Week 4: Rama's Exile (Reading Diary B)

One thing that I liked more about Buck's version of Ramayana as opposed to Narayan's was how they came to decide Rama should be made king. In Narayan's the decision was made secretly and sneakily while making sure Bharata was away, as though to limit Rama's competition. This seemed kind of low to me, especially when you see how Bharata reacts to his mother's schemes, that they should try to push him out of the way before crowning Rama. I liked that in Buck's version, it wasn't because Bharata was away that the king decides to make Rama king, but because of some special astrological occurrence, they decide to crown Rama, saying that it would be better if his brothers were here but it was a unique occurrence that would favor the event.

While Kaikeyi's betrayal of Rama happened much in the same way as in Narayan, because of the servant making her fear for her and Bharata's lives once Rama took the crown, Buck's version portrays Kaikeyi as much more conniving and self-serving. This was very apparent in the story about Kaikeyi trying to convince Dasharatha to teach her the language of animals, something he had sworn to never do. Even after being told that Dasharatha would die immediately after, if he ever told anyone, she still pushed him to teach her, knowing it would be his end.

I couldn't believe that Dasharatha took it as far as he did, by building his own funeral pyre to be burned on after he told Kaikeyi the secret, and she was alright with that, sitting on the funeral pyre, waiting for the secret and her husband to die. If he hadn't heard the animals, she would have let him kill himself to give up his secret knowledge. After that incident, I feel like the smartest thing to do would be to keep the king away from Kaikeyi as much as possible, because she obviously had too much power over him. Having this first incident included in the story, before Kaikeyi makes Dasharatha exile Rama and make Bharata king, made her character much less sympathetic, as obviously she didn't care about the king.

Much of the exile story is very similar to Narayan's, with only a few small differences. I did like the extra stories, like about Kaikeyi from Gahu, I also liked the extra back story behind Dasharatha's death, with the boy he killed in the forest. It seemed much more believable that that would cause him grief than just his son leaving when he would return after his exile.

Dasharatha and the Blind Boy's Family. Wikimedia.