#6B8E23 Dr.R.Nagaswamy 27-Mar-2007 Recently Suvira Jaiswal has made some sweeping statements about the origin of Rāma cult in her lecture at the Indian History congress at Kozhikode. As they are of great concern to Indian religious ethos they are examined here from the point of available historial data. Jaiswal states that “the Rāma cult gradually emerged as a full fledged cult in the Drāviḍa (Tamil) country. The Vaishnava Ālvārs sang their favourite deities and associated them with existing temples and this gave scope for identifying various places as events associated with characters of Rāmāyana and celebrating the existing temples as that of Rāma.” Any study of Ālvārs would show that the Ālvars based their devotion solely on the basis of Vedas, the two epics Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata and the 18 mahāpurāṇas, without which Ālvārs’ Bhakti doesn’t exist. All these are clearly northern traditions that have become part and parcel of the Dravida country and there is no question of the cult emerging in the Dravida country. It only shows, Rāma and characters of Rāmāyaṇa have become so popular already by the time of the Ālvārs who sang them as their favourite deities. The view now expressed is self contradictory. “Clear evidence of setting up of Rāma shrines for the incarnation of Viṣṇu was available from the 10th cent on wards in the Chōḻa and Pāṇdya Kingdoms, which had been the locale of Ālvār activities which came to be incorporated into temples”. The first four Ālvārs Poykaiyār, Peyar, Bhutattāḻvār, and Thirumaḻicai Ālvār hailed from northern part of Tamilnad in the Pallava territory and their work extended to the whole of Tamilnad from Vēnkaṭam, (the modern Thiruppati) in the north, to extreme South and other places. It is wrong to confine the works of the Ālvārs to the Chōḻa and Pāṇdya territory. The view that Rāma cult spread to north India from the South is not supported by what is available in hundreds of inscriptions, art pieces, history, literature and all available factual data not only in India but also in the whole of South East Asia. Considerable number of Terracotta sealing have been found in northern India that date back from 2nd Cent BC. In the village of Sugh, State of Haryana, Yamunanagar District, a terracotta figurine of Rama assigned to 2nd cent BC has been reported by Prof. Devendra Handa. Rāvaṇa carrying Sītā has been found in terracotta assigned to the same period in UP which is now housed in the Allahabad Museum. Hanuman has been found in Nagarjunakonda in Andhrapradesh. A number of Terracotta have been found at a place called nacha khera depicting Rāmāyaṇa scenes with the verses of Vālmiki Rāmāyaṇa inscribed on them that are ascribed to the Gupta period, 4th cent. One such Terracotta is now in the Metropolitan Museum USA. A number of brick temples of the Gupta period 4-5th cent, all in North India carry series of Rāmāyaṇa scenes as at Bhitragaon, Shravasti and others. In the last mentioned site a complete series of Rāmāyaṇa showing the influence of the great epic on the life of the people is seen. The temple at Devgarh assigned to 5th cent, well known to Indologist all over the world carries a beautiful panel showing Rām and Lakshmana in stone that can be seen even to day. The presence of such overwhelming images, and artifacts found known to all scholars, attest to the fully developed Rāma cult in Northern India unquestionably prior to the time of the Vaishnavite Ālvārs of Tamilnadu. Three terracotta images of Rāma, Lakshmana, and Hanumān assignable to the Gupta period 5th cent CE are illustrated here that would speak for themseves. It is not only in India but through out South East Asian countires like Cambodia where the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmiki was so popular long before the Ālvārs that, the phrases of Vālmiki Rāmāyaṇa are found in the earliest inscription found 5th cent in Cambodia which repeats the words “tapas svādhyāya nirata”. Also there are references in such early times, the tradition of depositing the manuscripts of Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata in the temples built in Cambodia in more than one inscriptions that accounts for the presence over several hundred local versions of Rāmāyaṇa in the South East Asian Countries very much earlier than 10th cent. Assigned by the writer mentioned above. Rāmāyaṇa is a living faith through out south East Asia and is considered as much of theirs as that of Indians. It has been demonstrated with the help of Sculptures that the early depictions of Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata in the south East is closer to the original authors of The epic Vyāsa and Vālmiki by scholars like Son Soubert. A study of south Indian inscriptions would show that long before to the date quoted for the Pāṇdya and Chōḻa rulers (10th cent) cited by the above writer, the Pallavas of northern Tamilnadu were greatly inspired by the Rāmāyaṇa cult. They assumed title like Abhirāma, Saṅgrāmarāma etc. The Pallava ruler Rājasimha, the author of Māmallapuram assumed several titles ending with Rāma which are recorded in Kāñchipram and Māmallapuram Inscriptions. Another curious argument the above writer has mentioned is that “the the Rama temples were called sacred Ayodhya would lend credence to the view that Ayodhya was only mythological and the present Ayodhya in north India is not the original Ayodhya”. Sacred is only an auspicious prefix and we have several royal copper plate charters of the Pallava kings of 4th cent onwards that call the city of Kāñchipuram as Sacred Kāñchi. It does not mean Kāñchipuram is mythological and not real. There are thousands of villages and Towns in Tamilnadu which prefix the term sacred to their names like Thiru-araṅgam, Tiru-ālavay, Thiruk-koyilur, Thiru-allikkeni, Thiru-mayilāpore, and so on and no historian would call any of them mythological and not real. However there several early inscriptions in Tamilnadu that calls Rāma temples not as Sacred Ayodhya but as “the temple of Lord of Ayodhya” . The inscriptions in Tamilnadu prove that Rāma was associated always with the northern Ayodhya. This further corroborated by references to Kṛṣṇa in Tamil inscriptions as “The Lord of Kurukshetra, Lord of Brindavana, Lord of Dwaraka ”. It is after the Northern Mathura of Kṛṣṇa, the Madurai of the Tamil Country is named and came to be called “Ten Maturai” southern Maturai and the northern one called “Vaṭa Maturai”. To call that Northern Ayodhya did not exist in reality but only in myth, without an understanding of northern and southern tradition, is clearly a total and wishful distortion. It is also necessary to study the works of Early Ālvārs in original to understand the place of Rāmabhakti in Tamilnadu for it is claimed by the above writer, that the Rāma cult emerged from the works of Ālvārs. Peyar, Poykaiyar, and Bhutattālvār are three early Ālvārs who were held contemporaries and said to have lived in the 6th cent.CE. A reference to their work show Rāmabhakti was not a new introduction but was already at its height. Events from Rāmāyaṇa are already reflected in the Sangam literature and also in the Tamil Epic, Silappadikaram long before the Ālvārs. The supreme nature of Rāmabhakti is sung by Poykai Ālvār, who sings that one can get his troubles, sins and diseases removed by taking refuge in the sacred feet of Rāma, who destroyed that brute Rāvaṇa, who captured a woman and imprisoned her in Lanka. Sung in one full verse this is a clear indication that Rāma was venerated and worshipped. Many episodes connected with the Rāmāyaṇa are sung by all the three Ālvārs. Rāma going after the golden deer, getting separated from Sītā, killing the deer, pirecing the seven maramara trees with one arrow, Sītā being imprisoned at Lanka, Rāma building a bridge across the ocean, Rāma destroying the city of Lanka and killing Rāvaṇa in a fierce battle are all narrated by the Ālvārs. It must also be mentioned that Rāma and Kṛṣṇa are jointly described in many poems and are also held identical. The other avatars of Viṣṇu, like Kūrmavatara, Varāhavatāra, Trivkramavatāra and Kṛṣṇvatara are sung together with Rāma which conclusively prove the Ālvārs sing Rāmāyaṇa of Northern India and not create a new cult. It is not only the Ālvāras who sing the Rāmāyaṇa episodes the Saiva Saints Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar sing episodes from Rāmāyaṇa. Sambandar sing the Rāvaṇa episodes in every hymn of his Tēvāram which nullifies the claim that Rāmāyaṇa is later. It was part and parcel all sections of the society. Neither the study of Ālvārs, nor the study of Art, history, inscriptions, monumental temples or literature nor the study of the whole South East Asian scenario lend any support to this new view which is totally unscientific and deserves to be rejected as unhistorical. Illustrations ../images/Rama Cult1.jpg 1. Terracotta panel showing Rama and Lakshmana seated beneath a prabha, og the age of the Guptas, 5th cent.CE, in the Aisatic Society, New york, (from Bhitragaon region). ../images/Rama Cult2.jpg 2. Terracotta panel showing Lakshmana and Hanuman standing behind, Gupta age , 5th cent. CE in Aldsdrof collection. ../images/Rama Cult3.jpg 3. Terracotta panel showing Rama and Lakshmana surrounded by Monkeys, Gupta museum, 5th cent, CE noe the Museum Patna,