Rama (Rama Avatar)

The seventh avatar or incarnation of the
god Vishnu, the crown prince of the
Solar Line and the protagonist of the
Ramayana, one of the two great Indian
epics. As with all of Vishnu’s avatars,
Rama is born to destroy a being powerful enough to throw the cosmos out of
balance, in this case Ravana, the
demon-king of Lanka. The focal conflict
550
Rakshasa
in the Ramayana is Rama’s quest to
regain his wife Sita, who has been kidnapped by Ravana. The climactic
sequence of the epic features Rama’s
struggle with Ravana, Ravana’s death,
and the reestablishment of cosmic equilibrium, signified by Rama’s ascension
to divine kingship.
Unlike the god Krishna, whose
divine play (lila) often subverts or
ignores accepted social values, Rama is
a pillar of society. As a whole the
Ramayana tends to espouse and uphold
the traditional social values of religious
duty (dharma), social hierarchy (varna),
and the stages of life (ashrama). As the
epic’s protagonist, Rama is the epitome
of all these values. He is solid, dependable, stable, righteous, and predictable.
In Hindu culture Rama is the model of
the perfect son, and he shows this by
being utterly devoted to his parents,
giving far greater weight to his duties
as a son than as a husband. Unlike
Krishna, who has multiple liaisons
with his female devotees (bhakta), all in
the name of divine play, Rama is
married and monogamous. When
the time comes for battle, he is the
fiercest of combatants, incarnating
the warrior (kshatriya) ideal of using
strength to uphold justice, protect
the righteous, and punish the wicked.
In all these things he personifies some
of the most deeply embedded values
of Hindu culture.
Yet there are also some unsettling
incidents, particularly in the Valmiki
Ramayana, the epic’s earliest version.
These incidents either feature Rama
inexplicably stepping out of character
or else point to problematic tensions in
traditional Hindu values. In an attempt
to help the monkey-king Sugriva
against his rival Bali, Rama shoots Bali
in the back from a concealed place—
an action incompatible with the notion
of fair and honorable warfare. His
actions in enforcing the existing social
order also show its oppressive and
restrictive nature. In one incident, Rama
kills a low-status shudra whom he finds
performing physical asceticism (tapas),
a privilege reserved for his betters, and
has molten lead poured in the ears of
another shudra who was discovered listening to the sacred Vedas—a forbidden act for such a person. Both
incidents show the hierarchical nature
of idealized Hindu society, and the
king’s role in preserving and sustaining
this hierarchy. When Rama and his
brother Lakshmana are propositioned
by Ravana’s sister Shurpanakha, they
first mislead and ridicule her, then
mutilate her by cutting off her ears
and nose. These actions seem incompatible with the kshatriya ethic of
respect for women and the righteous
use of force, and prompt Ravana to kidnap Sita in revenge.
Perhaps the most troubling questions arise from Rama’s behavior toward
his wife Sita. Immediately after being
liberated from enslavement, she undergoes an ordeal by fire, from which her
emergence unscathed upholds her
551
Rama (Rama Avatar)
The god Vishnu’s Rama avatar. In the Hindu epic
the Ramayana, Vishnu appears as Rama to defeat
Ravana, the demon king.
claim that she remained chaste while
being held captive. Despite this definitive proof, Rama later insists on a
second test, in which Sita, in protest, is
swallowed up by the earth. Thus, the
picture of Rama conveyed by the epic
is of a figure righteous by the standards
of his time but on occasion rigid
and inflexible.
In later versions of the Ramayana,
particularly the Ramcharitmanas by
the poet-saint Tulsidas (1532–1623?),
this picture subtly shifts, possibly in an
attempt to soften or remove these troubling incidents. Certain changes in
Tulsidas’s text also highlight the centrality of devotion (bhakti) over all other
religious attitudes. Tulsidas’s Rama is
more explicitly portrayed as God incarnate, a figure who is aware of his divine
status and whose actions are undertaken
for the benefit of his devotees. This
Rama is still concerned with social values, particularly the kshatriya obligation
to uphold and protect religious duty
(dharma). Yet this ethic is in tension
with—and sometimes in opposition
to—the importance of bhakti, which is
portrayed as the ultimate religious goal.
These subtle shifts in the later text point
to an occasional conflict between two
differing ideals—dharma and bhakti—
both of which are affirmed as essential.
For further information on Rama, see
the texts of the Ramayana (the Valmiki
Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana, and
Ramcharitmanas) or translations from
the Sanskrit puranas, such as Cornelia
Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen (eds.
and trans.), Classical Hindu Mythology,
1978; secondary sources include V.
Raghavan (ed.), The Ramayana
Tradition in Asia, 1980; Edmour J.
Babineau, Love of God and Social Duty
in the Ramcharitmanas, 1979; and Frank
Whaling, The Rise in the Religious
Significance of Rama, 1980.