Eleven The Secret Life of Ramcandra of Ayodhya
Research for this paper was carried out in India between 1982 and 1987, initially under a Fulbright-Hays fellowship and later under a faculty development grant from the University of Iowa. The author wishes to acknowledge the kind assistance of Dr. Bhagavati Prasad Singh of Gorakhpur, and of Pandit Ramkumar Das of Mani Par-vat, Ayodhya, and the helpful suggestions of Paul Greenough, Sheldon Pollock, and Paula Richman.
1. 1.30b. Hanuman Prasad Poddar, ed., Ramcaritmanas (Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1938; reprinted in numerous editions). Numbers refer to book or kand , stanza (a series of verses ending in a doha or couplet; when more than one couplet completes a stanza, a roman letter is added to the couplet number), and individual line within a stanza.
2. Frederick Salmon Growse, trans., The Ramayana of Tulasi Dasa (Cawnpore: E. Samuel, 1891; repr. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978), lv.
3. Examples of significant work on contemporary expressions of Krsna devotionalism include Milton Singer, ed., Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes (Honolulu:
East-West Center Press, 1966); Norvin Hein, The Miracle Plays of Mathura (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972); and John Stratton Hawley, At Play With Krishna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). The emerging literature on Ram includes Frank Whaling, The Rise of the Religious Significance of Rama (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980); Hans, Ayodbya (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1986); and Peter van der Veer, Gods on Earth (London: Athlone Press, 1988). On Ramcaritmanas performance, see Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991).
4. On the theology and dramatic theory of the Gosvamis and its influence on sectarian practice, see David, Acting as a Way of Salvation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); and Donna M. Wulff, Drama as a Mode of Religions Realization (Chico, Calif.: Scholar's Press, 1984), especially pp. 7-44.
5. On the historical developments which permitted the "reclamation" of Ayodhya by Vaisnavas, see Bakker, Ayodhya , 135-53, and van der Veer, Gods on Earth , 38-40.
6. An example appears in Bhagavati Prasad Singh. Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday (Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh: Avadh Sahitya Mandir, 1957), facing p. 274.
7. There is a growing literature on the therapeutic use of visualization techniques; for an extensive discussion and bibliography, see Jeanne Achterberg, Imagery in Healing (Boston: New Science Library, 1985). (I am grateful to Susan Lutgendorf for this reference.)
8. On the meanings of smaran , see Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 63-64, 124-26.
9. The ontological status of places and things seen in visualization has begun to concern Western health researchers as well. Therapist Gerald Epstein, for example, has suggested that since visualizations can produce tangible effects on the physical body, they must be regarded as possessing some kind of reality; see "The Image in Medicine: Notes of a Clinician," in Advances 3, no. 1 (Winter 1986): 22-31; especially p. 23.
10. Thus the name Rampriya Saran means "one who takes refuge in Ram's beloved"—i.e., in Sita.
11. Ronald Stuart McGregor, "The Dhyan manjari of Agradas ," in Bhakti in Current Research: 1979-1982 , ed. Monika Thiel-Horstmann (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1983), 237-44.
12. Kenneth Bryant, Poems to the Child-God (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 72-75. Bryant borrows the phrase "verbal icon" from the title of a book by literary critics W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, but significantly reinterprets it for the Indian context.
13. Cf. Haberman's interesting comparison of Vaisnava role-playing with the acting method developed by Constantin Stanislavski: Acting as a Way of Salvation , 67-70.
14. See Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , for examples of the catalogues developed for sakhis (pp. 238-40) and for sakhas (pp. 245-47).
15. Some non- rasiks dispute the attribution of some of the "Agra-ali" songs to Agradas, claiming that they arc forgeries perpetrated by latter-day sectarians with a view to proving the antiquity of their tradition (Pandit Ramkumar Das; private conversation, July 1987). Such "forgeries" may, however, equally well reflect the widespread practice of assuming the voice and persona of a revered poet-saint in order to
express conventional sentiments associated with his teachings; see John Stratton Hawley, "Author and Authority in the Bhakti Poetry of North India," Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 2 (May 1988): 269-90.
16. Singh, Rambhakti mem sampraday , 9-10.
17. Ibid., 241-42.
18. Ibid., 307-9. On the Krsnaite side of the debate, see Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 94-114.
16. Singh, Rambhakti mem sampraday , 9-10.
17. Ibid., 241-42.
18. Ibid., 307-9. On the Krsnaite side of the debate, see Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 94-114.
16. Singh, Rambhakti mem sampraday , 9-10.
17. Ibid., 241-42.
18. Ibid., 307-9. On the Krsnaite side of the debate, see Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 94-114.
19. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 240-41.
20. Ibid., 253.
19. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 240-41.
20. Ibid., 253.
21. See, for example, the three-volume Manas commentary entitled Bal vinodini (For the amusement of children) by Mahant Gangadas of Ayodhya (Ayodhya: Maniramdas ki Chavni, 1969), in which the author regards himself and fellow devotees as child-playmates of Ram. Note also the spiritual practice of the famous nineteenth-century scholar Umapati Tripathi of Ayodhya, who scandalized his contemporaries by visualizing himself as the teacher of the youthful Ram; van der Veer, Gods on Earth , 13-14.
22. Poddar, ed., Ramcaritmanas , 7.75.5.
23. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 399.
24. Based on oral versions by Srinath Misra (13 February 1983) and Ramnarayan Sukla (3 August 1983). Singh gives a different version, in which Prayagdas is sent to Ayodhya by his guru: Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 402.
25. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 281; concerning the Sitayan , see p. 394.
26. Ibid., 403.
25. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 281; concerning the Sitayan , see p. 394.
26. Ibid., 403.
27. On the history of the Banaras Ram Lila, see Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text , chapter 5.
28. Singh, Rambhakti mem rasik sampraday , 365. While Singh implies that this invisible kingdom was meant to serve as an alternative to the cultural model presented by the Mughals, he points to the ironic fact that the physical details in which it was imagined were inevitably based on the most recent model of imperial grandeur—the Mughals themselves.
29. McGregor, "The Dhyan manjari of Agradas," 241-43.
30. Bhagavati Prasad Singh, " Bhusundi Ramayana and Its Influence on the Medieval Ramayana Literature," in The Ramayana Tradition in Asia , ed. V. Raghavan (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1980), 475-504, at p. 479; Bakker, Ayodhya , 142.
31. van der Veer, Gods on Earth , 165-72.
32. Singh, Ram bhakti mem rasik sampraday , 171.
33. Joseph T. O'Connell, "Social Implications of the Gaudiya Vaisnava Movement" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1970), 171-206; cited in Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 43-44.
34. Haberman, Acting as a Way of Salvation , 43.
35. Singh, Ram bhakti mem rasik sampraday , 365-66.
36. van der Veer, Gods on Earth , 37-40.
37. The title of the latter work poses difficulties for the translator, who may shy away from the (literal but perhaps misleading) "Nectar of the Phallus of Ram." According to B. P. Singh, a major portion of this text is indeed devoted to descriptions of Ram and Sita's dalliance, but bearing in mind the wider range of meanings of linga in Indian culture (as "symbol," "signifier," or "emblem of power'') one might do
better to render it "Nectar of the Essence of Ram"—it being understood that, for the rasik tradition, erotic energy is one of the Lord's essential attributes.
38. Bakker, Ayodhya , 110-17.
39. Singh, Ram bhakti mem rasik sampraday , 159; Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text , chapter 3.
40. Singh, Ram bhakti mem rasik sampraday , 472.
41. Ibid., 365-66.
40. Singh, Ram bhakti mem rasik sampraday , 472.
41. Ibid., 365-66.
42. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (New York: Fordham University Press, 1961), 84-86.