130,/7he Collected Essays AK, Ramana oir: wit he practice of ansaon asa paces of tml ater {Rin veal minty. om nately, heap poetic magia nally, From Clasico to Bt am essiy that Ramanan sutra Ceres pt at se Ta xy and alte merging onthe periphery ofthe epi andes ‘Cerlds or Sansa north India, Rstorialy shape the subsequent pony and claro! Bai onthe ter apears nthe works lhe Si Tiss ars especly Nanas, Tekentogeher with sys Uise Ramavuna ata the Marat, an he her hex e559 09 stuck Tart ume nla ere, this essay inestes why, een in the istilleiuin tthe common ether can temo simple formula Tor-unty” or ners -oror"uny in Siversiy—in tein sub Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation How many Romayonas? Pee hundred? Thee thousand? At the end of some Ramavunas. question ssometimes asked: How many Ramavanas have there been” Andzhere ae stones that answer the question Here is (Ope day when Rama was siting on bis theone ising ell of. When it touched the eat, itmadea hoe inthe ground and disappeared moi. was gone. His asi Henchman, Hanuman, was this eet, Rama said 10 Hanuman, ‘Look. my rng i lost. Find i for me Now Hanuman can enter any ole, no matter how tiny. He a the power to become the smiles ofthe small an larger than the largest thing. So he took on any forma and went down the hole He ent and went an went and Stddenly fel into the netherwold ‘There were women down here, “Look, a tiny monkey! I fll fom above!” The they caught him ad placed fim 0 platter (ha. The King of Spits bhi). who lives nthe netherworld, ies 0 eat animals ‘SoFlanuman was sen ohn as pat of his diner long With his vege. lables. Hanuman sat onthe pater, wondering what to do. While this was pong on nthe netherworld, Rama satonhisthror eon theearth hove, Thesige Vasistha andthe god Brahm came see hit ‘Tey said to Rama, We wan! ota privately with you We det want anyone to her hat we sy or interrupt Do we agree? “All ght said Rama, well lk Thenthey sit, Laydowna ule. Hanyone comesinsweate thing his head shouldbe eto1321 The Collected Essays of AK. Ramanan twill be done” sa Rama, Who would be the most tustworthy person to guard the door? Hanumanhad gone downto fetch hein. Rama trested no onemorethan LLaksmana, so he asked Laksmana o stand by the door. ‘Don't allow anyone to enter he ordered [Laksmana wasstanding atthe door when he sage Vigvimita appear ced and ssid, “I need to see Rama at ace. I's urgent. Tell me, where is Rama” [Laksmapa sad, ‘Doo’ go in now: He is aking to some people I's import” "What is ther that Rm would hide from me” said Visvamita ‘st goin ight no [Laksmana sad, TM have to ask his permission before Team et you ‘Go in and ask then .ean't gon til Rima comes out, You'll have fo wait” ‘fyoudon'tgoinandannounce my presence, Mburthe entireking- dom of Ayodhya with a curse, said Visa, ‘Laksmana thought, IFT go ia ow, I'l die Buti don't go, this ho ‘headed man will burn dowa the kiagdom. All the subjects, all things living in, wilde I's Better that alone should die” Sohe went diht in Rima asked him, "What's the mater” “views s het “Send him in So Vieira went in. The private alk had already come to an end [Brahma and Vasgtha had cometo see Rima and say toh, "Your work inthe worldof human beingsisover, YourincarmationasRimnamus now be given up. Leave his bod, come up, and rejoin the gos That's all they wanted to 53 ‘Lakomana sad © Rims, ‘Brother, you should cut off my he.” Ramasaid, ‘Why? We had nothing nore to say. Nothing was le. So why should Tut off your head” ‘Laksmana sid, "You can’tdo that, Yu cant let me of because Fm ‘your brother There'libe blot on Ramis name. You dint spare your Wife, You sent her to he jungle, I nus be punish wil leave LLaksmana wasn avaarof Ses, the serpenton who Visi sleeps. Hisiime wasup too He went directly tothe river Saray anddiappeared inthe owing waters Three Hundhed Ramayanas 1133 When Laksmnanarelinguished his hoy, Rima summoned all his followers. Vbhisana, Sugrva, and oers and atranged forthe corona tim of is ein sons, Lava and Kus, Then Réma oo ener the river San Allthis while, Hanuma was in he neterworkl, When he was ill taken to the King of Spins, he kept repeating the name of Rama. Rims ima Rama. “Then the King of Spints asked, “Who ae you? ‘Hanamsa “Hanuma? Why have you come ere? "Rma’s rng fell int aoe. ve come to fetch it” ‘The King looked stound and showed him pater. On it were ‘thousands of tings. They were all Rims rings, The hing brought the pater to Hanuman, set down and said, Pick out your Rina ing and take ‘They were all exactly the same I don't know which one i sat Hanuman, shaking his ead "The King of Spirits sai, "There have been as many Rimas as there are ingsonthis later When youreturn gear, you wil tind RS, ‘Taisincarmation of Rima snow over. Whenever anincarmaton of RA isaboutiobe over, his ring allsdown Icollectthemandkeepthem. Now youcan go" ‘So Hanuman left! ‘This story i usualy tld co sugges that for every such Rima there isa Ramayan, The numberof Ramayana ad the range of her influence ‘in South and Southeast Asia ovr the pasttventy-five hundred years or ‘more at astonishing Justa ist languages which the Rima story is Found makes one gasp” Annamese, Balinese, Bengali, Cambodia, Chinese, Gujarati, Javanese, Kannada, Kashi, Khotanese, Lacan, ‘Malaysian, Marathi, Oriya Praknt, Sanskrit, Saba, Sinhalese, Tami Telugu, Thi Tibetan-to say nothing of Wester Ingvages. Through the centuries, some ofthese languages havehosted more thanone ling ofthe Rima story. Sanskrit fone conlains some twenty-five or more telings belonging to various narrative genes (epics, Aatyas or ornate poetic compositions, purdeus or old myihologial stones, and o forth). Tfwe add plays dance dramas, ander performances, noth the cls ‘Sealand folksradions.thenamberofRdnayanasprowseven ager To ‘hese st headed sculpture and bas-eliels. mask plays puppet pays134. The Collected Essays af AK Ramanyion snd shadows plas. nalthe many South and Southeast Asian culures* Camille Bulcke (1950), a stadent of the Ramin, counted three hdtedtllings H's no wonder tha even a ong ao as the Fourteenth century, Kumdravysa, a Kannada poet. chose fo wnte a Mahabharat because he heard the cosmic serpet which uphols the earth rosning tinder the burden of Ramayana poets (unkidanu phanniyardmavunada vig haradti In tis paper, indebted for its data fo numerous previous translatorsand scholars 1 wouldlike 0 sor out for myself and Thope forother, bow these handeedsoftellingsofastoryindiferent cal ‘ures languages, and eligous traditions relate to each other: what gels lranslated, wansplanted, vansposed VALMIKI AND KAMPAK: TWO AIALYAS. Obviously, these hundreds of telling dtfer from one another. {have ‘come 1o prefer the world lings to the usual rms versions or variants because the later terms can and tically do imply that there is an ‘invariant, anoigial or Ur-text-astally Valiiki's SanskritRamavana, the earliest and most prestigious of them all, Butas we sbll see iis not always Vallikisnarative thats cared fromone language to anoher. Tt would be useful to make some distinctions before we begin. The tcadtion self distinguishes between the Rama story (ramalaih) and texts composed bya specific person Valmiki, Karapan or Kriss, {orexample. Though may ofthe later are popolaly called Ramayaras Alike Kanpardmayanan), few texts actually ear the tle Ramayana: they are piven tiles like dmvatiram (The Incarnation of Rima), ‘Ramcarioaias (The Lake of the Acts of Rima), Ramakien (The Story ‘oF Rima) and 30 on. Theieltions to the Rama story as told by Valmiki also vary. This traitonl distinction Between kar (story) and kiya {oem parallels the Peach one between suet and rit ot the English ‘one between story and discourse (Chatman 1978), Is also analogous to ‘he distinction betweena senlenceandaspeechact-Thestory may beshe Same in two lings ut the discourse maybe vastly different Even the strocture and sequence of events may be the same, br the sivle details tone, and textore—and therefore the import—may be vastly differen. ere are tworeling ofthe same” episode, which occur atthe same point im the sequence of the rate. The fist from the Fest book (Balaton of Wabih's Sanskrt Ramatvanu: the second from the ist tanto (Palaknram of Kantpan'sPios@tavam in Tams Both marae the sory of Aaya Thvee Hundred Ramayanas 1195 Seeing Mi. Sanka’ white ite dirsng hy. he ages igh, sighing on he outskins Mii anata, aie, spooled and ovely asked the sue "Whale aly place sole un astra bt without hermit? ‘str ike so ear whose was Hearing Raghva's won the great sage "vsvamia, no re, expert in Wor nvwered Listen, ‘Righava, Tel you whose ashram ‘ya eatman in anger vas great Gautam’ hs ashram that seninds you of hewen, worshipped even bythe pas Lang ago. with Aas practised tye for cous years. Once, knowing tht Gata | was ana Ina (aed Thowsad Eyes) Ssershshand, tok onthe eves ofthe ape, an sat Abaya “Men pring hie dese dont ait ‘orth proper season. O you who haves prec dy Making ve ‘oth yoo that's what at ‘That wais of yours is lovely. ‘She knew st as nde fhe Thousand Byes {nthe gue othe sage, Yet she wroghenies woman nade ws her mid ofthe rs. As then er er being satisfied, she said othe gad.“ sated, ng ‘ofthe gods Go uch om here