Revisited Ravana

We all know enthralling story of Rama, the incarnation of God, who slew Ravana, the evil demon of darkness. 

It is also true that in the pages of mythology or history , as always, it is the version told by the victors that lives on. The voice of the vanquished remains lost in silence or he is painted as villain . 

So  what if Ravana and his people had a different story to tell?

Of course the story from the perspective of Ravan and his tribe is told in few versions of Ramayana found especially in countries like Thailand, Cambodia .

Ravana as a misunderstood hero, Ram as a righteous man strait- jacketed by the scheming Brahmins and all the virtuous characters in the mainstream Ramayana now have shades of grey.

Ravana in popular culture is often depicted as having ten heads. Many people say it is an allegorical representation, ten heads signified ten brains – high intellect & knowledge. Ravana is depicted as a ten-faced character as along with intellect he also embraced the nine base emotions of anger, pride, jealousy, happiness, sadness, fear, selfishness, passion & ambition. He did not want to be a God; Ravana wanted to be a complete man.

Ramayana is in fact a  story of conflict between raksh tribe  who were  the original natives of large part of India  while the Devas probably came from outside. Ravana was an Asura while Ram was a Deva.

Traditional Indian wisdom places importance on the control of one's emotions and projects the intellect alone, as the being supreme. The great King Mahabali once advised  Ravana to shun the other nine base emotions of anger; pride; Jealousy; happiness; sadness; fear; selfishness; passion and ambition. Intellect alone is to be revered.

In reply to Mahabali, Ravana answers thus:

"Why should pride and vanity be held in contempt? I feel proud of myself for having immense energy and the will to succeed. If I struggle hard in my life to achieve success, I have every right to be proud of it; I have every right to bask in vanity and luxury. Success breeds pride and vanity. And pride is the only reward for success.

Ambition is the key to progress. Without ambition, men/women would have remained hunters. There would not have been wheels, horse carts or chariots, magnificent cities, temples, and palaces, or majestic sailing ships.

No mendicant living in a forest ever conceived a great city; no sage was determined to build the great temples, no saint desired to build great ships for commerce and trade. These were built by people who had pride in their veins, anger in their minds, who cried when they felt sad and laughed when they were happy, who were frightened when confronted by forces or events bigger than themselves but strove forward with determination and selfish love for all that they cherished. Intelligence is just a tool to serve our emotions and I want to live as God intended man to live.

Ravan is on record to say that his  aim is neither become God nor to achieve moksha and he does not believe in a heaven where you will be given all that you purposefully denied yourself in this world. He always wanted to  live like a man and die as one,  a man with ten faces -- Dasamukha.or Dashanan. 

Ram, by comparison, seems boring — a rule-upholder who never does anything spontaneous or dramatic. He always does the right thing, whether he likes it or not, and does not seem like much fun. It is natural therefore to be a fan of Ravan, to be seduced by his power, to be enchanted by his glamour, and to find arguments that justify his actions. 

On the other hand , Ravana was always a man ahead of his times. He was a pioneer, the one who debunked the caste system as in Vedas and Upanishads . 

The Rakshas or Asur tribe believed in nature worship and universal identity without any bias for caste or creed and gender. The other tribes had deep caste divides and wanted to keep that alive. Ravana as a social reformer took this message deep down to other tribal areas albeit by force which was at odds with the social fabric.

Ravana propagated "Raksh Neeti" which meant equality for all. The other rulers were ought to get distressed who wanted the demarcation to be preserved. 

Fast-forwarding to famous Shurpanka's episode, Shurpanka was appointed as the "Governor" of the region where Ram, Lakshman, and Sita had entered. As the present norm states,  during their Vanvas  entry amounted to aggression, unfortunately, which was taken up by Shurpanaka. The famous "enticement" which again has been demonized by popular folklore and TV serials is silent on this issue. In "Vayam Rakshaam " written by famous Hindi fiction writer Acharya Chatur Sen Shastri , it is beautifully argued that Shurpanka was unjustly manhandled. Imagine a girl (who happens to the queen), in all fairness assuming asked for marriage, is manhandled, beaten and have had her nose cut, its so unbecoming of a man.

Our eyebrows were raised recently when women were attacked at a pub, how about this now? Isn't it inhuman, firstly you enter a territory which is not yours, then you manhandle the chieftain? and that too when she is a woman, where is the culture?

Rama wanted to construct the famous "sethu" and needed a pandit to do the commencement puja or ritual. The only pandit nearby was Ravana, the best amongst all. Ravana came and performed Puja for his "enemy" dutifully and blessed him.

Rama wanted to pick an auspicious time to start the battle. Rama needed an astrologer. Everyone unanimously suggested none other than Ravana. Heeding to the suggestion, Rama went to Ravana to ask him a good time. Ravana as a great professional gave him the best muhurta which (9 Navaratri) and blessed him with "Vijaya Bhava".

Finally, Rama tired of all weaponry, picked up his Brahmaastra, the equivalent of a nuclear weapon in the modern age. This weapon technically was never supposed to be used in war as it was more of a deterrence. Ravana had this weapon as well. But seeing Rama open this weapon, Ravana did not open his Brahmastra (which he had) because he knew that had he done that, entire humanity and ecology would have been finished, imagine 2 hydrogen bombs colliding. He opted out and gladly accepted death and defeat for the larger purpose.

In fact, before his death, Ravana makes a request to Rama to protect Humanity and Ecology to its fullest!

Ravana is believed to be raised as  poor boy with the dreams of building a great Asura Empire. This journey is outstanding & he simply rose as king of Lanka. But the burden of kingship would start taking its toll and the character would change over time. Just like an ordinary human Ravana would start misbehaving & suspecting his senior advisors, be cruel towards his subjects and even humiliate his mother & siblings in public. Ravana himself was aware of how he had changed and in the end he would realize how he had placed his trust in the wrong people.

Ravana’s dream of building a great Asura Empire was where laws would be just and every individual would have the opportunity to rise above his station in life by hard work and a bit of luck.

The Brahmins are the ones who devised a rigid social order where a person’s birth decided his/her entire life, the women were suppressed and treated as commodities and the Brahmins manipulated everyone including Ram to do their bidding.

Ravan’s tale show epic rise of him as well as his tribe 3000 years back . Until now, no Rakshak  has dared to tell the tale. But perhaps the time has come for the dead and the defeated to speak. 

“For thousands of years, Ravan have been vilified and his  death is celebrated year after year in every corner of India. Why? Was it because I challenged the Gods for the sake of his  sister? Was it because he freed a race from the yoke of caste-based Deva rule? You have heard the victor’s tale so far , the Ramayana. Time has come to hear other side of story the tale of the vanquished.

The ancient Asura empire lay shattered into many warring petty kingdoms reeling under the heel of the Devas. In desperation, the Asuras look up to a young saviour – Ravana. Believing that a better world awaits them under Ravana.  With a will of iron and a fiery ambition to succeed, Ravana leads his people from victory to victory and carves out a vast empire from the Devas. It is then that Ravana, by one action, changes the history of the world.

As indicated, the reason behind the clash of ramayan started from Shrupnakha who was sister of Ravana . She got attracted toward the beauty of Ram and Lakshmana and want any of them to be her groom as there was ritual in ancient time that bride used to  decide her on groom and a man can have more than one wives she proposed Rama but Lakshman being very much agressive in nature lost his temper and show a very unrespectfull and rude behaviour and  attacked on her face and left a deep cut on her face causes bleeding from nose somewhat simlar to throwing acid in morden time due to which now she will not able to marry any one in her life when Ravan come to know about this incident , he lost his temper and decided to take revenge but if he would have  killed Lakshmana it will not be a revange as there is old saying in hindi khoon ka badla khoon izzat ka badla izzat so he decided to do something which will effect there pride, so he decided to  kidnap sita ,he did the same but  he had certain value system he never touched sita , on the other hand Ram did  not trust  her  and asked sita to undergo through  agni pariksha , and even asked her to leave his kingdom just on hearsay.