Accusations of disrespecting women and perhaps even attempting to rape Sita when she was in captivity have often come his way. Moreover, to common folk-lore he was a demonic dictator imposing his rule over his kingdom- Lanka. Others however disagree with this common conception. For example, Ancient Sinhala works like Rajavaliya and Ravanavaliya identify Ravana as a Sinhala king and extol him as a great one.
In Sri Lanka today, there has been a movement to revive Ravana as a cult figure, who represents Sinhala or Sri Lankan nationalism because he was among the first to have resisted an alien i. The Hela Movement which was started by the Late Mundisa Kumaratunga has been urging the Sinhalese to go back to their roots shunning Indian, common understanding of the Hindu epic i.
He is even credited with writing a commentary on the Vedas and verses on medicine. An excellent veena player, he was also a great devotee of Shiva and composed the Ravanastuti.
But Sumali, his maternal grandfather and Asura king, worked hard in secret to ensure that he inherited a demonic character.
After all, no one is born good or bad. Only after his sister Surpanakha was humiliated and her nose was cut by Lakshmana did Ravana take the extreme step of abducting Sita to teach Rama and Lakshmana a lesson.
Contrary to popular belief, however, Ravana never touched Sita during her captivity, which goes to show that he respected her. Applying the principle of Catuskoti and from the multi-perspectives on the character of Ravana that people have shed light one, I will now investigate whether it is logically sound to call Ravana an antagonist. Unlike Nagarjuna, who dismisses all four propositions and chooses the middle ground, I will see if any particular statement seems befitting in a logical sense, after which I will rest my case.
Therefore, the four propositions are as follows: a. Ravana was an evil being. Ravana was not an evil being i. Ravana was both an evil and a virtuous being. Ravana was neither an evil nor a virtuous being. From the above mentioned perspectives, I can clearly rule out the first two propositions.
The last proposition too seems to be disprovable, because Ravana was not entirely evil nor was entirely virtuous; qualities that cannot be put passed him. The third proposition however seems to be hitting ground. It seems to be in sync with most of the perspectives that people have put on the table and seems to be the best possible outcome.
Having said that, one could even negate all four propositions and resort to a middle path, a path similar to what Nagarjuna advocated. Moreover, on account of having different perspectives, the problems of subjectivity and relativity arise, throwing away the idea of his absoluteness or objectiveness or universality.
Thus, one is led to believe that his characterisation is a phenomenal in nature. The middle path therefore is, Ravana not having a character at all. Rather than the usual arrogant portrayal, I depicted him as someone who brashly entered war, realised it was a mistake but was too proud to back out. The next thing I knew, I was getting angry calls based on some interesting and innovative interpretations of my meanings in the play. Maunaguru might have chosen to stick to ancient, mythical lore rather than focus on contemporary stories — but, like any good artist, he was always able to connect with the audience.
To a people caught in a civil war, his enactment of an ancient, mythical conflict held many parallels they could relate to. In Sri Lanka, both during the civil war and thereafter, women have been affected in myriad ways, yet their perspectives, pain and fears find little expression in either the media or the arts.
From the rule of Ravana to the times of Prabhakaran and Rajapakse, the general narrative remains that of men, their triumphs and losses. What happens though, when the male storyteller has a feminist wife? As a result, the current interpretation of Ravanesan gives space to the war cries of Ravana but also to the anti-war cries of his wife — in it, Mandodari relays the grief of women who have had their agency hijacked by men and yet have paid the steepest price for the war.
It depicts not only the folly of Ravana, the tragic anti-hero too proud to back out of a war which he knows will devastate his people, but also Mandodari, the tragic feminist icon who knows all too well the repercussions of war, and seeks to counsel her husband that the concept of honour can take many forms. Like many women, Mandodari knows that there is no cowardice in backpedalling or extending an olive branch. The women are being given their due space too. As a culture evolves, so do the voices of its legends.
And thus this tale as old as time, reverberated with its audience in both North and South Sri Lanka where it was staged last year. The thespian has done his job once again in getting his audience to connect with his story. And this time, we could put a name to the woman behind his success. Share your perspective on this article with a post on ScrollStack, and send it to your followers. Contribute Now.
Courtesy: Professor S Maunaguru In India, Rama may be the ideal hero, the god-king who rescued his beloved from the clutches of a demon emperor, but in Sri Lanka, it is his antagonist, Ravana, who is loved and mourned as a tragic, misunderstood hero. A still from Ravanesan.
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