6-BOOK REVIEW: THE LAST WORD ON RAMAYANA:
VENTAKESTWARA RAO NARLA (2004) [257P] VISALANDHRA PUBLISHING HOUSE
BOOK REVIEW: BY KAVNEET SINGH
Part-Chapter 7 – How Much Did Valmiki Write?
_Long before Ramayana-was reduced to writing, the story had swelled at the hands of-to_ _be more accurate, on the tongues of kusheelavas. Later at the hands of poets and pandits,_ _it swelled further and ultimately became a huge epic containing 24,000 verses. These_ _24,000 verses have been_ _divided into seven kandas (sections) and each section further_ _divided into several Sargas (chapters). It is_ _believed that Valmiki Ramayana is the first_ _chapter-wise arranged Sanskrit work, but this chapter-wise arrangement_ _was done_ _subsequent to the time of the poet Bhovabhooti…..the present shape either during the 7th_ _century A.D. or subsequently……[Page 52]_
The most common form of village art and entertainment in any venue including the King’s courts has been ballad singing for centuries. Troubadours from ancient time have been singing about battles between feuding rivals and war heroes. The ballads of two supposed warring chiefs eventually over the passing centuries got reduced to writing in the form of an epic which finally got hijacked by Brahmins and their minions to give it the caste color in the form of a social treatise to eventually be worshipped as a religious text.
Chapter 8 – Concept of Incarnation
_Rama does not figure in any of the pre-Christian inscriptions. The_ _whole concept of_ _divine incarnations (Avtaras) may have evolved when Krishna Vasudeva came to be_ _worshipped as incarnation of Mahavishnu….Until the period of the Guptas, i.e., upto the_ _5th_ _century A.D. there was never anything like Rama temple anywhere….[Page 55]_
The creation of Rama came about the same time when the Brahmins finally started to put their incantations into writing. The fear had always been that these preposterous mantras need to be passed down from ‘guru’ to ‘disciple’ and only within the Brahmin lineage. Once written it could be stolen or misused. Rama got created about the same time Buddhism was eradicated by the Brahmins through the greatest (Buddhist) Holocaust.
Chapter 9 – The Three Texts_Though there are many more versions, the Bombay, Bengal and the Kashmir versions are_ _considered to be the principal versions. The total number of verses which are not_ _identical in the three versions are about 8,000….some of the entire Sargas found in one_ _text are not found in the other two. Even where_ _there are identical verses they are not in_ _the same order in the three versions…..[Page 56]_The numerous inconsistencies in the various versions of the same text which have supposedly been meticulously researched by top Brahminical scholars shows the glaring flaws, the number of renditions, the multitude of writers, there is no unanimity as to which is the correct version. There is no time, date or place, rather even the authorship is highly questionable!