The Ramayana : The Myth or our Religious history

The Ramayana is, without doubt, one of the greatest stories ever told. Valmiki's Ramayana, composed sometime in the 3rd century was probably the compila­tion of a much earlier oral tradition. It is therefore a story told in many different ways in many countries, as also in many different parts of India. The Ramayana, therefore, is not the exclusive tradition of India's Hindus.
In Buddhist Jataka tales Ram was an earlier avatar of Buddha while in the ancient Jain tradition Ram was a noble soul incapable of taking the life of Ravana who could never have been a demonic eater of flesh or drinker of blood as is com­monly depicted.
In Sri Lanka, Ravana is the great hero while Ram is depicted as the blue-faced invader from the north. In Thailand, the faith­ful Hanuman is no celibate but a mis­chievous womaniser. The story is told in many different ways in Bali, Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries where the Ramayana is part of a revered and celebrated local tradition. They would baulk at the idea that the epic story belonged exclusively to the Hin­dus or Indians.
There are many versions of the Ramayana within India itself. Although he is highly revered among the Brahmins, Ram was not respected by many among the lower castes who were appalled at the treacherous killing of Bali or the killing of the Sambukha simply because he was a Shudra who dared to perform austerities and read the Vedas.
Women in parts of Andhra, Bengal and Karnataka sing songs about Sita and mock Ram's shabby treatment of this virtuous lady and her two sons. In Valmiki's Ramayana, Ram was the mortal hero of a great legend. He was only raised to an object of divine worship in North India after the 16th century when Goswami Tulsidas of Ayodhya wrote the lyrical Ramcharitmanas.
The geography of the epic is an enduring mystery. Since nothing of significance has been found at any of the sites mentioned in the Ramayana, the story might have been myth or the events described could have occurred in places beyond the geographical limits of what has come to be defined in recent times as India.
A river named the Syr Darya that flows through Kirghistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan through the city of Aijwal, that is phonetically not too dissimilar to Ayodhya. and Kashgarh, still called Kashi, is east of it while Samarkand, earlier the Markandaya of the Puranas, is to its north-west. So it is possible that Lanka might have been a piece of land beyond the several water bodies in central Asia. Wandering bards and storytellers carried tales by word of mouth. While at its core, every story might have had an historical basis, storytellers tended to exaggerate the nobi­lity of the hero, the beauty of the heroine, the male­volence of demons, the magnificence of their palaces and the power of their weapons.
These exaggerations caused distor­tions in both reli­gion and history. So every religious tradition carries not only the words and philosophies of their prophets and founders but also the baggage of many myths and customs. The stories in the Old Testament long predated Jesus who also never said agyord about Christmas or Easter while Eid and Ramzan were Arab traditions that had existed for centuries before Prophet Muhammad. There ai|| many accounts about the heroes of the Vedas and Puranas who are not deified.
God may have created Man but Man created religion that is not as sacred as God. The Arab occupation of Jerusalem involved almost no persecution of Jews or other faiths but the Christian rulers in a distant Europe, a thousand years after the crucifixion, mainly seeking to control the trade routes from China and India, spurred millions of their innocent followers to lay down their lives in the Crusades to save the 'Holy Land'.
The Taliban continues to exploit Islamic' concepts that are not found in the Qur'an. It is not surprising then that in a climate of opportunism, Ram, too, is sought to be appropriated by leaders today for political ends.