarded as a harmless and exotic distraction. By the time they left, they had demonstrated a capacity for a fight. It was an ugly tour in many ways. It is said racial vilification was never far from the surface, and the tour is most remembered for the controversy surrounding Muralitharan.
Arjuna was a constant irritant to opponents throughout his career. His policy seemed to be to go where the exchanges were spikiest, and get stuck in
Murali, already an established Test player, with 22 caps, was called for throwing. Arjuna's response could have come out of the manual that showed you how to forge a unified team. He backed Murali unconditionally, remonstrating forcefully and publicly with Australian umpires. Meek capitulation would not only have imperilled Murali's career, it would have set the self-esteem of the team back severely. Instead, Arjuna demonstrated the fighting qualities of the warrior prince he was named after.
Although Sri Lanka were outplayed by Australia, they knocked out West Indies to make the final of the triangular ODI series. In the process, they honed a strategy that was a vital part of their World Cup win. Romesh Kaluwitharana and Sanath Jayasuriya opened the batting with a blaze of boundaries. Sri Lanka's blitzkrieg approach at the top of the innings was born.
Arjuna was a constant irritant to opponents throughout his career. His policy seemed to be to go where the exchanges were spikiest, and get stuck in. A powerful man, broad in the shoulder and forearm, he seemed immune to intimidation. He was certainly effective at riling opponents. I recall an apoplectic Alec Stewart screaming at his own fielders while Arjuna ambled between the wickets.
Arjuna was also influential in the policy of seeking cricketers from the provinces. At the time, Sri Lanka struggled to harness cricketing talent outside Colombo. Jayasuriya was an early beneficiary of Arjuna's vision. Arjuna brought Jayasuriya from his home town, Matara, to Colombo, and even put him up. Jayasuriya, now chairman of selectors, has given five young cricketers from the north and the eastern regions central U-19 contracts. Arjuna's legacy lives on.
By refusing to back down, by returning all and any insult with interest, Arjuna proved to the opposition, and more importantly to his own team, that Sri Lanka had earned the right to compete as equals. He certainly blew away the last remnants of the post-colonial mindset that had been directed at him at the SSC.
Sri Lanka's two most hailed triumphs, the 1996 World Cup and their first Test win in England, occurred under his leadership. His successors, notably the statesmanlike Jayawardene and the fiercely intelligent Sangakkara, have benefited from his groundwork. Different captains for different times, they had no need of Arjuna's in-your-face bellicosity. The teams they inherited knew they had it in them to stand toe to toe with the best.
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