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Augmenting the Past: Historical and Political Consciousness in Vālmīki’s Uttarakāṇḍa

Augmenting the Past: Historical and Political Consciousness in Vālmīki’s Uttarakāṇḍa The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, although widely renowned as a kāvya, and, indeed, as the very origin and inspiration of the entire genre of poetry, is also understood to be an itihāsa, a history. It shares, in fact, both non-mutually exclusive genre designations with its sister epic, the Mahābhārata. Nonetheless, the central books of the work, particularly kāṇḍas two through six, in large measure read as much like a romance as they do an account of human military and political history. In this article, I argue that the lack of such history in these books was a concern of the authors of the epic’s seventh and final kāṇḍa, the Uttarakāṇḍa, and that one of the several functions of this important but generally understudied, frequently criticized and often excised book is to remedy this perceived lack. In support of this argument, I compare the treatment of history in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata and examine a series of largely ignored Uttarakāṇḍa passages in which the authors appear to revise and extend the military and political history of the earlier kāṇḍas in ways suggestive of their reading of the Mahābhārata. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in History SAGE

Augmenting the Past: Historical and Political Consciousness in Vālmīki’s Uttarakāṇḍa

Goldman, Robert P.
Studies in History , Volume 34 (2): 25 – Aug 1, 2018
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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 2018 SAGE Publications
ISSN
0257-6430
eISSN
0973-080X
DOI
10.1177/0257643018772406
Publisher site
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Abstract

The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, although widely renowned as a kāvya, and, indeed, as the very origin and inspiration of the entire genre of poetry, is also understood to be an itihāsa, a history. It shares, in fact, both non-mutually exclusive genre designations with its sister epic, the Mahābhārata. Nonetheless, the central books of the work, particularly kāṇḍas two through six, in large measure read as much like a romance as they do an account of human military and political history. In this article, I argue that the lack of such history in these books was a concern of the authors of the epic’s seventh and final kāṇḍa, the Uttarakāṇḍa, and that one of the several functions of this important but generally understudied, frequently criticized and often excised book is to remedy this perceived lack. In support of this argument, I compare the treatment of history in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata and examine a series of largely ignored Uttarakāṇḍa passages in which the authors appear to revise and extend the military and political history of the earlier kāṇḍas in ways suggestive of their reading of the Mahābhārata.

Journal

Studies in History – SAGE

Published: Aug 1, 2018

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