Context of two epics

Any study of the Mahabharata necessitates a reading of the Ramayana

Most people think that the Ramayana is too idealistic while the Mahabharata is more realistic. But on closer observation, it becomes evident that the two epics are two sides of the same coin. Both are tales of Vishnu's incarnations.

In one, the Ramayana, he is the rule keeper. In the other, the Mahabharata, he is the rule maker. In one, he is king. In the other, he is kingmaker. In one, he is predictable and dependable. In the other, he is manipulative and mercurial.

Yet both are concerned about dharma social order. And in both, desire is the disruptive force. Ultimately, both Rama and Krishna triumph, but each one pays a price: Rama has to abandon the innocent Sita under social pressure while Krishna has to watch his children kill each other.



Deconstruction of the two epics reveals that the two epics complement each other. They are part of a grand 'Vedic' continuum. Being constituents of Vaishnava literature, they must be seen within the context of the Vaishnava world-affirming philosophy and hence must be contrasted from the Shaiva world-denying philosophy.
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Vaishnava and Shaiva literature, in turn, must be contrasted from Shakta or Goddess literature. The former discuss responses to the challenge of life while the latter focuses on the nature of the challenge that is life.
Together, the Vaishnava, Shaiva and Shakta worldviews are narrative expressions of a wider thought process, whose principles are rooted in the Vedas and germinated in the Upanishads. Any attempt to study the Mahabharata in isolation is to understand only a part of a grand puzzle.

The Bhagavata, the holiest of Vaishnava literature, attempts to weave the Mahabharata with the Ramayana. Not only do the protagonists, Rama and Krishna, have a common root in Vishnu, the antagonists Ravana and Kumbhakarna of the Ramayana and Shishupala and Dantavakra of the Mahabharata are incarnations of Vishnu's doorkeepers, living out a curse until it is time to return home.

Devi Bhagavata, the Shakta literature, presents Sita and Draupadi as forms of the Goddess. Sita and Draupadi are the heroines of the epics. Sita is the wife of Rama, Draupadi is the common wife of the five Pandavas. She is a friend of Krishna. As Goddess, she can only be a wife of a king.
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Rama is the great king, capable of taking care of her alone. The Pandavas are lesser kings, unable to take care of her collectively, hence needing Krishna. In both epics, the unbinding of the heroine's hair is associated with the collapse of order.

Sita's hair becomes loose when she is abducted and Draupadi's hair becomes loose after she is gambled away by her husbands. Sita is rescued but is forced to leave the kingdom by Rama's subjects who reject a queen of soiled reputation. Draupadi has her revenge, washes her hair with the blood of her abusers, the Kauravas, and ties it with their entrails, but loses all her children in the great war.

Hanuman, the monkey-god, is the only character to participate in both epics. In both, he leads the heroes to victory, by participation in the Ramayana and by presence (on Arjuna's banner) in the Mahabharata.

The authors of both epics participate in the epics, thus informing readers that the tales are not fantasies, they are reports. Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, is a reformed thief, who gives shelter to Sita after she is abandoned by Rama.

In his hermitage are born Rama's sons who narrate the Ramayana for the first time during a yagna conducted by Rama. The author of the Mahabharata is Vyasa, who is the biological father of Pandu and Dhritarashtra, hence grandfather of the Pandavas and Kauravas.

His epic is also narrated for the first time during a yagna conducted by the great grandson of the Pandavas, Janamajeya, son of Parikshita, who is the son of Abhimanyu, who is the son of Arjuna and Krishna's sister, Subhadra.

The Ramayana in fact is narrated in the Mahabharata. It happens during the exile of the Pandavas after they gamble away their kingdom. Yudhishtira encounters the sage Markandeya and mourns his fate. "No king, I am sure, has suffered as much as I," he says. The sage smiles and says, "Yes there was. His name was Ram.

And while you will endure the family for 13 years, he did it for 14. While you are responsible for your misfortune, he was merely obeying his father and was suffering for no fault of his own. And while you complain about your fate, he endured it all with dignity, never once complaining. That is why you are man and he is god."