Early Oriya Texts
In addressing the textual sources of Orissan pictures of the Ramayana[*] , it would be impossible to omit two monuments of early Oriya literature, even though neither has, to my knowledge, been directly illustrated. Both Sarala Dasa's Mahabharata and Balarama[*] Dasa's Jagamohana Ramayana[*] are so well known and widely revered that we may presume most artists in the region would have had some familiarity with them.
The Adikavi, or Father of Vernacular Poetry in Orissa, Sarala Dasa, active probably in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, is famed for his Mahabharata .[25] This work draws upon oral traditions, including elements that also crop up in different form in various Sanskrit works.[26] ç It was followed by three more or less literal translations of the epic, none of which equalled Sarala's[*] in popularity. The poet is identified as a sudra, a peasant whose brother was a ferryman, a status that is; in keeping with the rural language and earthy flavor of his work. For instance, Siva's worship as the liñga is explained with a story that he shocked his mother-in-law by addressing her naked at the time of a ceremony, so that she cursed him to be worshiped in the undignified form of a phallus.[27] ç Likewise local touches are only to be expected—for example the enlargement of the story of the tribal Ekalavya, who, in the guise of the Sabara Jara, kills Krisna[*] and follows his unburned body to Purl, where it becomes Lord Jagannatha.[28] ç
Like the Sanskrit Mahabharata, Sarala Dasa's poem includes a version of the story of Rama that is yet further removed from Valmiki. Here again some details occur in other versions, such as the explanation of Surpanakha's[*] anger with Laksmana[*] for having decapitated her son Japa while he was meditating in an anthill.[29] Rama is said to be reborn as Krisna[*] , and Laksmana[*] (who is also an avatar of Siva) as Balarama[*] , linking various strands of plot and religion. Some elements are shared with the Bengali tradition, such as the inclusion of multiple forms of Ravana[*] killed in different ages.[30] ç Sarala Dasa's expanded accounts of the ascetic Risyasringa[*] , of the magic deer, and of the incident of a milkman who feeds the heroes in the forest are discussed below in connection with their illustrations.
Balarama[*] Dasa worked some forty years after Sarala and is usually viewed as part of the Oriya entourage of the great Bengali Vaisnava[*] reformer Chaitanya, who visited Puri in 1510. In fact his lengthy version of the Ramayana[*] seems to have been completed in 1504 and is not directly influenced by Chaitanya.[31] His supposedly frenzied religious devotion, along with tales of the entire group of Oriya saints known as pañcha sakhas (five companions of Chaitanya), may be a later fabrication. In a colophon he is identified as the son of the minister of a ruler and as a karana[*] (scribe).[32] ç Thus he belonged to what was in fact quite a high-placed subcaste in Orissa, although technically he was a sudra, part of the lowest of the four major ranks of Hindu society, a position emphasized by followers of Chaitanya in view of the ideal of humble servitude. In general his brand of Vaisnavism[*] , centered on Jagannatha, is rooted in Orissa in the late fifteenth century.
Balarama[*] Dasa puts his story in the mouth of four different narrators, framing the epic in a complex way like the Ramcharitmanas .[33] Indeed he honors Valmiki as the first narrator on earth, and his Jagamohana Ramayana[*] (also known as Dandi[*] Ramayana[*] , from the meter) includes most of the variants of the eastern recension of Valmiki, such as the story of how the demon Kalanemi attempted to deter Hanumana from visiting Mount Gandhamadana, detailed below in Chapter 4. He also introduces elements found in the Adhyatma Ramayana[*] although not peculiar to it: the framing dialogue between Siva and Parvati and the creation of a Maya Sita before the kidnap. Indeed, illusion appears often as a matrix for phenomena, as in the Adhyatma Ramayana[*] .[34] ç There are again affinities with Bengali Rama stories, as well as with south Indian vernacular versions.[35] ç At the same time, events are consistently localized in Orissa; thus Rama's return to Ayodhya becomes the Bahuda[*] Jatra, or return of Lord Jagannatha's cart procession in Puri. Some events are given amusing human twists: on Mount Malyavan Rama gets a crane to supply him with food cooked by Sita, overcoming the bird's reluctance to accept food from a mere woman by assuring it that wife and husband are one.[36] ç At the same time, Balarama[*] Dasa must be credited with some originality. For example, the distinctively Oriya story of the origin of mushrooms in the umbrellas severed from Ravana's[*] chariot appears for the first time in writing in the Jagamohana Ramayana[*] .[37] ç On the whole this text weaves a wealth of novel detail around the framework of Valmiki. Its central place in the Orissan religious tradition is shown by its being read orally in toto, as Tulsi Das is used elsewhere in north India during the festival Dashahra.
Balarama[*] Dasa dealt with the story of Rama in a number of other, shorter poems of the forms known as chautisa (thirty-four couplets beginning with each letter of the alphabet in sequence) and barahmasa (with twelve verses for the months). These seem particularly to draw upon the Sundara Kanda[*] and the grief of the separated couple.[38] No illustrated copies of those works are known.
Two unpublished minor works are worth mentioning here because they have been illustrated at least once. These are a Durga Stuti and a Hanumana Stuti ascribed to Balarama[*] Dasa, known from an illustrated manuscript now in Ahmedabad.[39] Such stutis form a large class of popular verses in praise of various gods and goddesses. Several addressed to Durga are attributed to Hina (inferior) Balarama[*] ; although they follow the same meter as the Jagamohana Ramayana[*] , they are probably not the work of the sixteenth-century poet. The Ahmedabad illustrated text describes the occasion when Rama and Laksmana[*] were bound by Indrajita's snake-arrow. The hero recites his previous story to Durga, who advises him to pray to Garuda[*] , who in turn comes and disperses the snakes. The following part of the same work is devoted to Hanumana.