Epics of India Storybook

The religious piety of the demons struck me more than anything else in this week’s reading. I was surprised to see Indrajit’s devotion to religious practices and to hear characters talk about Ravana’s former piety. These scenes helped me to understand the earlier scene in which Ravana was granted his invincibility.

When Ravana approached Indrajit about fighting against Rama, Indrajit originally encouraged Ravana to follow Dharma. He defended Dharma and the gods to Ravana, claiming that Dharma alone exists in the universe. Indrajit said of Ravana that he “grew strong by following Dharma and by sacrifice” (317). He received gifts for releasing Indra and realized those gifts through religious sacrifice. (The chariot drawn by tigers coming out of the fire was for me one of the most mythical moments, and therefore one of my favorites, in the whole story.) Yet after all of this, he still fought against Truth, against Dharma—which he claimed was on Rama’s side (318).

The scene between Ravana and Brahma started making a little more sense to me after I read about Indrajit this week. Having grown up in a Protestant environment, I find the idea that the gods delight in ritualistic religious practices somewhat foreign—especially religious practices that involve harming oneself. All I knew was the apostle Paul, “These [practices] have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2).

Originally, the scene with Brahma and Ravana made little sense to me. I believed Ravana was acting masochistically, depressed that his race had been forced from their home. I also thought that Brahma was simply disgusted by Ravana’s actions and that he did not want Ravana to kill himself (perhaps out of pity for one of his creations), so he granted him anything he wanted.

Brahma was not exactly pleased with Ravana’s acts (29), most likely because of their severity—but these kinds of acts did please the gods. Kumbhakarna and Indrajit both refer to Ravana’s former piety. Kumbhakarna remarks that Ravana’s education, his “read[ing] of the holy Veda and throw[ing his] heads into the fire” (300), was wasted if her were stealing another man’s wife. I began to see Ravana and the other demons in terms of their piety. Even though Brahma thought that Ravana’s actions were severe, he granted Ravana his desires because his actions were pious.