Allegorical Interpretation

The technique of treating the Manas as an allegory and viewing' each of its characters as symbolic of an emotional or spiritual state is not new;^[81] it is best exemplified at present by the work of the renowned but controversial Ramkinkar Upadhyay, whose interpretation of the epic—his characteristic bhav —is frequently termed "metaphysical" or "mystical" (adhyatmik ) by his admirers.^[82] Whereas many contemporary expounders favor what might be called a "fundamentalist" approach to the

text—viewing its events and characters in an extremely literal fashion and constantly emphasizing the supposed historicity of the story—Ramkinkar, though not denying that the events of the epic happened as described, reinterprets them in order to emphasize their relevance to archetypal and hence contemporary human situations. It appears to be particularly this feature of his pravacan that has won the admiration of the urban, college-educated people who make up a large part of his audience.

At their best, Ramkinkar's discourses are so cohesive and seamlessly woven around a central theme or image that it is difficult to single out brief passages to convey their flavor effectively. In the Ayodhya performance mentioned earlier, for example, the vyas developed his remarks around the metaphorical image of a mirror, symbolic of the Manas itself, and its comparison with a picture or painting.

If, when reading the Ramcaritmanas you feel that it describes something that happened in the Treta Age, then you are looking at a picture. But if, when reading the ancient story, you feel that it is also the truth of the present age, the truth of our own lives, the truth of our difficulties, then it means that you are using it as a mirror.^[83]

Rhetorical questions concerning the underlying meaning (abhipray , tatparya ) of characters and events form a recurring leitmotif in Ramkinkar's performances, and the answers he provides to these questions nearly always involve symbolic interpretations. Thus, the fact that King Dashrath, in Ayodhyakand^[*] , gazes into a mirror while seated on his throne surrounded by courtiers singing his praise is interpreted by Ramkinkar as a demonstration of the need for those in authority to turn their attention from flattering voices (both internal and external) and to engage in intense self-examination. The fact that the king's crown has slipped to one side is likewise given a symbolic interpretation by the vyas :

And when he looked in the mirror, his gaze went in the direction of a defect: he saw that his crown had become crooked and he straightened it. And what is the significance of that? The crown, you know, is the symbol of authority. And, brother, it is in the nature of authority to constantly slip away. This crown of authority never resides on anyone's head for all time; in some way or other it invariably slips away.^[84]

The just king, he continues, is not afraid to consult the mirror of truth,

even in public view; but, he adds, Tulsidas has deliberately refrained from mentioning even a single mirror in Lanka, Ravan's golden city of self-deception.

At times, Ramkinkar supports his allegorical designations by citing the epic. Thus, in discussing Ram's slaying of Taraka (1.209.5,6) he "proves" his interpretation of the female demon as a symbol of despair by the clever use of a line from an earlier passage in which Tulsi compares the deeds of Ram in human form with the wonders wrought by the Lord's name. Again using the image of the mirror, the expounder asks his listeners to look beneath the surface of the story to see its relevance to their own lives:

The story goes that this Taraka, you know, was a woman of the Treta Age who became a demon. But really, this Taraka is present in our own lives. Look in the mirror, and she is there. And who is Taraka?

For the sake of the sage, Ram annihilated
the daughter of Suketu, with her army and her son.^[85] Together with weakness and sorrow, the devotee's despair
is voided by the name, as night by the sun.
1.24.4,5

So Goswami-ji says, Taraka is the despair in life.^[86]

By a similar symbolic substitution, Shiva's bow, which Ram breaks to win Sita's hand, is interpreted as "egotism" (ahamkar^[*] ), over which Shiva is said to be the presiding deity. This association, like that of "intellect" with the god Brahma, is supported by Ramkinkar's reading of a line from Lanka^[*]kand^[*] in which Ravan's wife Mandodari, urging her husband not to fight Ram, describes the Lord's "universal body" (visvarup ).

Shiva is his ego, Brahma his intelligence,
the Moon his mind, and Vishnu his consciousness.
7.15a

It is in part for such "strained" interpretations that Ramkinkar is criticized by some religious leaders as well as by other expounders. "He is leading people astray," one elderly vyas told me, "because he does not interpret the Manas in accordance with the Veda, which is what Tulsidas intended." A prominent mahant of Banaras concurred, "His interpretations are fabricated out of his own mind; Goswami-ji never even

imagined such things!" In an interview, Ramkinkar countered such criticism by observing wryly that anyone who said anything new could expect to be similarly reviled. Hadn't the Brahmans of Banaras assailed Tulsidas himself for his supposed "innovations"?

And others will come after me, and they too will ponder in their hearts, they too will develop their ideas from the perspective of a welling up of feeling; and those same dogmatic people will oppose them too. Only then they will use my ideas in their arguments, saying "What he said, that is ancient and traditional."^[87]

Certainly, it appears to an outsider that Ramkinkar is guilty of no more strained interpretation of the text than many another expounder. That he gives novel twists to certain verses in order to advance his arguments can hardly be called an innovation; by all accounts, the popular nineteenth-century Ramayani Vandan Pathak was guilty of a far more tortuous manipulation of Tulsi's words. What sets Ramkinkar apart, aside from his singular commercial success, is his tendency to move away from a literal interpretation of the story in order to make it more relevant to the concerns of his audience. The tremendous response that his effort has elicited—reflected in the designation "emperor of Katha " (Kathasamrat^[*] ) popularly accorded him and in the frank admiration for him expressed by many younger performers—suggests that Ramkinkar's allegorical style of interpretation will exert a major influence over the shape of Manas-katha to come.