The historicity of Rama- should it really matter?

Speculation about the historicity of Rama is a flourishing industry in India. Some are convinced that there was a historical Rama and confidently point out with remarkable accuracy, to within a few square inches, the exact spot of his birth. Others file affidavits in the court denying that there was ever a Rama who walked the earth. Some read the recent judgment of the Allahabad High court as vindicating the historicity of Rama: I wonder though how any competent user of the English language could give such an interpretation to Agarwal J’s judgment. The Rama asserters get terribly annoyed with the Rama deniers and vice versa. In the midst of the cacophony of assertions and denials, it is easy to lose sight of one fundamental question- why should anyone professing to be a “Hindu” bother about any of this?

The question is- should the historicity of Rama matter to someone taking himself to be a Hindu? Of course I am painfully aware of how this question has in fact mattered in the past to some Hindus. Had it not mattered to some of them, they wouldn’t have been moved to demolishing a mosque standing at a place, they believed to be Ramjanmabhoomi. There are many Hindus to whom it the historicity of Rama matters, though they would not in the least approve of the demolition of the mosque. But my question is this – Should it matter to any Hindu whether Rama was a historical figure? This question subsumes some cognate ones. If it were to turn out that the historicity of Rama shouldn’t matter, it also shouldn’t matter whether they get his birthplace right and have a temple for him there. I am here inviting you to a discussion at the end of which we would have hopefully made the question of the historicity of Rama redundant. That will tell us how the Ramjanmabhoomi issue could be made redundant.

There is a general lack of awareness, let alone proper understanding, amongst Hindus of what Hinduism is all about. It is too much to expect the layman to have read the Upanishads. The Bhagavad Gita is the closest that one gets to an authoritative and somewhat comprehensive summary of the Upanishadic philosophy. In a typical kirana (grocer’s) shop, you will find above the till (galla), somewhere between the biscuit shelf and the peanut jar, a nail with a calendar hanging from it containing a Gita Saar ( a summary of the Bhagavad Gita) in not more than 10 bullet points. I can wager an arm and a leg that even Krishna cannot come up with a 10 point summary of the Bhagavad Gita – a complex many layered philosophical work – with a modicum of sense or coherence. Unfortunately the knowledge of many Hindus of the Bhagavad Gita, or at any rate of those who lose their night’s sleep over the historicity of Rama, is worse than what can be had from the one page Gita Saar.

Had they ( the one’s to whom the historicity of Rama matters) bothered to inquire why should Rama matter in the first place, they could have consulted the Bhagavad Gita and turned to chapter XII on Bhakti Yoga (path of devotion); after all isn’t it out of bhakti (devotion) that the need to worship Rama and the need for a Rama temple is felt? Why should Rama matter if not for Bhakti? But what is Bhakti or devotion and what does it entail? Some context of the structure of the Gita is important to appreciate this. The point of the Bhagavad Gita is to suggest tentative paths to ‘yoga’ (union) for the individual consciousness (ego) to rid itself of its shackles of samsara and restore it to its ever abiding true state of Brahman. The central message of the Gita is that Yoga can be complete only when the ego is quelled. As Ramana Maharishi points out ‘yoga’ is ceasing to think that you are an individual ego separate from reality. All the major paths of knowledge(jnana), devotion(bhakti) and action(karma), discussed in the Gita are all meant to achieve the very same end, namely to quell the ego. This must be read in the background of the overarching concept of maya- according to which all manifestation is an illusion. In short anything perceived as real is illusionary. Let me tell you something that follows straightaway from this. If there were figures such as Rama and Kirshna in human form, they were just as much a product of maya as anything else phenomenal in the universe.

The idea of a diety or god like Rama or Krishna is relevant only for someone who takes the Bhakti marga (the path of devotion). Someone walking on the Jnana marga doesn’t need Krishna or Rama and could very well be an atheist. Let us forget Janana marga and focus on Bhakti marga alone. As Krishna says, the goal of path of devotion or bhakti is to surrender the self completely to the imperishable,indefinable,unmanifest,the omnipresent, unthinkable’ Brahman. But Krishna recognizes that the path of knowledge is a particularly difficult one because it is difficult to set one’s mind on the unmanifested and unthinkable. As an alternative he suggests treating HIM as a placeholder or symbol for the unthinkable, ineffable Brahman and by worshipping HIM, effacing the ego. As Ramanuja sums up Bhakti is “Joining the mind with devotion to that which is not Brahman, taking it to be Brahman”. Verily worship is the process of the distinction between the thinker and thought (god) merging. Eventually even the god is a mental idea and the thought of the god has also to disappear for there to be yoga or realization. These so called ‘gods’ are mere postulates, fictions and place holders for the ultimate Brahman (truth). They are, to use a popular Vedantic and Buddhist analogy, rafts for crossing the river of samsara and are to be abandoned when on the other side. Further to what I said earlier I would add, Rama and Krishna are relevant only for Bhakti. But for Bhakti, they wouldn’t be needed. If not for Bhakti why does a Hindu need Rama?

This is what Swami Vivekananda has to say about Bhakti Yoga:

“One thing, therefore, has to be carefully borne in mind. If, as it may happen in some cases, the highly philosophic ideal, the supreme Brahman, is dragged down by Pratika–worship ( worship of a god with a form) to the level of the Pratika, and the Pratika itself is taken to be the Atman…the worshipper gets entirely misled, as no Pratika can really be the Atman… But where Brahman Himself is the object of worship, and the Pratika stands only as a substitute or a suggestion thereof, that is to say, where, through the Pratika the omnipresent Brahman is worshipped”

Rama, Krishna and all other so called ‘gods’, are symbols of the ineffable, ultimate truth. They should not be confused with the truth itself as Vivekananda says. Whether these were also ‘real’ men or not is hopelessly irrelevant. If they were men they were as much a play of maya as anything phenomenal; and truth is the dissolution of maya. Thus real worship would entail treating these men Rama and Krishna like any other object of maya. Their being historic men adds no value to their symbolism. They may or may not have been living human beings. But their function as symbols has nothing to do with their historicity.

Finding out where they were born is silly. And thinking that they can be worshipped only at that place is bordering the insane. And to think that goal must be achieved at any cost, is definitely insane. Worship is nothing but surrendering the ego. How is that purpose furthered in any way by establishing where a symbol is born and have a temple at a specific place for the symbol? I recognize the importance of temples and rituals and all of that in the bhakti marga, but the historicity of any god is never of any relevance. For a Hindu, or at any rate, one who is interested in ‘Yoga’ the Ramajanmabhoomi issue would be nothing but a silly distraction.

Anticipating an objection

I feel compelled to anticipate and meet before hand one kind of objection to what I have said here. It could be objected – This is your interpretation of Hinduism; but different people have different interpretations; how do you know yours is the right one? I am aware of similar debates surrounding the interpretation of scriptures of other religions.

To the objector I have only one thing to say. Please give me your interpretation and do nothing more than name the scripture you base your interpretation on. In case of most “interpretations” of Hinduism it turns out that people form opinions out of folk concepts, without ever having bothered to read any scripture. In other words they turn out to be ‘superstitions’ and not interpretations at all. The best example of this is the concept of Karma the popular understanding of which is the exact opposite of what Krishna says in the Gita. Then the dispute here would between an interpretation and a mere superstition or pop conception. An objector basing his objection on such superstition would not be disagreeing with me but altogether talking past me.