Epics of India Storybook

Buck devotes time to the character of Malyavan during the siege of Lanka. (Malyavan is the rakshasa who originally approached Viswakarman to build the city of Lanka; he and his brother Sumali survived the attack of the gods on the city and went underground after its defeat.) I think there are a number of reasons Buck may have decided to include this character:

• His reappearance late in the story provides a connection to the past. The past is important for the Ramayana: so many of its events depend upon events before the beginning of the story (Ravana warring against heaven, Vishnu killing the brahmana's wife, Dasaratha killing the boy at the stream, Kaikeyi saving Dasaratha's life). Malyavan reminds us how the rakshasas came to Lanka and how they lost it once before.

• Malyavan's desires are good and pure, and he provides a contrast to the evil of Ravana and the other rakshasas. He wants to live in a beautiful land, in a palace worthy of the gods. He does nothing to incite the gods to anger, but he must war against them in defense of this land he has grown to love. He longs to return to that land, but he does not wish evil to those who live there instead of him. In a way, his purity helps provide needed justification of the survival of Lanka with Vibishana as its king after Rama destroys its wicked leader.

• I think Malyavan's presence demonstrates some of the inherent difficulties in generational gaps. Many young people do not respect older people. Young often means fresh and new, while old means out-of-touch and obsolete. But older people have usually gained wisdom through their life experiences. Malyavan is from a different era than the other rakshasas. He has wisdom to share with the counsel, but he cannot communicate this wisdom to the younger generation. They are no doubt eager to get him out of the way and get on with it. Overcoming these difficulties are extremely important in an oral culture or any culture where wisdom passed to the next generation is the primary source of knowledge.

  (Perhaps the wisdom that Malyavan wanted to share with the counsel included the fact that this war was not as important as they felt it was; for me, Malyavan's presence served as a counter-balance to my tendency to over-exaggerate the importance of events in my life ... read more.)

I realize that Buck may have had other and completely different reasons for including Malyavan in the story. But I feel that Malyavan's presence emphasizes these three ideas that I believe are important to the story as a whole.