Their opinion of Rama, slightly edited here, is interesting: “He speaks lovingly to everyone and his words have never been false. The citizens of Ayodhya are so happy at the prospect that Dasaratha thinks, “They love him more than they love me”. When Dasaratha asks his subjects what they feel about Rama being made the crown prince, there is a roar of approval. Via Subramaniam’s translation, we get to know what Rama was like at seventeen from the citizens of Ayodhya. This set right my uneasy feeling of years that he would never have stomped on her it would have been out of character. She regained her form when Rama set foot inside her ashram. She was not turned to stone in Valmiki’s Ramayana but cursed to become “invisible among the ashes”. More poignantly, I would not have known that Rama did not put his feet on Ahalya. (Shutterstock)īut for Subramaniam, I would never have known about Ahalya’s sensitive son Sadananda, who became Rajguru to King Janaka of Mithila. We felt elated to think that we still ate the food that Sri Krishna ate.Ī wall panel at a temple in Hyderabad showing Krishna killing his evil uncle Kansa. Thereafter I chanced to have an earnest discussion in Hindi at my local temple on whether it was lemon pickle or mango people. I was so charmed by this incidental fact that I asked a Sanskrit scholar what Vyasa had said, and it was exactly that: “ Vaame paney masrula kabalam tad phalam angulyishu”. It is just one line, that Mother Yashoda gave Sri Krishna a packed lunch of curd rice and pickle when he went out to herd the cows with the gopa boys: In his left hand, he held the ball of curd rice (on a leaf) and in the fingers of his other hand, he held the accompaniment. I found a very relatable detail from the Srimad Bhagavatam, thanks to Subramaniam. She says so herself, and the forewords to her books by eminent men of the time – KM Munshi, GD Birla and Swami Ranganathananda – affirm that. But she did not depart from Valmiki in the Ramayana or Vyasa in the Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam. Subramaniam cut short the overly flowery passages from Sanskrit because while they were natural to Sanskrit they were not to English. Lacking the ability to read the original, it is due to Subramaniam that I discovered these three great books in greater depth, relishing how real the stories became through her detailed, lucid rendition. The epics in their fuller form are replete with nuances, told with a great understanding of the complexity of human nature. My confidence came from having read Subramaniam’s Ramayana, wherein he is far from being wimpy but is a textured, interesting persona. Since she was my hostess, I did not wish to quarrel and just said, “Well, he isn’t”. One very fashionable Delhi lady told me bluntly at a luncheon, “I think Ram is a wimp”. However, it is not uncommon in the modern Anglophone urban life to hear startling and confusing comments on the epics. But she did not depart from Valmiki in the Ramayana or Vyasa in the Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatam.” - Renuka Narayanan “Subramaniam cut short the overly flowery passages from Sanskrit because while they were natural to Sanskrit they were not to English. But “not one needle-point of land” was Duryodhana prepared to give the Pandavas.
Whereas, he did try to stop the war he humbled himself to go as the messenger of peace to Duryodhana and offered the most minimal terms, just five villages. Or, there was modern mirch added to the masala, because of which it was fashionable to call Krishna “cunning” on account of Kurukshetra.
The drawback with some of the English renditions that we grew up with is that they often left out charming details because there was no room.
This is unsurprising, I realize, since in depth and range, the epics are the ultimate Asian drama with not a thing left out – kings, queens, weak people, wicked people, staunch people, family and friends, supernatural beings, a big fight against overwhelming odds and heartbreaking love stories, infused with the uplifting anubhuti or sense, of divinity. I feel Subramaniam would have approved since the epics were so intensely experienced by her. Why, then, is it “mythology” when the Yamuna parts for Sri Krishna? So I have banned the word “mythology” from my personal vocabulary when talking about our scriptures in English. Nobody calls it “mythology” when the Red Sea parts for Moses. It is a colonial imbalance in the English language that we may not even be aware of and could consciously correct. In passing, please note that I say “theology”, not “mythology”.
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