kantasammita

Kanta sammita – the infered.

Literary compositions in sanskrit ar either

·         Guru sammita             scriptures with do’s and don’t like the vedas.

·         Sakhi sammita             epics that make ethical lessons palpable and palatable.

·         Kantasammita             poetry and drama her things are not stated but is left to infernce.

Since I work more with poetry and drama, inferences play an important role in intepreting and presenting. One thing that stuck to me about both Ramayana and Mahabharat  is the corollaries that can be drawn

v  The life of a forest dweller is  romanticized.

v  The fact that it can be enjoyed if if one has the mind to attune to nature which vibrates in beauty and in that one can live in love and peace.

v  Ambition and violence are part of heroic ideals, they are not sinful in themelseves but become siful only when they are lead to other sinds.

v  Mans normal instincts demand legitimate satisfication and fulfilment. It is not sinful to satisfy them.

v  Violation of social harmony is a sin.

Interestingly Tapas deos not purify or enrich a character, for example Vishwamitra, his ego and aggression stays intact, it  empowered by his Tapas.

On Ramayana and Mahabharat

Contributing to a Anthology of Ramayana was an experience.


Presenting something new, or wrapping the old text into a new format was a challenge. While I was at it. So many thoughts, arguments surface and then vanish.

Somewhere along the way I figured, that the two epics that have achieved iconic worship status are so as we have never bothered to contemplate on it. If we were to use one word to sum up the epics then

Ramayana is all about compliance.

Mahabharata is about revolution.

Rama obeys Yadu disobeys

There is no division of kingdom Kingdom gets divided

Monogamy was upheld Both polygamy and polyandry are accepted

Social and war rules were honoured The rules have been bent and broken when the need arises.





Ramayana is greatly revered and worshipped, yet we are talking about destruction of the forest dwellers and their traditions. We venerating the Holocast at Lanka.

Hasyam Shurpanaka prakarnam is the definition of hasya, I fail to understand what is funny of disfiguring a woman. She was more educated than the women of Ayodhya, she came from a civilization that had different values and priorities from the ones of Ayodhya. We are conveniently ignoring the fact that Dasharatha did not even pretend to keep his King Kaikeya, about making Bharat the King, he just went ahead and announced Ram his successor. We are condoning and to a great extent even eulogising Rama’s act of denouncing Sita.

Mahabharat on the other hand tackles issues hands on. We have the necessary changed diagnosed and then dealt using either sama-bheda or danda.