The following is the summary, not a translation of Slōkās

Slōkās 1-9. Nārada's story was very brief. Vālmeeki wanted to know the great many details that Nārada did not communicate to him and perhaps left to Nārada's imagination and choice. So seating himself on the sacred kusa-grass, facing east, he meditated with folded hands and everything became plain to him. Even the innermost thoughts of the characters in the story became as plain to him as his own palm. Then he brought forth the great epic dealing with the life and the most charming personality of Rāma. It is highly edifying and delightful contains the essence of all the vēdās. It deals not only with the duties pertaining to this mundane life but also with the spiritual duties and affairs of man. It is a versatile ocean containing innumerable germs of thought and knowledge.

Slōkās 10 - 39 Then follows a very thrilling catalogue of all the Māin incidents of the epic. It is like a garland of flowers or necklace of gems. This Sarga is one of the most charming ones in this First Part (Kānda ). A mere recitation of it is highly rewarding not only aesthetically but also spiritually. There is ringing melody in it. The following is that garland.

        The birth of the great Sri Rāma, his great valour, his affection for all, peoples love for him, his virtues especially his truthfulness, coming of Viswāmitra, Viswāmitra entertains Rāma with various stories, wedding of Janaki preceeded by the breaking of the might bow of Siva by Rāma, his dispute with his name sake - Parasurāma. This ends the First part (Bāla Kānda ). Rāma becomes the idol of the people, preparations for the coronation of Rāma, the evil-minded Kaīkeyee frustrating it, Rāma goes to the forests, Dasaratha's heart rending grief ending in his death. Whole city plunged in funeral gloom - Rāma sends back his Soota (chariot driver, SuMānta), secretly departs from the citizens following him and meets the Tribal cheif Guha; Guha's loyalty towards and devotion for Rāma, Rāma crosses the Ganga, sees the great sage Bharadwaja, dwells in Chitrakoota with the permission of the sage, Bharata comes to Rāma, prays for his return, funeral oblations by Rāma to Dasaratha, Bharata takes up residence in Nandigrāma and instals the holy sandals of Rāma on throne symbolic of Rāma's coronation, Anasooya Devi gives Sita a Māgic sandal-paste (to charm Rāma) - Second part (Ayōdhya Kānda ) ends, Rāma enters the Dandaka forests, slays Viradha, meets the sages Sarabhanga, Suteekshna, Agastya, Jatayu comes to Rāma, Rāma's residence at Panchavati, episode of Soorpanakha, Rāma destroys Khara, Dooshana, Trisira, Rāvana carries off Sita, Rāma kills Māreecha; his great distress for the loss of Sita, death of Jatayu (in the presence of Rāma) being mortally wounded by Rāvana, episode of Kabandha, Rāma goes to the Pampa lake, sees Sabari, goes to Rushyamooka mountain - Aranya Kānda ends.

        Rāma meets Hanumān and is introduced to Sugreeva, their friendship, Sugreeva becomes confident for Rāma's might, duel between Vāli and Sugreeva, Rāma kills Vāli, Tara's lament, Rāma Mākes Sugreeva the King of the Monkeys, Sugreeva's pledge to search for Sita. Rāma bids the rainy season, his ire towards Sugreeva, monkeys gather at Kishkindha, Sugreeva narrates to them the different places on the earth, they go in search of Sita in different directions, Rāma gives his ring as token to Hanumān going south, Hanumān and his hordes enter the vast labyrinthine cave, their despair on seeing the ocean, coming of Sampati, they reach the Māhendra mountain.

        Sundara Kānda begins: flight of Hanumān across the ocean, he meets Māinaka hill, destroys Simhika, halts on the Mālaya mountain, enters Lanka by night, searches Rāvana's palace, sees him sleeping, searches Pushpaka, goes to Asōka vana, finds Sita, Rāvana accosts Sita, Hanumān talks to Sita, Sita harassed by women-guards, Trijata's ominous dream, Sita gives Hanumān Siroratna as token, Hanumān destroys Asōka vana, slays mighty warriors, Indrajit captures him, the great fire of Lanka, his return gives Rāma the token jewel of Sita, Rāma's joy. Yuddha Kānda begins: Rāma reaches the ocean with his army of monkeys, the great bridge, monkeys crossover to Lanka, siege of Lanka at night, Vibheeshana joins Rāma, counsels Rāma for the destruction of Rāvana, death of Kumbhakarna, Meghanatha killed, fall of Rāvana, Rāma's reunion with Sita, Vibheeshana becomes king, journey to Ayōdhya in Pushpaka, meeting of Bharata, the great coronation of Rāma, monkeys return to their homes, the glorious Rāma-Rajya. Uttara Kānda deals with the abandonment of Sita by Rāma and other incidents.

        Vālmeeki is the first and the foremost poets of our country. His poetic muse is of an extraordinary kind. The whole of the epic with its minutest details, sprang from his mighty mind. But he is a Māgnanimous person and a saint at that. He got metamorphosed from a good-for-nothing state into the sainthood through the grace of Rāma. So everything must give way to the glory of Rāma. Hence he attributed every achievement of his to the grace of Rāma and his emissary BrahMā. In this view the visits of Nārada and BrahMā might be his fabrication and surely all the incidents of the story as sumMārised above in this 3rd Sarga are purely Vālmeekian. The personages Nārada and BrahMā are brought in to invest the epic with perennial interest and to inculcate, a spirit of devotion in men, its theme being a highly sacred one in the such holy personalities being at the back and inspiring it to the point of their authorship even.

        Again our ancient rishis cared most for the welfare and prosperity of their posterity (लोक कल्यण) and cared two hoots for their personal glory. They did so even at the risk of being called childish or bedlam (sage Doorwāsa) and even those possessed by a devil. To that category of saints Vālmeeki belongs and belongs most prominently. He earned the epithet Bhagawān - Bhagawān Vālmeeki. His sole aspiration is that his Rāmayana should flow to the end of time and merge with Virātpurusha Rāma, along with time, purifying all the huMānity in its course.

        Divine play and divine grace and karMā and fate are the essence of our ethos and constitute the breath of our lives: This ethos was generated nursed and sustained in us by only rishis through every means at their comMānd. I shall refer to its merits and otherwise in due course as even in petty mundane Mātters. Hence it should not be surprising, if Vālmeeki, in this sacred mission of his, should think fit to bring in BrahMā and Nārada, not as characters in the epic, but as fill authors of it, completely surrendering himself as a chronicle, of course talented. The Ultra HuMān Veda came out of BrahMā (His face) and it is proper that he should have the same role in bringing out the huMān form of the Veda in the shape and content of this Rāmāyana. Vālmeeki might have thought thus. To illustrate the contrast between our ethos and the exotic one, even in wordly affairs I give the following example, which ofcourse, is quite out of the way, being an iMāginary example from science. I think that science and art, poetry and philosophy are segments of the same road to truth.

        Suppose, for instance, that Newton, the great English scientist, on the day, when the truth about a falling apple dawned on him, was sitting under the apple tree and saw an angel in the tree, clad in pure white robe holding a gem-studded golden rod in his hand and having sandals equally gem-studded on his filmy feet and wearing a diamond coronet on his head surrounded by a halo. Suppose it to have informed him that the apple was falling due to the force of gravity of the earth. Suppose Newton to have publishes his theory along with this anecdote. Then surely that branch of science would have stopped dead at the feet of Kepler, Newton's eminent predecessor and not have progressed further. This anecdote would have given rise to such cacaphony of voices as scientific spirit, rational thinking, spirit of enquiry etc and the theory of gravitation would have been drowned in it for sometime.

        This is exotic ethos where the scientific spirit or ethos is rushing far ahead of the religious ethos, leaving the society in doldrums. But in our society, such an anecdote would pass current, without giving rise to even the slightest ripple of laughter or redicule. Such discovery would be attributed more to the accumulated spiritual merit of the person than to his scientific learning or to _ the former merit rewarding the later learning. Such success would never flow from pure scientific learning alone. A god-less person is quite unfit for scientific research first as one not being a rishi for a poetical venture. Hence the absolute necessity for spiritual discipline. This is our simple innate ethos, sustained by our rishis. This century is seeing the phenomenon of this ethos of our being eclipsed and dominated by the exotic ethos with the result that we are seeing wrong and even perverse interpretation of Rāmāyana and Vālmeeki. My commentary aims at interpreting them in the light of our nature and simple ethos however ridiculous it might be in the view of the other one, now endemic with us.

POETRY OF VĀLMEEKI

        The poetry of Vālmeeki and that of his poetic twin brother Vyāsa is quite different from that of other poets. These latter poets are conventional poets and Māy be called for the sake of distinction court-poets. These poets take a situation, an incident from a chronicle or a story from mythology or tradition and present them in a fine and aesthetic form or to a fine dramatic effect accordingly to the degrees of their poetic talents. Their talents could go no further perhaps. They do not, perhaps could not, create those incidents or stories. Generally it is the reverse with Vālmeeki, Vyāsa and such others. They invent a story, a situation or a series of situations. That invention, by itself is kind of poetry and a sublime one. But their presentation of invented story or incident Māy not have that finesse shown by some of the so called court-poets in presenting them. Their forte is their inventive talent while the forte of the court-poets of merit, consists in their way of presentation. This is the distinction between Vālmeeki whose name also conjures up the name of Vyāsa and other poets.

        The yardstick for evaluating the poetry of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa, is the genius or the ethos of our society, in which they lived and which they inspired and to which they dedicated their work. The tests and standard of poetics are of later origin and some are of entirely exotic character and are entirely inapplicable to the genius of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa. Lord Hanumān can be immobilised and for a short while only by Brahmāstra and not by ropes however strong they might be by Rdkshasds. Similarly Vālmeeki is above the feathers of later poetics. The distinction between the muse of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa and that of other poets is that between the law of constitution of the land and other laws enacted under that constitution. The test for the law of constitution is how and by what institutions it ensured the liberty of its citizens, the freedom of movement, worship etc., equality of opportunity, social and economic justice and by what devices the rights of the minorities are safe-guarded and the peoples representatives are elected to the bodies created under the constitution and how the smooth working of the different organs of the state is sought to be achieved and such things. The test for the law is that they do not conflict with the law of the constitution or do not go beyond the limits set by the constitution. Similarly the tests for Vālmeekis poetry and for that of other poets are different. The former's poetry set the standard for the latter and not the other way.

        But this is next to say that Vālmeeki or Vyāsa lack the gift for Court-Poetry. On the other hand, their works contain superb Court-Poetry. Only in the case of one type of poetic composition, namely dRāma, some very rare gems of poets sprang up and within that specific sphere acted with greater effect vigour and beauty. In the context of the comparison with these mighty, twin-like Seer-poets, Vālmeeki and Vyāsa, those princes of poets cannot but be less than half a dozen. Moreover this type of composition is of much later origin and quite unknown to Vālmeeki or Vyāsa. There is thus Kālidās, the greatest poets and dramatist of our country. His Sakuntala is held to be synonymous with all the beauty and charms of the heaven and earth combined. He took a sMāll clear and sMāll incident in Māhdbharata, glossed over by Vyāsa in his hurry for greater things and gave it an entirely new shape Māde it an entirely new theme and breathed such charm into it as to send the greatest GerMān poets Goethe into raptures on seeing but a very poor transaltion of it. The falsehood and dissembling of Dushyanta in Māhdbharata towards Sakuntala is so ill-concieved by Dushyanta, that his Mānes must be moving in their graves. On the other hand, Kālidāsa's Dushyanta was a virtuous soul further Sainted by his great remorse and agony for his blameless but seemingly treacherous conduct towards his Sakuntala.

        There is Bhavabhuti, the greatest Sanskrit scholar poets of India and a great rival to - Kālidāsa. In his Māsterpiece, Uttara Rāmacharita, the karuna rasa (pathos) is said to have reached the acme of excellence as sringāra rasa (love) in Sakuntala of Kālidāsa.

        Bhāsa Mahākavi, is another dramatic genius, who lived before Kālidāsa's times. About 13 plays are said to be authored by him. His Māsterpiece "Swapna Vasavadatta" is praised by even foreign critics, both for its structural beauty and intrinsic merit. As the saying goes, Bhāsa is the simile and Kālidāsa, the charm of the muse of poesy. He took the themes from Rāmayana and Māhabhārata for his plot, but in some plays completely deviated from them and gave them new content and rasa.

        Last but not the least is Shakespeare, in whose case there is neither east nor west. His repertoire is all the dark forces in the world, that can prevent even noble souls - a prefect devil's workshop and a witches cauldron of huMān passions. He sounded the depths of the Mān heart, probed into the darkest recesses of huMān nature and fathomed the great mystery of evil".

        Drama always hold out peculiar appeal to all kinds of people. They see exhibited before their eyes (Or in the case of unstageworthy plays or those meant to be read only, presented to their understanding), all the subtle shades of the dominant rasa in all their grandeur, beauty and in the case of the above dRāmatists, an enchanting "column of the particular rasa rises up" before the mental vision of the audience, presenting wonderful pictures of kaleidoscopic variety. A single line rendered on the stage is more effective than a number of verses in narrative poetry. For example - It is a very moving scene, in the poem "The Rape of Lucrece by Shakespeare, Lucrece stabbed herself to death, in the presence of her father and husband to wipe out the dishonour of being forcibly ravished by the king's son. Her father fell on her body and poured forth the most pathetic lament worthy of Shakespeare. Now turning to "King Lear" a single line from the mouth of the old king, Lear "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life and thou (wife of a king and daughter of a greater king) no breath at all?" has a more terrific impact on the audience. The words within brackets are mine, being implied by the dramatist, according to my lights consistent with the character of Lear.

        In the context of comparison with Vālmeeki and Vyāsa, such poets are very few and the above list is almost exhaustive, if it is not sought to be explained by a spirits of parochialism. To adopt a saying, those poets can be counted by the fingers of the hands, being very small in number and even in that case, the more ornamented, the more privileged and the more sacred (in the Mātter of rites) ring-fingers belong to Vālmeeki and Vyāsa, one to Vālmeeki and the other to Vyāsa. These are my little reasons. Apart from it being a perennial source of rasas and themes for any number of Rāma-plays (Rāma Nātakās), Rāmayana itself, can be viewed as a drama itself, though not a finished specimen. It satisfies Māny rules of dramaturgy, though they are of hater origin. The seed (Beeja), from which the whole tree grows, is laid in the coming of Viswāmitra to Dasaratha culminating in the Mārriage of Rāma and Sita. It is Sita, who caused the ruination of Rāvana. The sage declared before Dasaratha that he embarked upon a yagna (scarfice) to achieve some object, which obviously was to sow the seed of enmity between Rāma and the Rākshasās through his slaying of Māreecha and Subahu and to unite the divine couple in marriage Bindu removes the obstacles in the way of fulfillment of the object. This is obviously Kaikeyee episode, Bharata's unsuccessful mission to Rāma and return to NandigrdMā and the episod of Soorpanakha which broke up Rāma's stay among the sages. Sugreeva's episode can be named as Patāka, which helps the main story to some extent.

        The episodes of Jatdyu and Sabari can be characterised as Prākāri which has a least impact than on the main story. Every kind of rasa flowed from Rāmayana. All this is to show that there is much superb court-poetry in Vālmeeki. But by no stretch of imagination can his Rāmayana be classed as a strict drama. The canons of drama about time, places and action, completely break down here, being too short, too narrow and too restricted. Moreover the philosophy of rasa in the theatrical art, postulates aesthetic enjoyment, tranquility of mind and at last moral reformation but falls short of a spiritual ferment, revolution and discipline. A stage or a picture house can never rise to the level of a temple, which status is what is claimed by Vālmeeki or Vyāsa for their epics and that is over ethos also.

        Vālmeeki is the super-human genius in the invention of a story or the incidents. That is the main characteristic of his poetic muse. But in their presentation, it is no profanation to say that he yields the palm to Kālidas and other princes of poets mentioned above, just as these latter geniuses are not fit to hold a candle to Vālmeeki or Vyāsa in inventive poetic faculty. The string of incidents mentioned in this Sarga, amply demonstrates the mind-boggling dimensions of Vālmeeki's inventive power, provided ofcourse, we don't allow the above mentioned exotic ethos with all story fantastic theories about prior legends and folk lore and bias about Vālmeeki due to Nārada's symbolic of such love, to interfere with our native ethos. Again the inventions of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa are of Titanic proportions. Other poets can create a beautiful flower or a garland of flowers, or a beautiful garden or a fine palace, but the beauty of Vālmeeki's poetry lies in the wild beauty of a thick forest, a vast stretch of wild flowers in wild profusion, in the beauty of valleys, hills, mountains, caves that can swallow up even armies, ocean resembling the sky and the sky resembling the ocean, the head of a Rākshasa being like a cliff of a mountain and all such things in fantastic aspects and proportions. Such gigantism is quite out of bounds for the poetic muse of others. Even mighty poets will run away on seeing Vālmeeki's Kumbhakarna, just as the monkey-chiefs in the great battle. No earth can contain his characters, whereas a small stage is sufficient for the characters of other poets. I want to illustrate my idea with just one small example from each epic, Rāmayana and Mahābhārata (Vyāsa).

        Sage Viswāmitra was anxious to go to the Himalayas and there do penance by the side of his sister Kousiki, who became a river and was flowing there, bringing plenty of prosperity to the people. But before vacating his holy hermitage (SiddhāsRāmaj, he surveyed the whole scene in his mental vision. The Lord had come down to earth to free it from Rāvana and his hordes; the celestials generated their models in the form of monkeys and bears to assist him, but there were rubbing shoulders with the Rākshasās on account of their ruler's (Vāli's and Rāvana's) friendship, oblivious of their mission of enmity towards them Even the Lord (Rāma), though in his teens, was whiling away his time, of course, being ignorant of the purpose of his coming down to earth, learning statecraft and other things from what Vasishta could offer him. It seemed the divine grinding stone of dharma and nemesis was not moving. It must be set in motion and Viswāmitra took on himself that task to make the world thrive and be happy (लोक कल्यण). His aim was to sow the seed of enmity between Rāma and Rāvana as also to join Rāma and Sita in wedlock. That was why Viswāmitra overstayed in SiddhāsRāma, which as its name connotes, will fulfil the desires or it might be that, the hermitage being the most sacred one, any violation of its sanctity or defilement of its precinents, would attract wide notice and compel ruler (Dasaratha) to comply with her demand for protection. Rāma did not know that two mighty giants, mareecha and Subahu wen* roaming his kingdom to suppress all Yagnas and was much less aware of the stationing by Rāvana of a mighty garrison in Dandaka forest, in his (Rāma's) realm to harass the rishis and stifle their sacrifices. So Viswāmitra started a yagna, which naturally came to the malefic notice of the two giants, as intended and expected by the sage and was wiped out just when it was coming to an end.

        The sage rushed to the court of his guardian king Dasaratha and beseeched him to send his (Viswāmitra) bewitching idol Sri Rāmachandra to protect his renewed yagna. Now is my point. His entreaties were in wild sequence. He poured forth all his arguments, as if an invented bottle with a narrow neck was emptying its contents with much noise and disorder. A court-poet, if a gifted one besides, will present this theme, borrowed as it is, as a superb piece of dramatic representation, with cogent reasoning and fine dRāmatic thrill. But we will be greatly missing the epic grandeur of the situation and soul-stirring, child-like, even divine simplicity of the hermits and sages of the forests, though it is more convincing in a worldly-wise way.

        It is only from the mouth of an epic poets, of the caliber of Vālmeeki, that we hear that the earth shook at the fury of the frustration of Viswāmitra. Even the celestials quaked with fear. What can other poets do except meekly coping verbatim, the admonition of Dasaratha by Vasishta that, even assuming that Rāma was incapable of facing the giants, mareecha and Subahu, he will be safe and sound being shielded by Viswāmitra, like the legendary vessels of Amruta by the Fire-God? I have written this in extense, to stress the beauty of invention of this episode and the poets art of suggestion. Vālmeeki is the ideal fountain-head of most of the poetic devices found in later poets, especially poetic suggestion. In this episode, the motive of Viswāmitra, Rāma's divinity and the future course the story will take under the aegis of Viswāmitra are suggested with exquisite skill and beauty. The suggestion behind Viswāmitra's confession to Dasaratha, that these two giants would take on themselves to defile the proposed yagna, if Rāvana did not think fit to do so in person, is highly thought-provoking. The extreme sanctity of the hermitage, coupled with the unique spiritual might of Viswāmitra (and he can also create new and unheard-of astrās then and there) might deter Rāvana or it might be that Rāma's confrontation with him would be too premature according to the divine plan and especially when his divine cannon (Sita) was not even heard of. No poets could fare better with this poetic suggestion (ध्वनि).

        The poetic skill of Vyāsa is very similar. So I will deal with one example from mahābhārata of Vyāsa. Here again the incident itself is poetry and poetry of a high order.

        The king Parikshit was cursed to die of the deadly bite of Takshaka, the most dreaded chief of the snakes of Pātāla, a nether world. The snake-chief started, incognate as a revered old man to deceive the king's bodyguard, on his fateful mission, on the day fated to be the last day of the king's life. He was passing through a forest and met on the way the great Brahmarshi by name Kāsyapa. Lord Brahma granted to him the boon of a spell and cure (mantra and Tantra) for the poison of any powerful snake in the celestial regions or in this world or in the Nagaloka, the nether world of snakes. He could bring back to life even those who lost their lives by snakes. He was also going to the king to save him from the impending disaster through the snake-chief Coming to know of this, the serpent-chief disclosed his identity to him and boasted that it was futile on the part of the rishi to go to the king, since there was no one on earth that could save, the victim of his death-dealing bite and challenged him to a test of his abilities. The sage agreed to the challenge. Takshaka bit a huge tree nearby and the sage was astonished to see it reduced to ashes in a trice. But concealing his astonishment, the sage proceeded to gather the ashes into a heap and with the same ease as in the case of the serpent-chief and in a trice, restored the tree to its former state through the power of his mantras and art. Takshaka was stunned. He had not even heard that it would be possible. He dissuaded the hermit from interfering with fate and having learned that the sage was going to the king, also by the lure of a reward of riches from the king, offered him ten times the riches, he expected from the king.

        The sage with his spiritual foresight, saw what Takshaka told him about fate was true and went back taking the money of Takshaka with him. The way became clear for both the curse and the serpent-chief moving inexorably to their goal. The king and even his palace were reduced to ashes in the twinkling of an eye when Takshaka bit him and vanished then and there. Poets would be astonished at this episode just as Takshaka at the miracle wrought by the sage Kāsyapa. I think the ring-episode in "Sakuntala" of Kālidāsa can have no better claim to merit than this.

        There is something more. When asked to write how this incident came to be known, even great poets would most probably say that they learnt it from Vaīsampāyana muni, the narrator of mahābhārata, who had heard it from his great guru Vyāsa implying that Vyāsa saw it in his spiritual vision. But what has Vyāsa said? He said the following and if it is not poetry, what else is it?

        At the time when the serpent-chief and the sage were talking, a brahmin was sitting in the tree. He was from Hastināpura, the capital and came there to gather some twigs for purposes of his daily ritual of Homa. Along with the tree, he was reduced to ashes by the poison of Takshaka and along with the tree, became whole again through the miracle of the sage. He ran to the city and told his people this hair-raising experience of his.

        These two great epics, Rāmayana and mahābhārata are not mere chronicles, like horinshed chronicles or the Aeorop's stables. They contain poetry and that of the highest order and constitute the fountain-head of it. They are the great oceans of poesy, from which the various protean-shaped clouds of poesy, gather in the intellectual heavens and nourish the humanity and its varied civilizations.

        All this is not to say that their sole poetic talent lies in spinning out stories. Their characterisation, the forte of the subsequent princes of poets and dRāmatists, is also superb. They also explored the various moods of man and dealt with the various emotions (rasas) and passions. But they were far from the civilisation and were the semi-clad denizens of the forests, with an outlook on life, quite different from that of the fully robed courtier-poets in a glittering court-atmosphere. So these epic poets lack the subtlety the refinement and the finesse of those poets and dramatists in the light of their civilisation. Thus Vālmeeki and Vyāsa dealt with the moods and passions in their primordial nature and aspect. They were utterly incapable of smiling and laughing in thirty different ways and attitudes or shedding forty kinds of tears or crying or moaning in fifty different methods. Again moods of their characters like their physical dimensions and forms, are of vast proportions and are of a quite different order. The frown on the faces of Havana resembles a rolling billow of the ocean, earthquakes. The great elements get out of order. The ways of living, the moods, the sentiments, the passions found among the Lilliputians, have nothing in common with those found among the Brobdingnagians (of the "Gulliver's Travels" by Swift), though both are homo-sapiens.

        The child-like simplicity, bordering on the divine, which is the main features of these epic poets, is nowhere to be seen in the other poets. Their thoughts and actions are at times fantastic, childish or may be even silly. But under that cover, we find a sublime truth shinning forth, a mind-boggling situation stretching forth before us or a problem confronting humanity and even celestials throughout the corridors of time. The Rishyasrunga's episode or for the matter of that, Ahalya's apparent betrayal of her husband, Goutama, are but small examples.

        In the infancy of man, a cloud takes on a colour or form different from that in his youth or manhood, or old age. To a child it appears as his paper-boat on a rainy day, sailing the sky. When on this fancy or imagination of the child, is superimposed all the vedic. wisdom, gained by uncommon spiritual disciplines, there and there only, we find Vālmeeki or Vyāsa. That is the reason why all the poets, invariably pay homage to these divinely poetical personalities.

        I cite just two instances, one from Vālmeeki and another from Vyāsa. Rushyasringa, is neither a wolf-boy nor a Kiplings creation. A female-deer conceived him on drinking the water of a stream, in which the Tejas of a great Ascetic, Vibhandaka got mixed. On account of his holy presence and officiating at the Putra-kdmeshti yagna, a celestial personage, said to be from god Prajāpati, appears in the sacrificial altar and from his own hands Dasaratha receives the holy and splendid vessel containing the divine manna, which gave birth to the four human forms of Lord Vishnu, an achievement, which not even the great sage Vasishta could boast of. This Rushyasringa mistook a nautch-girl for a greater saint than himself and her amorous song for a holy vedic hymn, quite unknown to him. Vālmeeki has the same divine simplicity, the same spiritual discipline, but with an added poetic gift. In mahābhārata, a mountain called Kōlāhalam, fell in love with a great river Suktimati and tumbled into it and a son Vasupāda and a daughter Girika were born of that union. A great saint king, Uparichara Vasu, by name (who can bodily traverse the skies, hence his name) made the boy, the commander-in-chief of his army and the girl he married. Nothing can be more childish and fantastic than this. It might be symbolic of a natural phenomenon of a mountain-crest falling into a river at its base and dividing it into two streams, people choosing to give a male name to one stream and a female one to the other. With others it has the currency of a mythology only, but with us, it has much more than that. It has credibility. It has some mysterious truth about it and Vālmeeki, Vyāsa and such sages dealt with such things on that footing. I want to refer to it later on, but for the present I say the following.

        A disembodied soul, roving about the universe, may enter some fiery element such as the rays of the Sun and may again get disembodied and rove again, instead of coming to the earth. It may get down further and enter another element like cloud and may again hover away without reaching the earth. It may come down further and enter the earth and in another stage further become a seed and enter a human body and again further enter a human womb and develop as a human being. These are the various stages, previous to the human birth on the earth and the soul may cut short its advent on earth at any of the previous stages and go away into the space. Our great seers, like Vālmeeki and Vyāsa had spiritual cognisance of those stages and roles played by that spirit in those stages just as we had physical cognisance of the human existence of that spirit and the roles played by the human beings on the earth before our eyes. To bring home that mighty mystery to us, those sages treated those (Vedic spirits and their roles on other planes as if they were human beings, in human bodies and with human traits, on par with us. This kind of treatment by them is highly confusing; with the result that one is apt to attribute that to a figment of imagination as being highly incredible. Our epics abound with such incredible things from our point of view. But that is also truth and has no mythological fantasy about it. This is also our ethos. The holiest of the holiest example is the birth and resurrection of Lord Christ and its exact opposite filthy example is the appearance of ghosts in haunted houses and grave-yards. His disciples saw with their naked eyes the Lord appearing before them, with the bleeding wounds of crucifixion all over his body before joining his great father in heaven. They swore to this mysterious phenomenon. But the human society remained in the same status-quo-ante and this great light of Asia shone on the world, sporting in blood-bathing, genocide, slavery, starvation, man-made famines and what not. Our ethos accepts a physical phenomenon, even if clothed in human flesh and blood, caring two hoots for the bigoted rationalism (eg., Eclipses). In a somewhat similar vein, we are told that the king of the Mountains (Himalaya) gave birth to Pārvati Dēvi and gave her in marriage to Lord Siva.

HOMER AND VĀLMEEKI

        Homer is the greatest star in the western firmament of poesy. Two noblest epics flowed from this bard's mouth - mad and Odyssey, woven round two great Greek heroes of the ancient times, Achilles and Odysseus respectively. In his invocation to the muses, in Iliad, he says that he is singing of the ruinous wrath of Achilles and the terrible woes thereby suffered by the Greek in the Trojan War. In the second (Odyssey) he sings of the innumerable woes, the hero, Odysseus suffered upon the deep while returning to his Ithaca after the Trojan war and the great sack of Troy. No doubt there were legends and folk-lore and a composition by name "The Story of Achilles", existing before Homer, but their contribution to his work or his indebtedness to them, is next to nothing, even on a cursory reading through these great epics. From the folk-lore level and the level of poet-asters, Homer took the two poems to the heights of mount Parnassus, where the muses play.

        The vast incidents, the sublime thoughts and sentiments, the grand variety of moods so full of life, diverse attitude towards life, the liquid diction, the unique similies and insight into human nature, went into the creation of these grand epics, so that Homer is called "Imperial" in the sense that "he is worthy to exercise command over the heart and intellect of ages" and one critic says that people "hear like ocean on a western beach the usage and the thunder of Odyssey". Though Homer lived in the infancy of civilization (10th century B.C) he can be matched only by Shakespeare. This is what some critics say.

        Poets of the west looked upon the phenomenon of evil as a problem to be solved for the mankind. Among them, Shakespeare in particular, probed that problem to its deepest depths and came out with the statement that certain human passions such as passion for power, passion for revenge, jealousy, cruelty or pride, warp even noble minds to evil ends bringing disaster not only on their heads, but also on the whole country if they happen to be the leaders of that society. But in the orient, it was not looked upon as a problem and tragedy was even banned. For instance, there is Vyāsa, who laughs at the problem. There is no problem for a man of equanimity. Again there is Vālmeeki, according to whom, there is no problem so long as there is a wise and virtuous king on the throne. The problem arises only when one of beggarly blood sits on the throne and like a monkey on it. Of course spiritual discipline is a sine-qua-non with these two Saint-poets, Vyāsa and Vālmeeki. In the final analysis of this problem of evil, the spiritual discipline only purges the mind of all its impurities. Coming to Homer, it cannot be said that he set before himself any problem of good or evil. His sole concern seems to be, to present a saga of adventure of yore in brilliant colours and sing to his audience in the halls of nobles to eke out his livelihood (My apologies to him for the remark "to eke out his livelihood"). But I think that he has something to say about that problem and though he looked at it with pagan eyes and through pagan atmosphere (Socrates, Plato or Aristotle not being born then) his thought has some oriental touch or context. Such esoteric ideas might have travelled west from the east even far before his times. In the opening scene of "Odyssey" Zeus, with sad resignation, says "Mortal men say evil comes of us, whereas they even of themselves, through the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows beyond that which is ordained". This is what Homer says of the problem of evil and I think, that this is one of the main ideas round which his two epics revolve.

        Let me bring out the merits and beauties of Homer, through a narration of events and incidents. I shall first deal with Iliad.

        Ten years, with just fifty days being left, had gone by and the Greek horde had made not even a slight dent in the Trojan defenses and their morale, though they, the Trojans, were cooped up within the walls of Troy or very near to them, by the mighty Achilles. In the fury of frustration, the Greeks under the leadership of Achilles, plundered the defenseless and open neighbouring territory and brought many women as captives and a rich haul of spoils, a most unchivalrous act, unbecoming his supreme might, though living up to the spirit of those barbaric times, when every town and country-side quaked with daily fear of being over-run and pillaged by hostile tribes, their women being carried off to serve a foreign master at his looms or bed.

        The Greeks were a proud race and inspite of this set-back in their plan; their pride was in no way diminished and they still clamoured for revenge, though the Trojans, offered ransom to compensate them for the wrong done to them by their prince Paris, Helen also refusing to go back to her former Lord, Menelous. For such an unwilling woman and an equal partner in the black deed of Paris, the war dragged on for ten years, with no prospect of the Greeks ever seeing their hearths and homes. Even gods (Apollo) sent pestilence among the Greeks, ostensibly in punishment for their carrying off Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, as captive and for her restoration in honour to her holy father, but really to open their eyes and make them return and return to their homes. She was the pride of king Agamemnon and he had to give her up. But he demanded of Achilles his fairest captive Briseis as compensation for his (Agamemnon's) loss of Chryseis. A war of words ensued between Achilles and king Agamemnon, the over-lord of all Greece. Achilles was beside himself with fury and at one stage felt for his sword. Goddess of Wisdom, Athena flew to him and seized him by his locks. None but he saw her. He calmed down. Wise Nestor rose to speak. What he spoke, is a grand specimen of speech and high debate. It was an intellectual feast and as if manna dropped from his tongue. No modern poets can improve upon it in point of cogency and logic. Achilles swore never to take park in the battle and went away in great dudgeon.

        The coming down of the goddess of Wisdom to restrain Achilles in his wild fury, strikes one as a little bit artificial. Any person, however great he may be and even in a frenzied mood, when he is in a royal assembly and in confrontation with his over-Lord, is apt to calm down without any supernatural intervention, unless it be to suggest that Achilles is such a wild and egoistic personage that a divine intervention, to mollify him, is necessary to prevent a possible outrage of his cutting down the supreme Lord of the Greeks in open assembly, resulting in a fatricideal war among the Greek hordes to the great joy and relief of the Trojans in their Troy surviving its ordained fall. The two epics abound in such artificial supernatural elements and atmosphere, no greater effect being secured thereby.

        The king sent away his prize, Chryseis, in due solemnity to her holy father. He also carried out his threat and forcibly took away the prize-lady Briseis, of Achilles. The rift widened. The king's egoism did not abate. He ordered an assault on Troy. Wise Nestor did not like this idea, Achilles their great bulwark in battle, having sworn to be away from it. The morale of the Greek army was also at a very low ebb. They became home-sick. When the king, just to test their loyalty, proclaimed a mock-order to the army to return to their country they all rushed to their ships and took up the oars. It taxed all the skill and cunning of Nestor and Odysseys to bring them back to their duty of war. Then we see a thrilling and grand array of the armed forces on both sides. This list is a very favourtie topic with the epic poets especially. Virgil had it, Milton had it and our epics, The Rāmayana and The mahābhārata also had them. Homer, chose to display them only then, though they were fighting therefor the last ten years, because then as the great city's tryst with destiny.

        The Trojan armies advanced with great shouting and din like the cranes with raucous cries. The Greeks came against them in perfect silence, indicative of their firm resolve to bring down the towers of Troy. Paris, singled himself from his rank and threw out a challenge to the Greek champions to meet him in a single combat. Immediately, Menelaus, the husband of Helen, who eloped with Paris and brought the Greek hordes to the Trojan soil - Menelaus stepped out from the Grecian ranks 'like a hungry lion at the sight of a wild goat'. Such similies the great poets handed down to posterity. Terror-struck Paris slunk back, like a person, on seeing a terrible snake, in a wooded ravine, across his path. Hector, though his affectionate brother, showered on him a volley of abuse for this womanly act of his. Cut to the quick, Paris agreed to the duel with his great opponent Menelaus'. A truce was made to settle their quarrel by this duel between Paris and Menelaus. Priam was sent for to take the pledge of honouring the treaty. Such was the great respect, the old king Priam commanded among the various peoples.

        The scene changes to one of superb beauty, rich imagination and great human insight. Helen feels some tender stirrings in her heart, to see her former Lord Menelaus, after ten years of cooping herself in her palace. She resorts to the great Towers of Troy, from where to see her former relatives, acquaintances and her Lord among the Greek armies assembled on the plains before the city. Old Priam was already there with the elders of the city "like birds perched on a tree in the woods, chirping delightfully" talking of their youthful days. They saw her and wondered at her undimmed beauty, inspite of the great mental torture she had undergone all those ten years, with the Greek hordes of soldiers besieging the city. Though they wished her gone, they could not blame either Paris for refusing to yield her to the Greek, or the Greek for their persistence, Helen refusing to go back to her former home. Such was her beauty, for which blood flowed in streams. On Priam's request, she pointed out to him, the great Greek warriors. Priam was a noble soul. He admired the great personalities shown to him. Pointing to a Greek warrior, who appeared, as he said, every inch a king, he asked her who he was. Tears stood in her eyes and in great anguish, she replied that he was the king Agamemnon, the over-lord of the Grecian hordes and the brother-in-law of the shameles wretch standing before him i.e. herself. In great tenderness of feeling, she searched in vain, for her own brothers among the Grecian armies, little knowing that they were already sleeping in the lap of the "fruitful earth", being spared the agony of having to fight for a scandalous sister. This is one of the innumerable scenes in these two epics (Iliad and Odyssey) that had the stamp of a great genius among the poets.

        The old Priam shuddered when he heard about the duel, being arranged, between his son Paris and Menelaus. The old Priam was as helpless as his counter-part in mahābhārata, ie., "Drutarāshtra". In the duel that followed, Paris was no match for his much wronged opponent Menelaus. Paris was saved from death by the skin of his teeth. Menelaus grappled him by his helmet, which came off into his hands as the helmet-strap, fortunately for Paris, snapped. But the poets did not leave it at that. He says that Paris was the favourite of the goddess, Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus and so she snapped the helmet-strap and freezing from carried him in a mist through the ranks of the army to his palace.

        The great exultation of the Greeks, over this victory of Menelaus, leading as they fondly hoped, to a peaceful and glorious return to their homes, turned into a great consternation. Pandarus, a Lycian commander on the ride of the Trojans and a fine marksman in archery, being prodded by the goddess Athene, in the guise of Antenor's son, a Trojan noble, to such treachery, shot at Menelaus. Thanks to the same goddess, the poets says that the arrow did not reach the vital spot, her object being only to break the truce and not to kill the central figure in the whole drama.

        Gods also joined the battle, the god of War on the side of the Trojans and Athene of the Flashing Eyes on the side of the Greeks. There were also the lesser gods - Terror, Panic and Strife, the War-god's bloody-sister. Above all, there was the great god Apollo, the great Archer-king, the son of Zeus, fighting on the side of the Trojans. The great Nestor, the oldest and wisest of the Greek chieftains, formed the battle-order, with his unmatched skill. The whole battlefield looked like a raging sea "Under a westerly gale", with billow upon billow crashing ori the "echoing beach". If such similies are too familiar to us now, it is due to the oldest and the great legacy of this greatest poets. Thousands of Trojans and Greeks bit the dust that day due to the blackest treachery of Pandarus.

        Though the compulsions of Pagan mythology and though, Homer's battles of men are sometimes the battles of the gods, out of jealousy, or hatred or love for some mortals (some of them, through a mortal parent being born to them, the gods) and out of ill-will among the gods themselves. In such battles, utter ruination and disaster stare him in the face, regardless of the justice of his cause when a mortal confronts a god.

        Out of jealousy towards Aphrodite, the goddess Athena instigated a mighty Greek hero, Diomedes, to fight against her, (Aphrodite), a very weak goddess, being the goddess of Love, when Aphrodite was receiving her mortal son, Aeneas (whom that goddess bore to the mortal Anchises, a Trojan noble) from his (Diomede's) onslaught. Diomedes wiunded the goddess in her palm with his spear. She gave vent to a piercing scream of pain. "Immortal blood", says the poets, came out of the wound. The poets says further that gods, being immortals, are bloodless and only Ichor ran out of that wound, since gods eat no bread, nor drink - "our sparkling wine" and hence they (the gods) are bloodless. Such superb description drowns much of the oddity of the idea that gods take direct part in battles of men and are also attacked by mortals. The decorative trappings of Homer's style, are an inspiration and a model to a host of poets after him, from Virgil till now. "Like beaded bubbles winking at the brim" (of the cup of wine) of Keats might be one such example traceable to, "The sparkling wine" of Homer.

        Here is a specimen of Homer's philosophy, conditioned as it was by Pagan ethos. The enlightened Greek philosophy, which ruled Europe for two millennia, was not there, its great thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, not being born then. The wounded goddess Aphrodite, went to her mother, goddess Dione. She comforted her daughter, saying that many of the gods living on Olympus suffered at the hands of men, because the gods themselves stooped to injure one another. Hercules wounded the mighty Hades, the Lord of the under-world, with an arrow. Even the god of war was thrown into chains by two mighty mortals. Even Hera, the consort of Zeus and queen of Olympus, was wounded in her breast, by an arrow from mercules. Of course, all these exploits of men are symbolic of some phenomena. For this outrage on her daughter, she almost cursed, though in the form of a prophesy, Diomedes, who, after the Trojan war and the Fall of Troy, had no, happy home-coming and had to migrate, in great agony and remorse, to far-off lands. We see him again in Virgil's "Aeneid", very much sobered and refusing to fight against Aeneas and drive him away from the Italian shores, where Aeneas arrived, with his followers, after surviving the great sack of Troy, to found a small kingdom for himself.

        Then Aphrodite went to her father, Zeus himself, to inform him about the indignity suffered by her at the hands of a mere mortal. Zeus himself was at loggerheads with many of he Olympian gods and was able to hold out by sheer might. He advised his daughter not to meddle in wars since her writ was confined to wedlock and its tender passions only. If only we turn a blind eye to the crudity of this mythology, we enjoy very much the superb handling of those stories by Homer.

        Homer's is the vision of poesy while Vyāsa (Vālmeeki) has in addition to this, the vision of a rishi, a sage, a transcendental vision of the east. Through their tapās (penance) and spiritual discipline, Vālmeeki and Vyāsa pierced through the veil of mystery shrouding the whole universe (Mahāmāya) and found in their Transcendental vision of pristine purity, the great truth (the law of karma, the law of destiny, the mystery of creation etc). Homer's vision, on the other hand is that of a poets and a Titan among the poets at that. In his poetic vision, Homer saw unearthly personages such as gods of war, strife, panic, terror, etc., while men were fighting for the establishment of a kingdom or for its fall and such things. Thanks to this kind of vision, which is purely poetic and which is but an interplay, though grand, of all human passions and feelings, such celestial and semi-celestial beings though more potent and virtuous are invested with most of the human foibles. In short, the difference between these poets is that between a poetic vision and a spiritual vision.

        Inspite of this major difference of mythological and pagan outlook, I see many points where this great poets, Homer (and Virgil) and Vyāsa (and Vālmeeki) come very near to each other, more especially in the situation of battles and duel therein.

        Many of the battles in the Iliad, come very close to those of Mahābharata, in point of the great art of poetry. If we just forget that we are seeing the gods taking a direct part in the battles of the mad, we feel that the great warriors like Bheeshma, Drōna, Kama, Aswathāma, the Pandavas, Abhimanya etc., are fighting under the assumed names of Hector, Apneas, Sarpedon, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes, Odysseus, Aies, the great Achilles (though under eclipse for a short time) and fighting in a more natural way, without the use of any astrās. I feel no blasphemy in this, because I am on the point of describing the poetic talents of the two great epic poets of the west and the east and not the moral characters of their fighting heroes. In mad, no two warriors die in the same way. One is hit by a stone on his temples and "darkness covers his eyes". Another "winged death" (arrow) pierces a forehead and the victim "falls like a tower". Some shaft catches one on his flank and he collapses "in a lifeless body". A bronze spear goes clean through his shoulder and he is felled like a slender poplar tree with a bushy top. One falls, hit in the groin by a "flying Javelin". Achilles excepted, whose soul can be drawn out only at his heels, all die in a human way, unlike in our epics, where warriors fight with even greater vigour, though bleeding like a tree blooming in scarlet red (Kimsuka tree). Again in Homer, we find a rich crop of names of death, conjuring up dreadful visions of the terrible beyond. "Night" descended on his eyes, when a bronze point struck his temple. A jagged stone hit one on his right leg and sent him to the Hades. A spear-thrust in one's naval and his "unwilling soul hissed off through the wound". A sharp sword "took" another's life. One bit the dust by a missile. Another became a "corpse" by the cast of a "long-shadowed spear". "Black fate wrapped another warrior in night". Another fine warrior fell face downward with a lance in the middle of his back. Death enveloped another, of course a great warrior, by a spear-thrust through his bladder. A sharp lance severed a tongue at its roof and away went the victim as a guest to the Lord of the Hades. Fate set her seal on another. The shadow of death fell over the eyes of another, when a sword slashed at his shoulders. Another warrior stormed across the battlefield like a winter torrent that comes tearing down and flatters out the dykes. The best of the warrior was badly wounded and was no more. Another was like a lion, that leapt into an outlying form, whom the shepherd only wounded, but failed to kill, which had only roused him to greater fury and the poor shepherd from his hiding, was seeing his sheep being mown down in heap upon heap. When a jagged boulder hit another warrior on his knees, the world went black as night before his eyes and there was a quarrel over his body, his allies trying to drag his body to safety and the victor and his friends for his armour, like so many wolves over the carcass of an animal, they had just then killed. This is the heritage from Homer which even great poets can be proud of. With such superb diction and thought, Homer displays the battles the duel therein of heroes the pursuit of the victors, the panic and the flight of the vanquished.

        Drunken with war the great Diomedes, not only wounded Arcs, the war-god, but also confronted the great god Apollo. Then Hector took the field to check his murderous career. Only he could do it and roll back the tide of war against the Greeks. It posses once comprehension why his name stands a synonym for a blusterer unless it be for the Greek presidency of Homer towards the Asiatic tribe of the Trojans (Asia minor). Homer always describes in low profile Hector, except when he (Hector) is inspired by gods for their ends. Kama, on our side stands in the same unfortunate position. Hector is on par with Achilles. At times even Achilles is afraid to confront Hector, Zeus also says that Hector is mightier than any Greek hero, of course except Achilles.

        Characterisation is of the essence of any poem, drama, epic or of any other kind. But characterization cannot exist in a void. It is animated solely by incidents and circumstances in the story . The forte of epic poets especially Homer or Virgil lies in the invention of the story and its incidents. It is grossly unfair to the genius of Homer, Virgil, to assume that there existed some folk tales previously on which they built up their art. Even talented story writers dealing with purely battle scenes, the sieged and sack of towns in the ancient past are incapable of inventing so many and so varied, incidents, so gripping the imagination and interest of the reader, with their masterly concatenation, as Homer, especially in his mad. Their stories are mere thrillers, with nothing of the poetic or dramatic effect atmosphere found in Homer. It is not as if Homer kept the traditional story intact and narrated the same with brilliant figures of speech and such poetic technique as earned for him the foremost place among world poets. That is only one aspect of his greatness. My admiration of Homer, lies in my conviction that the story of Iliad, as he tells us in his own story. The fantastic and cock and bull stories of mythology, pagan one at that, assume under the magic touch of Homer or Virgil the most appropriate colours, for the grand themes of the destruction of a kingdom and the foundation of a new one over the ashes, with rivers of blood and tears flowing in both the cases of the destruction of the kingdom and the resistance to the foundation of the new on an alien soil (Virgil). My little pen is quite ignorant of any another criteria of their muse.

        So I resumed the thread of the story left by me capriciously. I am aware of the fact that my main theme is Rāmāyana and that I am straying along in alien pastures. But these are realms of gold as Keats says so much as the realms of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa and by way of contrast and comparison I may be explaining my views about our epic poets, Vālmeeki and Vyāsa.

        Homer's mind moves round the central idea of mad, that Troy is doomed, that before its fall, its heroes carve for themselves a niche in the eternal halls of fame for their bravery and exploits in the war against the Greeks. Troy was famous throughout the land as holy Mum, having the sacred shrine dedicated to the great god Apollo. That palladium, as it were of the Trojans (it is not the palladium mentioned in Aeneid of Virgil) could not save Troy from its utter destruction and the wiping out of the Trojan race altogether. Goddess Athene, though fervently worshipped in her shrine at Troy, by the Trojans, forsook them and sided the Greeks out of anger towards Paris, for his false judgment of her. The world came to know through the inspired muse of Virgil, that the Trojan race founded a new kingdom in far-off lands and assumed the new name of Romans and (from subsequent History) even dominated the whole of the known world then and from a philosophical point of view, took revenge on the Greek race for their most cruel and monstrous (even according to the standards of barbaric times) destruction of their ancient and sacred Troy.

        With this dispensation of providence, which he was bound to uphold, the supreme god, Zeus, allowed the lesser gods free hand in the battles. This is with respect to the whole Trojan race. But even with regard to the individual, like the great Achilles, a similar motive ruled Zeus and hence all the Olympian gods and Goddesses. Achilles is the mortal-son of the Sea-nymph, by name Thetis, born to the king Peleus. He is destined to die very young. His most pathetic goddess-mother, more pathetic on account of her fore-knowledge of her sons doom had to reconcile herself to her misfortune. But she would find solace, if her son dies in great renown, non-pareil, which in fact he got and in this the great god Zeus acquised. Achilles wrath and his staying away from the battle, which brought unspeakable agony to the Greek Lords is the central idea of Iliad. The very invocation of the muses by Homer is about the wrath of Achilles.

        These apparently odd and rugged ideas are transmuted into gold, with fragrance to boot, under the alchemy of Homer's muse.

        Achilles fulfilled his mother's desire. As regards Trojans also, though victory wedded the Greeks, fame wedded the Trojans, though they lost the hand of victory. Their original seat is still remembered and referred to as holy Illium, Acneas is noble, Priam is the most revered personality, even with the Greeks, whose Nestor is known only for his wisdom, more of a strategic kind and I don't, remember any such fame earned on the side of the Greeks. Perhaps and perhaps again, these conjectures of mine are true for the reasons following. Again and again Zeus raises the scales of destiny to see and to show for the gods what is in store for the Trojans. Till the fateful day, the day of Hector's fall, the scales were almost favourable to them, though victory swayed from side to side. Zeus was helping the Trojans, saying that holy Mum was nearest to his heart and staying the hands of his divine consort here and his divine daughter Athene, who wanted to gobble up Troy and to whom, Zeus most unwillingly gave his consent to wreck the most solemnly made truce, by clouding the judgment of Pandarus. King Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Greek forces at Troy, was dreaming and also publicly declared to the great applause of all the Greeks, that they would soon be leaving the Trojan shores with flying colours, taking Helen with them and amply compensated by the separation under the terms of the truce.

        Strife broke out again in all "Her unquenchable fury". The Trojans thus crossed the Rubican towards fate. At a later stage the Greeks also did the same. Elated by the onslaught of the great Diomedes on the Trojans, which almost approached the fury of Achilles on slaught, the Greeks would not rest with anything less than the total destruction of Troy. The path is made clear for fate. In the oppressive Pagan atmosphere Homer could not express himself so explicitly. But his thought seems to be working along the lines of the central idea mentioned above.

        During a short truce for the funeral of their dead, both sides freely mixed with each other to recognize and pick up their dead among the promiscuous corpses that littered the field, with heavy hearts. It looked as if they never fought each other.

        Evidently, from the account of the forces ranged on both sides, the Trojans, though in their nature soil, were far outnumbered by the Greek hordes, the prime reason being, Troy became a beleaguered city and no fresh allies and reinforcements could reach it, while the Greeks had the open country for their vicious pillage. Against such heavy odds, the credit for the Trojans holding out for as many as ten years goes to their mighty leaders Hector and Aeneas though, no doubt, Troy had impregnable and high walls and Was also holy, being under the aegis of its great palladium.

        The onslaught of the Greeks became terrible. But the battle was swinging to and fro and there was no imminent danger to his men if he (Hector) was absent from the field for a short while. On the advice of his brother Helenus, who was also an Awger, Hector wanted to appeal to the palladium, the shrine of Pallas Athene, as the only way out of those terrible straits. He quitted the field and entered the city. What followed was a splendid scene full of emotions of various kinds and most appropriate for the characters venting them.

        As soon as Hector entered the city, many kinswomen beset him with anxious enquires about their men engaged in the battle. Ever since the hostilities broke out outside the city-walls, (previously the Trojans were cooped up inside, for fear of Achilles) the Trojan women had no idea of what had happened to their near and dear fighting outside. They were quite sanguine that they were still alive and faring well again the Greek Lords, since Achilles was not with them. For the first time Hector broke the news that many of them had fallen in the battles. A funeral cry from those kinswomen floated up to the gods above, but in vain.

        Next, his mother was stunned to see him there. The Trojans must have been herded in by the Greeks. Hector comforted her a little that Troy had not yet come to that pass and requested her to pray to their protecting Angel, Athenes, in her shrine in Troy alongwith all her kinswomen. She offered him wine, both for a liberation to Zeus and for refreshing himself. That was the last drink he had from his mother's hand. The Trojan women poured out their hearts at the feet of goddess Athene, but with the result known to the reader, viz., Troy was raised to the ground without a trace.

        Though a loving brother, Hector sought out his brother Paris in his palace. He was furious at his (Paris) absence in the battlefield. It was Paris, who kindled the fires of battle and he should have been at the front and bearing the brunt of the fighting, but instead he must have been in his palace with Helen, such is his effeminacy. Immediately he saw him there, Hector gave vent to his fury. Paris calmly bore the rebuke, coming as it was from an affectionate brother. Soon Hector was pacified when Paris assured him that he was not there shirking his duty, but was there to have a short respite from the deadly toils of battle. Helen was also there and said that Paris was preparing to leave for the front, when Hector stepped in.

        Helen burst into tears, saying that had she not been born, the tragedy would not have struck the holy and peaceful Troy.

        Hector next went to see his wife Andromache and their infant son, Astyanax. It was a very moving scene, with imagery oozing manna. He did not see her in the palace. Hearing that the Greeks were winning, the agonized lady rushed to the towers of Troy, to see what was happening in the plains, where battle was raging. She knew the dashing nature of her Heroic husband, she pleaded with him many times to fight the Greeks from the walls of Troy and not to venture forth outside, simply because Achilles was no longer fighting. The strong walls of Troy held out for. Ten long years with Achilles at the gates and would hold out against the enemy for some more time till the crest-fallen Greeks would beat a vexed retreat, their great Achilles, humiliated as he was, even sailing home leaving the Greeks at the mercy of the Trojans and the alien land. Again their ranks were, a few days back decimated by a violent pestilence and it may happen again. The poor lady had such delusions about the fate of Troy. The moment, Achilles stopped his fighting, the gates of Troy were thrown open and like a flood, the Trojans filled the plains, with Hector at their head, their acclaimed counter-poise to great Achilles.

        At the city gates, Hector saw his wife. The speeches of the characters of Homer are particularly lengthy, but cogent and well-reasoned out and unfolding the character of the speaker. In a flood of tears, she accuses him of brinkmanship in battles, which would one day end, fatally for him and in a ruinous situation for his wife and son. He was her all and her only prop in this world. Her father and all her seven brothers fell by the sword of the cruel Achilles when he sacked their city. She had no mother also, being killed by a goddess (Artemis, the Archer's). She most piteously prayed to him not to venture out into the battle and risk his life, but to fight from and defend the walls, wherever they were vulnerable to the foes. Else, she would become the most miserable and forlorn creature among the Trojan women.

        By now the cup of pathos is full to the brim. It was for Hector to make it overflow. There was his agony. To abide by her wish, was not only cowardice and treachery on his part, but also against the grain and breeding of his. The day was not far off when Troy would tumble down, engulfing in its doom, his father Priam and mother Hecabe and many other Trojan noble families. He was not so much concerned about this tragedy as the one that would strike her, when he was no more. She would be carried off by the victor to foreign lands and be engaged in tasks quite unworthy a princess, who was also the wife of Hector, to glut the pride and revenge of the victor. That brute of the victor might even, most maliciously, poke fun at her and within her hearing, saying that Hector's wife was carrying water, or working at the loom or washing clothes for her masters. This thought was burning Hector from top to toe.

        It might not be far-fetched to say that it was Homer's dictum against war, though he was dealing with glorified semi-barbaric or semi-civilized times, when war and carrying off the women and children of the vanquished was a pastime and an act of glory. That Achilles was shot dead by Paris, was not a mere irony of fate, but an atonement for his brutal act over Hector's dead body. After his return from Troy, Agamemnon's head rolled down at the very threshold, being murdered by his wife and her lover. Homer's "Odyssey" opens with a sad commentary by Zeus on human beings, that they blame the god above for all the evils that flow from their own blind or wanton acts. One gets the impression that Odysseus deserved what he suffered (for defiling the sacred palladium of Troy etc). Confined in a far-off isle by nymph Calypro, with no hope of ever being free, with cheeks furrowed by tears, Odysseus sought comfort even in smoke arising or the horizon, in the direction of his Ithaca.

        The epic "Odyssey" seems to me an epic of nemesis for the grave misdeeds done in "Iliad", singling out as an example, Odysseus as its typical victim. Homer's idea seems to be that man, even when confronted by the worst extremity, should not be guilty of any sacrilegious act. Polyphemus, the great Cyclops was more guilty than Odysseus, in having killed his suppliants the minions of gods. Still he was the son of Poseidon (Neptune), on whose breast he was sailing for his country.

        The grotesque cave, he entered, in the absence of the Cyclops and there being no sign of human habitation, were eloquent warnings to him that he should immediately quit the shores. His followers also entreated him to do so. But in the egoism of his wits, he chose to stay and had to blind the Cyclops, having no other way to come out of the cave alive. Still it was an offence against the sea-god.

        A still more grave offence was committed by his men, when they killed the sacred cattle of the god Helios. Death from starvation stared them in the face and so they did it and provoked Zeus, who drowned them in a storm to the last man. Odysseus escaped death by the skin of his teeth and suffered as no mortal ever did.

        Coming to the scene under review, - tragedy reaches the climax - whenever a child steps in, it is a master-stroke to introduce a child in such a tense situation. The children relieve the tension by their innocent prattle and pranks, but at the same time aggravate the situation also, by raising tragic thoughts about. The fate of those little angels, whom we know for certain to be orphaned shortly.

        When Hector stretched out his hands for his infant son, carried by a nurse, (Homer, says "A girdled nurse" as belonging to their royal household), the infant shrank back in terror, as the most familiar face of his father was then covered with a helmet and plumes, an ornament to him, but a terror to the infant a soul-stirring innocence of children (and also to Hector's foes). Amused, he removed the helmet and took the apple of his eye into his hands and fondled him, but soon gave vent to very moving sentiments. He would soon go down under the onslaught of the Greeks, but he was sure that the gods, above, would grant his prayer and make his son a far-better warrior and a greater leader of Troy than his father and hailed so by the citizens of Troy, whenever he would come home, a victor laden with rich spoils of war, a very moving irony. He never even dreamt that Troy would go up in flames and his son would lie in its ashes while his wife, mother, sister, brother and many other would be carried away as prizes of war, by the Greeks. His wife was married to the son of Achilles. It was for Virgil to resuscitate the slave prince Helenus, brother of Hector as the ruler of the land of his master, after his death, (Virgil's "Aeneid").

        Hector's infant son is introduced as one of the characters in the story with his own role to play. Even in comparisons, similies, employed with reference to the pranks and moods of children, which we find among numerous poets, Homer shines forth as their cynosure. His choice of their pranks and moods are amazing, when we consider that he was a blind bard and that they pass unnoticed by even poets, like "falling apples", a most unobserved common phenomenon.

        Jeucer, was a famous Greek archer, whose fatal shot never missed its target. He fought by the side of his great half-brother, the great Telamonian Aias. Immediately after his deadly shaft found its mark with fatal result he would rush behind the shield of his great brother "Like a child running for shelter to its mother's skirts", after hitting its play-mate or out of fear for anything it has seen.

        A dying flame shines brighter; even so the Trojans. So the Greeks, on Nestor's advice, in anticipation of a desperate attack by the Trojans, built a huge wall as their last line of defense. It was the turn of Apolo to fight on the Trojan ride. He egged them on to the attack and kicked off the great wall, with as much ease, as children playing on sand by the sea-shore, having erected a house or other structure of sand, demolish it with hands and feet, out of frolic and fun or rivalry, to erect a new structure.

        Homer casts his spell even over animals. The classic example is one from "Iliad", regarding the immortal pair of horses of Achilles and another from "Odyssey", as regards the great hound of Odysseus. As for those horses, any other poets, even a great one, would say that they would match with the wind and even outrun it and such like descriptions of their swiftness. But the Homeric way is quite different, conjuring up a charming vision, though the primitive mythology clings to it. "The wind-swift, immortal pair of horses, Xantheus and Balius were fooled by their mother Podarge, the storm-filly and their sin, the western gale, when she was grazing in the meadows beside ocean-stream".

        Under the lead and inspiration of Hector, the Trojan Achilles as it were, the Trojans made a terrific assault on the Greek forces and swept them back to the great wall they built as their last line of defense. Terror was in the face of every Greek. A disorderly retreat and noisy rout was their lot. Such desperate straits were too much even for their great leaders. Hector was rushing at the grand old Nestor to have his solid gold shield, "The envy of heaven itself. Hector was talking to his horses to rush forward for the shield. many poets had their charioteers pleading with their horses. But Homer talks from a far higher level of the mount of muses. He (Hector) appeals to his horses in the name of his wife Andromache, who attended to them even before her loving Lord. She gave them "Honeyed wheat and wine".

        Nestor's life was in danger from Hector. Even the "much-enduring, noble Odysseus" did not heed this, but sped away to save his skin. Only the great Diomedes came to the rescue of Nestor and was able to turn the tide of defeat. But as fates would have it, a thunder-clap from Zeus, unnerved him and he retracted. Destiny was inexorably moving towards its purposed goal. While such distress struck his Greeks, Achilles was playing on his Lyre. Perhaps his callous indifference to his fellow-beings made its appearance, by way of Atavism, in the Roman emperor Nero.

        Some similarity exists between the Homer's ideas of destiny and those of our orient. Perhaps in the course of centuries, the latter might have travelled west, but got distorted, having entered a murky mythology. In my little view, our idea of destiny is but a divinely computerized result of all our thoughts, deeds and words based purely on free will and extending deep into the past (numerous past births) and covering the present also and also having an inevitable end someday, known only to great seers and can be modified or even nullified by the grace of god, through prayer, worship etc. More to it, in my main commentary on "Rāmayana". When these ideas spread west, the primitive mythology of the west, leaving the freewill intact, devoured all other salient features of our philosophy of destiny.

        Coming to Homer, the ill-starred Achilles was to have either a long life as a non-entity among princes or a short life, a premature death, but with a proverbial glory. But when the Greek pride was pricked by Paris of Troy, running away with Helen, Achilles, joined the Greek expedition against Troy and quite unwittingly chose the latter course of destiny, much to the agony of his celestial mother Thetis. Soon he won fame as the "sacker of cities" and the great bastion of the Greek forces. But his great quarrel with king Agamemnon, the Over-lord of the Greeks, over his captive prize of war, the Lady named Briseis and his swearing to take part in the battle no longer, kept his fatal destiny in abeyance. But he implored his celestial mother most tearfully to avenge his humiliation, by praying to god Zeus to give upper hand to the Trojans, in his absence and "send the gallant souls of many noble Greeks to Hades, leaving their bodies as carrion for the dogs and passing birds" and make Agamemnon repent of his great folly in insulting Achilles the palladium of their safety and victorious home-coming. Zeus, the great dispenser of human destiny, supported him. But Achilles, seeing the terrific plight of the Greeks and their ships about to go up in flames from Trojan torches and still nursing his tie against the king and without himself entering the fray, sent his Vāliant squire and close friend Patroclus, lending him his own impregnable armour, to their succour. He warned him to return as soon as he saved the ships and not to fight further the "war¬like Trojans". Patroclus, went and blinded by his success rushed into the thick of the battle, confronted Hector and died at his hands. Patroclus was the heart and soul of Achilles. His death was sufficient to draw Achilles into the vortex of the battle, without even an apology, from the king, which he previously spurned with extreme rudeness. He killed the great Hector, but in the final and inescapable tryst with destiny, his soul, too took flight through a wound in his heel from a fatal shaft from Paris, Hector's brother.

        In the hands of Vālmeeki or Vyāsa, the turns and twists and obstacles or otherwise in the arch of destiny are far more enlightened leavened by Upanishadic wisdom, more mystifying, more spiritualizing mankind when dealing with incarnations of god and far more nearer the great truth about god, creation and life. The reason is obvious, namely Homer's is a poetical fancy, with the moorings of a quaint mythology and there was then no philosophy worth the name, the great philosophers like Socrates being of much later times. But as regards Vālmeeki or Vyāsa, to adapt Keats metaphor, they were in addition to having great poetic faculty, "Charioted by" spiritual fancy and vision, born of extraordinary spiritual discipline and penance, which alone can pierce the greal viel and explore the mystery. Homer's fancy, though highly poetical, has no more (philosophical) Vālidity than that of a science-fiction which might, or might not, turn out to be true. Without realising the crucial difference, our brain-washed wiseacres resort to rubbish criticism of our epics and their characters, betraying a diseased mind and soul and a disgusting snobbery for whatever is western "truth has superior rights".

        I think that we can better know our epics by knowing the great epics of the west (of Homer, Virgil) and comparing and contrasting them with our epics, though our laws of poets differ from theirs, since they are universal and "imperial" poets. Hence despite pressure for space, I devoted so many pages for "Iliad", the treasure-house of all that is poetically excellent and a classic. 1 am exactly in the position of the great Aias, a Greek king. Though the Trojans swarmed about him and his life was in great peril, he stubbornly stuck to his position and warded off their spears and shafts and slowly and very reluctantly retreated. Homer uses a superb simile. "He was as stubborn as a donkey, who gets the better of the boys in charge of him, turns into a field they are passing and helps himself to the standing crop, though many sticks have been broken on his back, till at last they drive him out with much ado, but not before he has eaten all he wants". It is a merit for me, also to be compared to that beast, as I am similarly grazing in the royal fields of the great Homer. It amazes me how a sightless person as Homer was, though a great poets could know such phenomenon, noticed through one's own eyes only (Imagination comes next only, to ornament it), unless it be that he got blind after some mature age, like Milton. Similarly amazing are his observations regarding the idyllic country-side, the fearsome forests, wildernesses, nightly raids of sheep-flocksolds by wild animals, the hue and cry raised by the rural folk in warding them off, awe-inspiring tempests and thunder-claps, divesting the crops and uprooting the forest-trees, torrential rains smashing the dykes, the surge of the stormy seas and thunders of the frowning skies and so on.

        Vālmeeki or Vyāsa did not so profusely draw from the rural scenes as Homer did. Only Kamba, the greatest Tamil poets did it in his "Rāmayana".

        "Iliad" is full of description of scores of battles between the armies, encounters between rival heroes and duds between the lesser fry. Tedium is out of question as each engagement has a novel and dramatic feature about it, with a gripping interest to the reader. It is a thrilling saga of martial feats and "wicked wars" of the ancient past. In addition, there is the grim humour of Homer. For instance, a jagged stone from Patroclus lands on the forehead of Hector's driver, who drops down dead, like a person who drives from a ship for fish. Patroclus vaunts that he never knew that the Trojans are such expert divers. The irony is that he too is following his victim to the Hades below, shortly at the hands of the great Hector. Homer seems to delight in wars and they give glory to man. But with Vyāsa (Vālmeeki) wars are ordained as holy acts of the warrior-class to rescue righteousness from evil and sustain it. Then only they are the open gates to heaven. Otherwise war is a deadly sin.

        The colourless and jejune stories (legends) on Troy are transformed by Homer into an inspired story of great kaleidoscopic beauty of incidents, thought, figures of speech, action etc. In my view such dramatic incidents take precedence over mere characterization and are, as it were nine-tenths of the genius of a poets, especially in the case of epics. A beautiful and dramatic incident, beautifully rendered, is of the essence of epic poetry. It gives rise to, moulds, or controls character and that art. A whole national ethos is born of the epics. The epic is the Bible of that race.

        The Trojans reached the great wall. The Greeks were moved down by a single man, mighty Hector. "Oh for Achilles or night" was on the lips of every Greek. Night came to the great disappointment of the Trojans. Trojans settled to bivouac in the battlefield beside huge bonfires awaiting day. The Greek over-lord Agamemnon was a picture of grief "Shuddering in the grip of Panic, who treads on the heels of Rout. His spirit of egotism as the Greek over-lord was broken. Nestor advised him to sue for peace, the great and adamantine Achilles, with attractive gifts and separations. The king, even offered to give one of his three very fair daughters in marriage to Achilles. Further he sent to mollify him, the wise Odysseus and Aias the great, whom Achilles loved and respected most among all the Greeks and also the venerable Phoenix, once the tutor of Achilles and his best friend. They found him playing on the Lyre as if the plight of the Greeks did not concern him.

        Homer and Virgil use long speeches and fine speakers like Nestor narrate anecdotes in detail to make out their point. The trio of peace-makers, very imploringly explained in fine speeches to Achilles, the desperate straits of the Greeks, the most genuine repentance of the king Agamemnon, the precious and princely gifts he sent as amends, his offer of marrying one of his daughters to him, a covetable status for even Achilles, the futility of quarrels inter- se and lastly his great moral duty to obey the king, in whose hands, the great god Zeus put the royal scepter, with a hint that the great god might get offended if he would not relent and a humble warning that he too would be incapable of saving his own ships from enemy fire, if he did not act at once, being too late by then. But Achilles, in a fiery speech, spitting venom and brutal contempt for the king, threw all their pleas to the winds. He deluded himself (a bitter irony) that destiny would give him a safe home-coming. They were dumbfounded by his "soul-destroying" wrath and pride. They left the place in utter disgust, with the impression that "He was a sort of monster, brought up on bile, instead of mothers milk" (as Achilles himself so admits later).

        Homer's pen does not rest even at night. He creates two escapades, one from each camp. Dolon, a rich chief on the Trojan ride, coveted to have the peerless horses and the golden chariot of the great Achilles. Hector promised to give them to him, being sure of victory over the Greeks, in the next days battle, if Dolon ventured into the Greek camp to spy on them to know what they proposed to do the next day, whether to fight or flee. The greedy, but luckless fellow agreed to do so and set forth. From the Greecian camp, great Diomedes and daring Odysseus set out into the Trojan camp, "Like a pair of lions through the black night", to avenge their rout in the day on some sleeping warriors. The unlucky Dolon, crossed their path and was chased and caught by them. Under threat of instant death, he divulged to them the strategic disposition of the sleeping Trojan chiefs. Quaking with deadly fear and most pathetically imploring for mercy to be spared his life for a rich ransom, he informed them where Rhesus, the king of the Thracians, who lately came on the side of Trojans, was sleeping with finest horses and a chariot of gold. Most outrageous thoughts and murder goading them, Diomedes chopped off his head. The "noble" Odysseus stripped the corpse of the belt, bow and spear and held them up, in prayer, as offering to goddess Athene, for so inspiring them. In "Iliad'' gods and goddesses played many dark roles, Zeus only excepted. He stood neutral and did not even save his mortal son, king Sarpedon, having to uphold destiny fully. The two human lions went ahead, found the king, butchered him and twelve of his sleeping followers of rank and made off with the king's pair of finest horses only without further slaughter and without the golden chariot of the dead king. Athene, satisfied with the gory offering, warned them that "god Apollo of the silver bow", was waking up the Trojans, whom he favoured and also out of jealousy for Athene.

        "Dawn rose from the bed where she sleeps with the Lord Tithonus, to bring day-light to the gods and men". Homer throughout uses such felicitous figures of speech in both his works. At one place he speaks of "Heavenly dawn reaching high Olympus announcing day" and at another place, he speaks of dawn as rosy-fingered and so on. There is nothing primitive or superstitious about it. It is the soul-ennobling style of epics, which generation after generation of poets copied, especially in the matter of personification of nature, for example, "The Orbed-maiden", meaning Moon etc.

        "The Demon Strife, with the banner of battle in her hands", descended on the battlefield. The two armies collided, like two tempests in opposite directions. At first the initiative was with the Greeks. Their chief Agamemnon stormed the battlefield, destroying horse and man. But when he was wounded and was carried off to the ships, the tide turned. The formidable Hector did marvels, with "chariot and javelin" and mowed down the enemy. Their very best men, like mighty Diomedes, Odysseus, were wounded. The great Aias just managed to save himself from destruction. Nestor picked up the wounded machaon, the famous surgeon of the Greek army and drove away. Achilles noticed this, became very much concerned about the condition of the great surgeon machaon, "Who is worth a regiment" and sent his close friend and squire Patroclus to find out what had happened to him. Nestor conveyed his utter disgust to Patroclus, of the cynicism of his great master, Achilles, "In being concerned about a single casualty" while the whole Greek army was on the brink of disaster and groveling in dust in abject fear.

        Patroclus ran back to his master, being profoundly moved by the sight of great chieftains, with "sweat pouring from their heads and shoulders and dark blood from their painful wounds", but with their minds as cheerful as ever. It is not possible for me to give a correct and graphic account of all the amazingly numerous and highly poetic and dramatic incidents, as I fear the "great mad" would turn into a "Dunciad" in my hands, when Homer himself says that "It would take a god to tell the tale". Alexander Pope wrote a satirical poem on the lines of "Iliad" about the fools of his time.

        The Trojans began storming the great wall, great Sarpedon, "With his mighty hands began to pull down the battlements. Hector heaved a great rock, too heavy for even two strong men", but made light for him by Zeus and struck with it its great gate, which went down crashing. "Glorious Hector leapt inside, with a look like nightfall on his face". The Trojans all rushed in, like a flood. Pandemonium broke out. Hell was let loose. Disgusted with the sight, Zeus moved away. Taking advantage of his absence the lesser gods came down and took sides. In "mad", though men fought and died, they were mere pawns in the hands of the immortals, who fought through mortals, to settle their own scores.

        Once, the great goddesses, Hera, the divine consort (also a Sister) of Zeus, Athene, the goddess of wisdom and the daughter of Zeus (also a "Fighting goddess" and "Protectress of cities") and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, disputed among themselves as to the prominence among themselves and the decision was left to Paris. He made the fatal mistake in giving the palm to the last goddess Aphrodite for a secret boon, from her, of love and its pleasures, whcih turned out to be a curse of Troy in the form of Helen. Being thus humiliated, Hera and Athene bore grudge against Troy, though the latter had a shrine in Troy. Poseidon, the ocean-god (brother of Zeus) became the inveterate enemy of Troy, for the humiliation he suffered at the hands of the naughty Laomedon, the father of Priam, whom he had to serve for wages for a year under the command of Zeus. But god Apollo was on the side of the Trojans. He had a shrine in Troy. Zeus was neutral, having to administer the destiny of the Trojan race (those that remained after the great sack of Troy) of being transplanted in far-off land. But Zeus (Jupiter in Roman Virgil's "Aeneid"), to mollify his consort Hera (Juno in "Aeneid") concedes her request that the new kingdom of the Trojans be called not Troy, but Italy and the race no longer be called Trojan race, but Roman race (Virgil's "Aeneid"). It seems to me that Homer was struggling hard against the cant of the Dark Age to give a rational philosophy about gods and Goddesses and he puts it in the mouth of Apollo, when god Poseidon challenged him to a combat. He (Apollo) says "men are wretched creatures, who like leaves, flourish and flaunt their brilliance for a little while, but in a moment droop and fade away and it is senseless for gods to fight with each other for their sake". (Much have I hungered for Homer's own idiom and phrase and yet I have before me a translation which I suspect to have more of the translator's own, leaving Homer as Greek as ever to me). Gods also come to grief, if they have unnatural connections with mortals. The sea-nymph Thetis was a picture of sorrow and anxiety. She married a mortal, king Peleus and became the mother of the ill-starred Achilles.

        In a similar vein, but in a far more sublime way, worthy the great god Zeus, he gave vent to his anguish in immortal words addressing the immortal pair of horses of Achilles (got from his father, king Peleus), when they were shedding a flood of tears on the death of Patrocius, who rode them to his death at the hands of the great Hector, though after doing much havoc. Zeus said "Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to king Peleus, to a mortal? But ye are without old age and immortal. Was it that with men born in misery you might have sorrow? Of all creatures that breathe and creep about on mother earth, there is none so miserable as man" (I have clubbed two translations).

        Homer invents a fantastic interlude, based upon the Pagan mythology and the crudely distorted oriental mythology. With the constant aim of bringing Achilles into the war, thereby subserving the destiny, Zeus was giving to the Trojans upper hand in the battle, resulting in almost every Greek leader of repute being wounded or killed and panic seizing every Greek soldier. His consort Hera and his brother Poseidon, the earth shaker very much resented this pathetic situation of the Greeks, brought about by him. So they wanted to outwit him and save the Greeks.

        Hera, decked herself in all the charms of love and beauty when she first met her Lord, Zeus. She deceived Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to give her love and desire, the great powers of Aphrodite in enslaving mankind and the immortals. Though Aphrodite was a protagonist of Troy, she succumbed to the fraud played on her and parted with her powers, love and desire. Then Hera, took the help of sweet sleep, promising to give him one of the graces in marriage. Thus equipped in all the wiles of love, she went to where Zeus was watching the battle. As anticipated by her, he succumbed to her charms slept with her, during which time, the Greeks, under the inspiration of Poseidon, rolled back the Trojan tide.

        Zeus awoke to his realization that he became the victim of the guile practised on him by his consort, Hera "of the Golden throne", with the active support of his brother, Lord Poseidon, "The Earthshaker". All his plans went away. The Trojan flood, which once threatened to engulf the Greek ships, far ebbed away. Hector was wounded and lying unconscious in a far-off spot, surrounded by his anxious comrades. Like an iron phalanx, shields and helmets touching each other, the Greek host was in hot pursuit of the routed Trojans. What infuriated Zeus most (at which the whole Olympus, the seat of gods, shook), was that Poseidon was helping the Greeks in the chase. Hera fear took to flight, with a lame excuse and an apology, which drew a smile from her Lord and warned the gods of Olympus not to cross the path of Zeus on pain of being flung far-away into the "Dark Regions" below, by him in his blind fury. She gave them the mind of Zeus, which was to give a short-lived victory to the Trojans just to draw Achilles into the war, leaving the final victory, to the Greeks, of wiping out Troy from the face of the earth. Zeus, sent the "Wind-swift Iris of the fleet foot" with orders to Lord Poseidon, "The great earth shaker, the girdler of the world, god of the sable flocks", to quit the battlefield at once. But the god became furious and burst forth that he is not bound to obey Zeus. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, were sons of Cronos and divided the world between them by lots. Zeus got the broad sky and clouds as his portion, the grey sea became the realm of Poseidon and Hades became the god of the dead, the dark world below. But the earth and high Olympus were kept for their common use and concurrent jurisdiction. So Poseidon claimed that he was within his rights in doing what he did. But on second thought he became afraid that Zeus might unleash against him the avenging furies, "Who always supported Zeus". So he quitted the battlefield in great dudgeon.

        Zeus called in Apollo and ordered him to help the Trojans. Under the inspiration of Apollo, Hector became hale again and even more. The Trojan onslaught began. The Greeks were panic-striken on seeing Hector, as if he rose from the dead. Apollo lead the Trojans on. He was always on their side, since the Trojans worshipped him in his shrine in Pergamus. He filled up the deep trenches of the Greeks in a trice and with the ease of a little boy trampling down his sandy structure, while playing in sand, Apollo kicked away the great wall "erected by the Greeks so painfully". The mass formation of the Greeks, which, hitherto disputed every inch of space, broke up and fled like a crowd of rustics when a "bearded lion suddenly made its appearance".

        The battle, then, shifted to the ships. Patroclus, who was attending on the wounded Eurypylus, saw this and was aghast at such crisis in their fortunes. He rushed to his great friend and Lord, Achilles, with eyes full of tears. Achilles asked him in a fine figure of speech, "Patroclus, why do you. weep like a little girl trotting at her mother's side, begging to be carried, plucking her skirt to make her stop and looking up at her with streaming eyes till at last she takes her in her arms?" A tender simile in the mouth of the ruthless Achilles. Homer draws out tender sentiments, even from a monster's mouth as in his "Odyssey". Cyclops Polyphemus, being blinded by Odysseus, in his only eye, sat at the entrance of his cave, letting out his sheep into the pastures and feeling their backs whether Noman and his fellows were riding on them to their freedom and safety, the fool not knowing that they were clinging to their bellies. Noman is the false name given out by wily Odysseus as his, to the Cyclops, which saved them from utter disaster, from its plain meaning no man. A big ram "Cumbered with his wool" used to lead the flock. But that day, it came last for the obvious reason that Odysseus detained it, to himself get out, clinging to his big woolly belly, the giant caressingly touched him on his back and spoke "Dear ram, wherefore, I pray thee, are thou the last of all the flocks to go forth from the cave? But now thou art the very last. Surely thou art sorrowing for the eye of thy Lord, which an evil man, Noman, blinded and who hath not yet, I say escaped destruction. Ah, if thou could not feel as I and be endued with speech, to tell me where he shifts about to shun my wrath then should he be smitten and his brains be dashed against the floor and my heart be lightened of the sorrows, which Noman, nothing worth, hath brought me".

        In one of the finest speeches, Patroclus made an impassioned appeal urging Achilles to rush, without any further delay, to the succour of his country-men about whom, disaster was looming large, ready to overwhelm them at any moment. Even if his helmet was flashing, not in the van, but in the rear of the Greek army, the Trojans dared not even open their city-gates. Soon that name and fame would give place to the terrible infamy for generations to come, that his wrath surely of a demonic type, "sent many gallant souls of Greece to Hades , a situation purely of his own making, from his megalomaniac pride and egotism. His celestial mother Thetis, would bend her head in shame, for giving birth to such a son. "Only the grey sea and its frowning crags could have produced a monster so hard-hearted".

        At this pricking reproof from his most loving friend and follower, Patroclus, the vengeful spirit of Achilles showed signs of thawing. Without himself taking up arms, he permitted Patroclus, also a great warrior, to lead "his battle-loving" and fierce as wolves, Myrmidonian army against the Trojans. He asked him to go in his (Achilles) own armour as it was not only impregnable, being made by celestial hands, but also would give impression to the foes that Achilles had come again, resulting in their flight without a real fight. But Achilles was not a completely changed person. He ordered his friend, to stop fighting and return to the camp, as soon as the ships were safe from the fiery assault of the enemy.

        Meanwhile, Hector, "Raging like the war-god, spear in hand, or like a fire on the mountains, destroying the deep recesses of the woods" was storming at the human wall formed by the Greek Soldiery, to make a breach in them and reach the ships and set them on fire. After some futile attempts, Hector "Aflame from head to foot", burst into their midst, "Like a wave raised by a gale, sweeping forward and breaking on a gallant-ship". The Greeks stampeded "like cattle on seeing a savage lion". A fierce fight at the ships followed. The formidable spear of the great Aias put out the life of many a Trojan rushing towards the ships with fire-brands. But he soon retreated, when Hector sprang at him and broke his spear with a sweep of his great sword. Soon a "Gallant-ship" caught fire.

        Achilles saw the flames leaping from the ship. Panic-stricken, he "slapped his thighs" and hurried Patroclus into the battle. Getting into the "inlaid chariot" of Achilles, drawn by the celestial pair of horses, Xanthus and Balius and driven by the famous Automedon, who alone, except Achilles and Patroclus, could tame and manage those immortal horses and donning the dazzling and terror-striking, armour and helmet of his great master Achilles and armed with two powerful spears of his own, those of Achilles, being too heavy long and formidable for him, Patroclus led his fresh Myrmidonian army like "flesh-eating wolves in all their natural savagery", into the melee at the ships.

        Panic gripped the Trojans as from sudden death from nowhere or as from "a sudden tempest unleashed from heavens". They thought that Achilles entered the fray, having got reconciled with his over-lord Agamemnon. Pandemonium became the order among the Trojans. They fled for any shelter they thought of. In their mad rush for safety Hector was swept back from the ships by this human flood and the Greeks were saved from fiery ruin.

        After the initial noisy rout, the Trojans realised that it was Patroclus and not Achilles that was hounding them. Then they made a bold stand and confronted the Greeks, inspired- by the great Hector. Regular duds ensured. Each side picked off and sent to everlasting night, the leaders from the enemy ranks. But the star of the doomed Patroclus shone the brightest over the battlefield. He ' performed miracles with his spear, of which even Achilles, his great master, must be proud.

        Intoxicated with his victories, he under-rated Hector and madly rushed into the thick of the enemy ranks like the "wild god of war", forgetting the order from his master not to do more execution than was necessary to first save the ships from disaster.

        Homer strives very hard (perhaps to cater to Greek audience) to present Achilles their idol, in a somewhat favourable light so far as human virtues are concerned. Such instances are mere silver linings of a dark and a very dark cloud. A stray sparrow, or a few sparrows do not make summer. Just as his armour was proof against enemy darts, he was impervious to all fine human feelings except his exceptional love for his friend and squire, Patroclus, which love oddly enough, drew out the devil in him for vengeance. He was a mere engine of war.

        Our epics also abound in numerous misdeeds, grave crimes, heinous actions, odious thoughts and passions and so on. But the characters therein belonged to more civilized times and of a very high order of human beings, but whose noble minds were warped by the all-compeeling destiny and to subserve the aim of the saint-poets. In utter contrast, Homer and those of his ilk had to deal with semi-barbaric and semi-primitive times and peoples, whose hospitality and such tender behaviour were mere eye-wash, when they were aroused in their passions.

        Achilles ordered his squire Patroclus to the battle, not out of any compunction to his fellow-countrymen in sore distress, but out of some apprehension that, if the Trojans succeeded in torching the Greek ships, his fleet also would go up in flames, preventing his home-coming. A tremendous megalomaniac he was to ask Patroclus just to save the ships and leave the greek and Trojan Lords to fight against each other to the last man, so that it would be left for Achilles and Patroclus to "pull down Troys holy diadem of towers single-handed". So he prayed to Zeus. By another obnoxious warning to Patroclus not to proceed further, he plainly told Patroclus that he would be making his master (Achilles) cheap, if he gained all the reputation by himself. How such envy can seat itself by the side of his abnormal love for him.

        Homer very grudgingly gives the palm to Hector. He says that it was not Hector, but the god Phoebus Apollo that knocked off the helmet and broke the huge spear of Patroclus, who then stood stunned and motionless. Then only Hector speared him and brought him down, the sugestion being that Hector was unfair and unchivalrous. Patroclus still boasted in his last breath, that had not Apollo disarmed him, "twenty Hectors would have fallen to his spear". Hector sprang forward to capture the chariot and the horses of Achilles, but in vain as the charioteer drove them off to safety, where the immortal horses stood motionless, a flood of tears wetting their manes, to the great agony of Zeus himself, the finest poetic sentiments.

        But the great armour of Achilles fell into the hands of Hector. There was fierce fight over the body of Patroclus, as the panthers, lions or the fierce wild boars fighting over the carcass of the beast they had killed. At last the body was retrieved and carried off to the camp of Achilles, saved from the fierce on- slaughts of "man killing Hector".

        Meanwhile, with great trepidition, Nestor's son broke this fateful and "lamentable" news to Achilles. Achilles broke down like a felled tree, - a perfect picture of grief and agony. He wept and wept as even no child could weep. He rolled down in the dust and dashed dust on his head. Nestor's son constantly attended on him for fear that he may kill himself in despair for having failed his friend in need. Then suddenly in a surge of fiercest passion of revenge, he gave vent to a dreadful cry which reached even his immortal mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, in the far-depths of the ocean. She rushed to her mortal son, surrounded by sea-nymphs.

        Mortal fear possessed her immortal self. She saw clearly the writing on the wall that Hector and her son would become twins in death, the former preceding the latter by a short while. It required all the mother in her to prevent her frenzied son, from rushing into battle against Hector then and there. Hector was his counterpoise and redoubtable and more redoubtable because he had on him the celestial armour of Achilles, (a present from the gods on his father's wedding-day) by stripping it off the body of Patroclus, keeping at bay many lion-like Greecian warriors and Achilles had none at that time, worth the name except his two formidable spears.

        In great agony, Thetis begged her son, not to take part in the battle, till she returned with a new armour. She rushed to the heavens and begged the master-smith of gods, Hephaestus, to make for her son a formidable armour to withstand the bloodiest battles that were to follow on her son again leading the Greek lords.

        It was a very fantastic armour the celestial architect made in just one night. Its dimensions were mind-boggling. It could protect under its aegis a hundred warriors. Homer devotes many verses on it. Two cities were engraved on it, one a beleaguered one and another with banquets. A large field was there. There was a vine-yard, a grazing-ground, a dancing-floor, a beautiful valley and so on. The stream of Homer's poetry never flows in a placid and smoother manner (unlike Virgil's as critics say) it rushes and in torrents. Hence the fantastic imagery.

        "Dawn in her saffron mantle rose from the river of ocean". The feud between Achilles and the king (The Commander-in-chief of the Greek forces) Agamemnon, ended. The king restored the Lady Briseis, (taken forcibly from Achilles, with the power of a king and over-lord) to him, with many apologies and ample separations sufficient to satisfy his demonic ego.

        Putting on this monstrous armour, Achilles stepped into his great inlaid chariot, drawn by celestial pair of horses. In a terrible voice he reproved the horses for flying away from the battlefield, when Patroclus was killed and leaving his dead body to be dishonoured by the enemy. Pricked to the quick, being of the celestial breed, the horse Xanthus, with human speech, replied that it was not through their fault or indolence that Patroclus lost his life and armour. It was god Apollo and the "strong hand of destiny" that wanted to give Hector a short-lived glory. It further warned him that death was waiting on its wings for him from "A god and a man". Then "The furies struck it dumb" and destiny remained a mystery and naturally so. One should not look upon this as an unnatural and irrational idea, it has the fragrance of fine poetry, especially in the case of epic poets. Achilles laughed away the warning, being fully aware of it and being prepared for it. We are familiar with this phenomenon (attitude) from "The Rāmayana" where the Rākshasās, though confronted with ill-omens from the start, rode on to the battlefield as to a feast or entertainment.

        It was in many ways a crucial battle that was about to burst forth. Firstly, Homer must have thought of winding up his work with this battle. The last line in the epic is "such were the funeral rites of Hector, tamer of horses". Secondly no other battle, on this scale, took place for pulling down the towers of Troy. It was only by the stratagem of the "wooden horse" that the Greeks entered the citadel, sacked it and set it on fire. Again Zeus, the great god, permitted all the lesser gods free hand in this battle, to purge the gods of their mutual jealousies and rivalries and once for all settle their old scores amongst themselves for the sake of mortals they love or hated. Finally thenceforward destiny rolled down engulfing in its doom, Hector first and shortly afterwards Achilles and finally the holy Ilium, Troy, gods against gods, the Trojans had on their side the gods, Ares, the war-god, Apollo (Sun-god of later times), Artemis (The goddess of the Chase), god of river Xanthus and Aphrodite, "the laughter-loving goddess", who brought all this disaster on Troy, by offering Helen to Paris and assisting them in their ruinous escapade.

        Achilles was a moving tower of steel. He was also "fleet-footed" and of course he was also a mighty warrior. His celestial armour could withstand the shock of even a huge boulder and thrown with tremendous force. The same was the case with even a powerful spear-thrust or stroke of an adamantine sword even. A sword, a spear, a boulder and some archery were all the weapons, the warriors of those days had and when they failed them, they had to run away or were caught in their flight and killed. On account of this divine armour, the Trojan warriors, even great ones, had unusually heavy odds against them. The mighty Aeneas could not withstand the charge of Achilles with his sword and was saved by god Poseidon (Latin-Neptune).- At another time Apollo saved Hector. Heaps upon heaps of Trojan corpses were crushed under the massive hoofs of his divine horses, like a harvest on a "Threshing-floor". He ran among with his mighty spear. many noble youths begged vainly for mercy, not knowing that he had none. many ran to the river Xanthus (Seamander) and plunged into it to escape his fury. But he too leapt into it along with them and by his slaughter the river became red. He captured twelve noble youths, (Princes) and sent them to his camp as prisoners for slaughter at his friend's (Patroclus) funeral to propitiate his ghost.

        The battles of Achilles are fantastic and more so, the battles of gods among themselves for their favourites, Trojans or Greeks. Disbelief is pushed out and only the poetic quality grips our interest.

        The rivers (their invisible presiding deities) speak in human voice, a familiar thing with us from our Puranas. The holy river called Xanthus by gods and Seamander by mankind, was worshipped by the Trojans. The river was disgusted with and felt himself polluted by the innumerable corpses floating on him and loudly appealed to the god Phoebues to help the Trojans, his votaries from long time past. Hearing this, Achilles became mad and furious and plunged into the river to do battle with it. The river rushed upon him with flood upon flood, fear gripped Achilles and prayed to god Zeus. Poseidon and Athene rushed to his succoir. Seeing those superior deities, the river-god abated. But as soon as they left the scene and Achilles continued his havoc again, the river assisted by his brother river Simois, rose again in greater fury to entomb the great Achilles in his bed of silt and slime and enable the Trojans to cheat the destiny. The divine consort of Zeus, goddess Hera noticed the sore straits her pet hero, Achilles, was in. She ordered her son Hephaestus (god Vulcan, the god of Fire) to teach the River-god Xanthus, (Seamander) a lesson. Immediately the god set on fire the great river. He (river) boiled like a heated cauldron; the trees on his banks were faced with a fiery death. Eating humble-pie, the river begged goddess Hera for mercy.

        Under the license given by Zeus, various gods fought among themselves, much to the amusement of the great god. Homer raises much laughter thereby. One god is of crooked foot (Vulcan); another is of monstrous bulk; Athene bringing down the war-god with a huge boulder and running after Aphrodite, the tender goddess of Love; the great god Poseidon, the earth shaker challenging the great god Apollo Artemis, the goddess of Chase, being boxed on her ears by her step-mother. Here, sobbing on the lap of her father Zeus etc., - a high comedy among gods also, flowed from the mouth of this great Bard, Homer.

        Saved from wet death, Achilles resumed his murderous course, this time, on land. Panic-stricken, the Trojans rushed for safety towards the city-gates. From the bastions, the old king Priam took alarm and ordered the gates to be kept open and saved the troops from a certain massacre. Hector alone remained outside and as a rock. The old king tore his hair in utter agony, entreating his son to come inside and fight the on-rushing devil of Achilles from the walls safely. "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought". Such was the lament of Priam - With Hector gone, it will be his (Priam's) turn to fall by someone's javelin or sword (this came true, being killed by the monstrous son of monstrous Achilles, Neoptolemus, during the sack of Troy) and "The very dogs I have fed at table and trained to watch my gate will loll about in front of it, maddened by their masters blood. When an old man is killed and dogs defile his grey head, grey beard, we plumb the depths of human degradation" (From a translation of "Iliad").

        More pathetic was Hector's mother, who cried to him to have pity on her and in her very moving agony exposed her breasts from which he drew sustenance while as a suckling infant. This has the stamp of the finest poetry. The seat of authority or for the matter of that, that of the divinity of a mother, in relation to her sons and daughters, is her face and next her breasts. It is common knowledge, especially among the older generations, that a woman, who gave suck to a child, not her own, was shown by the latter, when grown up the same love and regard as that for one's own mother. Homer shows this finest sentiment in the context of the deepest depth of human misery. Vyāsa shows the same in the context of the pinnacle of human happiness. Drōna arranged a tournament for all the princes under his tutelage to test their merit. The Pāndava princes were winning the palm in each and every trial. Seeing this, their proud mother Kunti in her ecstatic happiness, felt the tenderest stirrings about her breasts. Great poets think alike. In "Uttara Rāma Charitra" of "Bhavabhooti", Sita Devi, in all agony for being abandoned by Rāma and further her sons Lava and kusa being taken away from her at their very tender age to be put under the tutelage of Vālmeeki, (a night in night) felt the same divinely innocent impulse to give suck to her sons, then more than years of age.

        Hector was boldness itself and as a mountain-snake, maddened by the poisonous herbs he has swallowed, allows a man to come up to the lair, where he lies coiled and watches him with a baleful glitter in his eye", a unique simile. Achilles looked a savage and a monster at that, with his weird armour and spears. On seeing him, Hector, his courage and resolution suddenly failing, ran for life like a coward, Achilles pursuing him like a mountain hawk in chase of a timid dove". In my humble opinion, this is both a prejudiced and an inartistic picture of Hector (My humble apologies to the great Bard). Alone among the Trojans, Hector was the fittest rival to Achilles. Under his onslaught, short-while before, the Greek Lords ate humble pie and Hector had on him in addition the almost celestial armour snatched from Patroclus (the previous armour of Achilles). Achilles would have shone in greater glory, had Hector been permitted by the poets to put up a stiffer and a longer resistance, though succumbing to destiny in the end. In our epics even David's confronting Goliaths put the latter in sore straits for sometime. It is understandable if Hector lost heart and ran off when all his weapons proved futile, there being no other way of saving his dear life than by flight. But Homer put flight first, on the part of the top most hero, who disdained to slink into the city and afterwards a resolution on Hector's part to do or die - like putting cart before the horse.

        Thrice round the city Hector ran, pursued by relentless Achilles, who ran close to the walls preventing Hector from access to the city-gates. As destiny would have it, the Trojan archers from the walls would have showered arrows on Achilles and brought him down, but none did so. On the other hand the Greeks were ready to shoot at Hector, but were forbidden to do so by Achilles for fear of being robbed of the glory.

        At last Hector turned round and boldly confronted Achilles. Before closing for fight the noble Hector proposed a mutual pledge not to dishonour the corpse of the vanquished, but to hand it over to its kith and kin for an honourable burial. The reply of the proud Achilles was ignoble - he saying "Lions do not come to terms with men, nor does the wolf see eye to eye with the lamb" (the translator uses the english idiom, always, the reader not knowing the Bard's idiom). Even the little chivalry he had was thrown to the winds and he was mad with revenge for the death of Patroclus. His divine mother dipped him in Styx, the river of the hell and made him also impervious to noble sentiments.

        Hector charged him with his sword, his (Hector's) spear having been blunted by his (Achiles) formidable shield and having no other weapon. Achilles with a quick eye, spied an exposed spot at the gullet of Hector, drove his lance at it and brought down Hector. In his last breath, Hector beseeched him not to defile his corpse and getting a demonic refusal, cursed him that he too will follow him shortly to the realms of night and died.

        Achilles stripped Hector of his armour and proceeded to subject the corpse to the most shameful outrage. It seemed as if the earth gave way exposing the "hateful chambers of decay" in the world below. Tying the feet to his chariot, leaving the head to drag and tumble in the dust, he drove fast his chariot in the view of all Troy. The whole Troy was stunned and wept helplessly. Priam wept and rushed to the gates. Hector's mother tore her hair. His wife Andromache fainted. She made ready a big cauldron of hot water, hoping to give a hot bath to her husband when he would return from the battle, a defeated joy. Then even the corpse was lost to her.

        With utmost contempt and fury, Achilles threw down the body of Hector beside the bier of Patroclus, to rot and be defiled by dogs and worms. But god Apollo and goddess Aphrodite kept guard over it "anointing it with ambrosial oil of roses" and shrouding it in a mist.

        Exhausted by weeping and the toils of war, Achilles fell into a sleep. The ghost of Patroclus appeared in his dream, weeping and wailing and imploring him to give a speedy funeral to his body as his spirit was not allowed to cross the river Styx by the ferry-man Charon before funeral and he was a forlorn spirit hovering about the "gaping gates of hell". The funeral that Achilles gave to his dead friend was ghastly and demonical. All the pet dogs of Patroclus were slain and thrown on the pyre. He killed the dozen captive noble sons of Troy and poured their blood asunctuous oil on the funeral pyre.

        Funeral games followed. This is a pet subject with Homer and Virgil. Achilles gave away to the winners, rich prizes, he got from the pillage of many towns. For some days, at dawn, Achilles dragged the body of Hector round the barrow erected at the funeral rite, to the utter disgust of even the gods. God Hermes would have stolen the corpse and brought ii into Troy. But he was afraid of Hera (the divine consort of Zeus) and Poseidon and Athene who were the sworn enemies of Priam and his people, being humiliated by Paris, by his false and fatal judgment in favour of goddess Aphrodite. But the corpse of Hector was as fresh as ever and unknown to men, thanks to the divine care of Apollo. On the twelfth day, Apollo could contain himself no longer at this "insult of senseless day" by Achilles and squarely rounded on the gods as being monsters of cruelty and most ungrateful ones inspite of many sacrifices the Trojans offered them.

        Thetis flew to her son Achilles and prevailed on him to stop the sacrilege and give Hector's body to the Trojans for a ransom. Zeus sent the Angel, Iris of the whirlwind feet to Priam to inspire him to go to Achilles and get his son's body for a ransom. Priam was grovelling on the ground. He only saw the goddess, who delivered the message of Zeus to him. She warned him to go alone to Achilles without any escort (for fear of alerting the guards), except any old man to drive the mule-cart to carry Hector's body. Everyone was terrified when Priam told them of this message as from an Olympiam messeger. They put it to a figment of his imagination, being crushed by sorrow in his old age. But Priam was firm. He selected the most precious gifts for ransom. On seeing them, one would have thought that he was fleeing away to foreign lands to safeguard the treasures of the far-famed Troy.

        At night-fall Priam got into his chariot, driving it himself, followed by a mule-cart driven by his old and faithful herald and started for the enemy-camp. All his people wailed as if he was going to his death. Just then a great eagle flew across the city and being an omen of luck, put some hope in them.

        By the order of Zeus ,god Hermes, in the form of a squire of Achilles escorted them safely through the sleeping guard. The strongly-barred gates opened under the god's touch. Even a sordid situation is enlivened by sublime ideas of Homer. As soon as they reached the magnificent hut of Achilles, the god instructed Priam how to behave before the terrible Achilles (Who had slaughtered many of his sons) and disappeared, after disclosing his identity as god Hermes. He did not go inside as "deathless gods should not accept a mortal's hospitality", incognito. Achilles was inside and awake and closeted by two of his friends.

        The old king rushed in and grasped the knees of Achilles and kissed his hands to his great astonishment. He was expecting a ransom from Troy through a far lesser fry and was stunned to see the great Priam himself and at that dead hour of the night, when it would be impossible to pass through the well-guarded gates without a god's help.

        Crouching at the feet of Achilles, Priam in utter agony, prayed to him to take the princely ransom in return for his son's body and for which he "raised to his lips the hand of the man who killed his son, - a thing none else on earth had done". He reminded him of his own father, of the same age as himself (Priam) and in the same miserable plight as his and in agonising suspense of what evil fate (and Achilles knew this for a certainty) would befall his only son in far-off lands. At this Achilles broke down. Tears gushed out as if to wash away his guilt. He gently raised the now venerable old Priam to his own chair. The muse of poesy danced in ecstasy in this scene. Achilles melted from head to foot and said "Thou too, old man, in former days was, as we hear, happy. They say that there was no one to compare with you for wealth and splendid sons in all the lands till the heavenly ones brought me to Troy to be a thorn in your side with battle and slaughter round your city". He would have given him his son's body, even without a ransom. He was a new Achilles. He gave him rich food, which Priam took reluctantly for fear of displeasing him, having no hunger all those days after his son's death. He arranged beds to sleep on for Priam and his herald outside his hut. He was afraid that if any Greek general as usual visited him to discuss their plans with him and noticed the old king and carried the news to Agamemnon, the Commander-in-cheif, a row would be likely and his proposed sending him away in secret with his dead son by dawn would be delayed. For the proper funeral of Hector, Priam was assured by Achilles that all fighting would be suspended for eleven days.

        Achilles ordered the dead body of Hector to be washed and anointed, but without being seen by Priam. Any father and a king at that, on seeing the hideously mutilated body of his son and the murderer being there, would be mad with fury to run at his throat and would be cut down by the murderer of the type of Achilles, the latter "sinning against Zeus", as Achilles himself admitted. Then Achilles himself wrapped the body in the fine mantle and tunic he selected from the princely gifts of Priam, for this purpose. With his own hands he lifted the corpse on to the bier and into the wagon, ofcourse with apologies to the ghost of Patroclus. Then Achilles went to sleep. But Priam and his Herald could not sleep. After sometime, fear, gripped Priam, induced into him by his favourable god Hermes - the fear that he would come to utter grief if the king and the whole Greek army found him there, Achilles notwithstanding. At once yoking the mules and horses to their cart and chariot, Priam and his herald stealthily rode out of the enemy-camp, not without the help of god Hermes, with the most precious gift (Hector's body) from Achilles.

        It was more a funeral of tears, than one of fire for Hector. The whole city wept. His sister Cassandra wept, - wept not only for him, but also for Troy, being a prophetess. His mother fell upon the waggon and wept too woe-begone to drop a tear, Priam could weep no longer, bent upon giving his son a noble funeral. Musicians sang melancholy dirges. The lament of his wife Andromache was heart-rending. Helen, was all "a-tears". Alone among all the Trojans, Hector respected her and never uttered a harsh or spiteful word against her. Such a noble person was no more leaving her friendless in the whole of Troy. So she wept. The countless multitude wailed. Here "mad" closes.

        For want of space I could not deal with another immortal work "The Odyssey" of Homer and "Aeneid" the immortal work (Latin) of the great Virgil and their immortal creations.

        The great epics of the west, the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer (Greek) and the Aeneid of Virgil (Latin), dealt with the wrath of a mortal or an immortal, which had a fatal impact on a whole kingdom or race of people - all dark themes. Iliad, though ostensibly of the wrath of Achilles, was really that of (causation of causation) of Hera, the divine consort of Zeus, who felt herself insulted by the fatal preference of Paris for Aphrodite and wiped out the whole kingdom of Troy. In Odyssey, the continuous rage of Poseidon (Neptune) against Odysseus for his blinding his son Cyclops, Polyphemus brought about untold sufferings to Odysseus. In Aeneid it was the wrath of Hera (Latin Juno) towards Aeneas, being a scion of the Trojan race and also the mortal son of Aphrodite (Venus) the arch-enemy of Juno. Though he survived the great sack and fire of Troy, having lost his wife and many of his best and noble friends there, he was driven from shore to shore, past many enemy kingdoms of the Greek and worse, past the hideous Island of the Cyclops and at long last he founded the kingdom for the future Romans through the sheer favour of Zeus.

        In Odyssey, Homer put forth his genius and brought out this work, in which legend, myth and mythology, fiction and fable, fairy-tales and folk-tales, were fantastically woven together, of course par excellence, through his style of poetry, his conception of the sublime and the Heroic and his construction of this story.

        His immortal creations are; the enchanted Isle of nymph Calypro, (a "Jewel of the ocean" and an Elysian field on earth) the kingdom of the cannibal. Laestrygonian - the land of lotus - Eaters; -the one-eyed Polyphemus, the savage son of god Poseidon (Neptune) in the primitive Island of the Cyclops the one-eyed monsters and the deceptive name, Noman, Odysseus gave as his to the Cyclops, which name, from its plain meaning of Noone or Noman saved him and his whole fleet, though moved at a distance, from utter destruction by other Cyclops, who - on hearing the howlings of the Cyclops from pain of his eye (one eyed giant) destroyed by fire-brand, by Odysseus and his men - gathered at his cave and went away laughing, the Cyclops making moan to his pet ram (the fool not knowing that his Noman was clinging to its belly) about his fate and asking it to tell him (in human speech) where the Noman was hiding when Odysseus disclosed his real name, just before his escape to safety, the Cyclops was surprised to hear an ancient oracle (which he knew) come true and more surprised that the Odysseus of the oracle was a mere pigmy not reaching to his knees (as he saw him in his cave) and not (as he thought) a super-giant, head and shoulders above himself (poetry of a great master - Nārada also was under a similar delusion, as fates would have it) - now the Trojan reached the floating Acolian Isle, where a god, Acolus had reign over the winds and he ordered favourable winds to Ilhaca, confining the contrary and boisterous winds in a bag, their native land came in sight and they saw even fires from their native hearths, (a tantalising proximity to their most yearned for homes). Odysseus fell into a fateful sleep, his followers all the while had an eye on the bag, which they thought, contained a precious gift of god from the god of winds and which he would most likely not share with them on reaching the shore, and opened it. Consternation in their faces and furious tempest on sea were simultaneous. Odysseus woke up, tore his hair and saw his native country vanishing like a charming dream. After some days the storm abated. They again reached the Aeolian shores, to be turned away by the wind-god from his shores with utter contempt and fury.

        Mythological stories, without losing their mythological moorings, acquire new hue and a new human meaning. We feel they are all real.

        An awful goddess, Circe, used to tame wild animals with her magic and turn any way-farer that went inside her vicious halls into swine by magic potions. She turned the men of Odysseus into swine, when they went in, in search of food. Odysseus subdued her with the help of god Hermes, who gave him a herb as a talisman against her magic. She restored his men to their former state and swore not to harm him anymore. He, with all his men, lived there in good cheer for about a year.

        Circe, on hearing his tale more of woe, than of adventure, pitied him and advised him to make a trip to the lower world of Hades and consult the spirit of an ancient auger Jeiresias, about what was in store for him. With the assistance of Circe, he descended into hell and saw many hideous sights and gibbering ghosts. The reader gets a chill of those chilly regions of night. He saw his mother's ghost there, who, he thought, was still alive on the earth above. In great anguish he tried to embrace it but it flitted away.

        The Augur warned him of the unabated fury of the god Poseidon and against any sacrilegious act towards the holy flocks of Helios (Sun-God) (Our Rig Veda mentions also the holy cows of the Sun, stolen by Asuras).

        Odysseus returned to Circe and she also warned him against all the dangers on his way to his country.

        The Sirens, the Scylla and Charybdis became household names more through Homer, than by any legend or mythology. No sailer ever passed the island of the Sirens, of sea-nymphs (a pair) without being lured to death by their bewitching song. On Circe's advice, Odysseus sailed past the isle safely, his men sealing their ears with wax and binding him fast to the mast but without stopping his ears with wax.

        Dangerous rocks, posing a death to mariners and their ships, in mythological parlance, (and in the style of Homer) was a huge, six-headed monster the dreaded Scylla residing in a dark cave in the rock and suddenly dashing forth, like lightning and snatching away six of the unfortunate mariners, however well-guarded they might be. Charybdis was another mythological name for a stormy sea, oppose the Rocks of Scylla, thrice a day, belching forth all its waters, like a watery volcano, its seething waters reaching even the tops of the cliff around, then a mind-boggling precipice of sea-water and again sucking in all its waters, exposing its sandy bottom deep below, the tide boiling with sand - a fearful spectacle for gods - even and a precipitous fall for even large ships direct to the regions of death below.

        Thus Scylla was the lesser evil, but it demanded six human lives as a passport, provided the mariners rowed the fastest for their lives and when Charybodis was not active. Odysseus reached to safety, skirting the Rocks of Scylla and keeping at a safe distance from the hideous Charybdis, but at the cost of six precious lives of his men, though he was armed to the teeth and summoning all the courage with which he faced the giant Cyclops, stood guard on the deck. This confrontation on his part, would have ended up fatally for him, but by sheer luck and chance it was not to be. Circe warned him not to draw sword against Scylla, but instead, to pray to the mother of Scylla, the bane of mortals, to forbid a second attack from her cruel daughter. It is the fact of the philosophy of Homer, that a mortal should not cross swords with gods however un-GODly or even inhumanly they behave, but should pray to higher gods for mercy etc. flight and prayer being "the bravest way". Catastrophe hanged on a small error towards the gods.

        The mysterious concatenation of events which led to the terrible catastrophe that overwhelmed Odysseus speak volumes about the superb workmanship of Homer. The cattle of Helios were very sacred. It was a sacrilege to harm them even a little. Odysseus received many warnings about those cattle, from Circe and what was more, from the spirit of the Thetian Augur in the Hades. Still the warnings were thrown away, though under the direct circumstances, death by starvation staring in the face, which however could not mitigate the sin even a whit. They were celestial cattle.

        Odysseus wanted to shun the Isle and ordered his men to row past it. But his men, crushed by the terrible ordeal at the Rock of Scylla, both physically and mentally, begged for a nights rest on the island. He consented on condition that they put out to sea, by the very next morning. Morning came with "angry winds" and they were held up at the isle for a whole month by adverse winds. All their provisions were exhausted and "hunger gnawed at their belly" and they were seeing the fat cattle grazing near-by. Odysseus went into the isle, in search of food and to pray to gods for a way out of that holy but dangerous isle for his unruly crew. Unfortunately, instead of returning quickly to the ships, he fell asleep, quite gone with exhaustion. As a matter of fact, more than his crew, he bore the brunt of the baptism of fire, sword and tempest, while returning from Troy. In his absence, what he feared most, had come to pass. When he woke up and hurried to the ships, his heart sank within him at what he saw. The flesh of the cattle was being roasted upon the spits. A death-like chill came upon them, because the flesh was making a bellowing noise as if the dead cattle were alive and calling each other and their skins began "to creep". For six days his men satisfied their hunger with the sacred flesh. Ever since Odysseus defiled the sacred palladium of Troy, the destiny was staying its hands and even when he blinded the Cyclops. But this foul deed came as the last straw on camel's back. On the seventh day, suddenly all the adverse winds stopped blowing. They immediately embarked and took to flight from those fatal shores. They were on the high seas, "in the vast wilderness of waters", with no rocks or woods in sight, to give shelter to them in case the heavens frowned again. It seemed the fates decoyed them to the high seas. Tempest after tempest rushed down and bolt after - bolt made a match-wood of their ships. All except Odysseus, found a watery grave. But his torture was worse than a hundred deaths. He clung to a broken mast and was dragged back, this time, into the deadly Charybdis. The dreaded tide swept him off the mast and flung him high on to a rock, where he clung to a fig-tree "like a bat", his feet dangling in the air at a dizzy height. After a hellish ordeal, the Charybdis threw up again all the sucked-in tide. His flimsy raft appeard again and he took a desperate plunge into the foaming waters, caught hold of the raft and swam for life out of the dreaded deep for ten days.

        He fought with death and at last was thrown on the shores of the Isle of Calypso. Though a sea-nymph, she loved him and tried to lure him into forgetfulness of his country and keep him as her deathless mate. But in vain. Her Elysian Isle was nothing before his rugged and rocky Ithaca. Her immortal beauty could not compare with the far lesser and mortal beauty of his wife, Penelope, in his eyes. Her offer of immortality to him, was nothing before his yearning to die in his native country. Again Zeus commanded her, through Hermes, to set free Odysseus. He frowned upon immortals marrying mortals. Thus frustrated, Calypso did not offer any safe conveyance to him over the seas.

        On a ramshackle raft, made by himself, Odysseus set sail for his country. Again storm overtook him, through the hatred of Poseidon and chased him for eighteen days over the deep, all the time he being at death's door. At last Fates allowed him to swim to the shores of the Phaeacians. He was treated well by their king, Alcinous, his fame as a hero of the Trojan war having reached that country long before. He was sent in a swift ship to Ithaca, with many royal gifts. Here half the epic is over (12 books). Homer takes up another thread of the story - the story of his (Odysseus) palace during his absence from Ithaca. He left his kingdom on the Trojan expedition most unwillingly, just to oblige king Agamemnon, leaving an infant son, a very young wife and old parents, almost twenty years back. The intervening story was one of intrigue, treachery, disloyalty, helplessness of his family etc. Everyone, except Odysseus, returned to his native land after the Fall of Troy. He was presumed lost on the high seas. Insolent kings and Princes and nobles of his country and the neighbourhood gathered at his palace and began to pester his most noble and constant wife, Penelope to marry anyone of them. Determined not to leave the palace, till she did so, they turned the palace into a den of disorder and intrigue and treachery, wasting all the royal provisions. Telemachus his son was too weak to resist them, being also barely twenty years of age.

        Hereafter Homer's poetry flows like a placid river between its banks, - quite unlike the previous raging seas, tempestuous skies, primitive isles and caves and monsters etc. Now he weaves a master-piece of palace-intrigues, wits against force, loyalty against its opposite, suspense, utmost pathos, disguise and the most important being one against many - all culminating in the hideous massacre of the unfortunate, though unruly wooers and finally reunion of his (Odysseus) family and reconciliation of his subjects, who revolted at the unprincipled and most unnecessary massacre in haste.

        Homer could not get. rid of his proneness to massacre, fettered, perhaps by the legends and the natural bent of the semi-civilised times he was dealing with. But his sublime poetry is there.

        As soon as Odysseus landed on the shores, he kissed the earth. For safety, goddess Athene invested him with inpenetrable disguise as a beggar in stinking rags. His old father was a moving corpse, - the keeper of the royal swine a picture of loyalty to his master and of rustic innocence, - the proverbially chaste and constant Penelope, his wife and as an ornament to all the above admirable imagery, the celebrated hound, Argos, which recognised its master, though in disguise and after twenty years of absence and wagging its tail in affection for its master, gave up its life at his feet, its spirit entering the Elysian Fields below. It died in great misery infested with "Vermin" and being neglected by the whole household, its loving master being absent for such a long time and presumed dead.

        Penelope belongs to the highest type of womanhood. Helen, inspite of her escapades in love with Paris, came back to her former lord Menelaus and lived in harmony with him. She belongs to the next type. To the lowest type, (most depraved type) belongs the adulterous consort (Clytacemnestra), of king Agamemnon, who (Clytacemnestra) got her husband murdered by her paramour, immediately on his triumphant return from Troy. His brother, king Menelaus would have saved him, but he was held up in Egyptian seas by storms and came just a little late, when his brother's funerals were taking place. Inscrutable are the ways of destiny. Even Shakespeare would be proud of this Homer's legacy, of the three types of womanhood.

        Homer and Vālmeeki: Thus far have I waded through Homer's poesy, without knowing my depth. I dilated very much and mostly, on the story, as told by Homer, which inevitably required so much space. I think the greatest merit of Homer's poetry is his uncanny story-telling, invention of incidents and situations. It is an improper evaluation of his poetic genius, to say that prior legends played a part in shaping his mighty work. They were quite a crude and miserable material to be used by Homer. His poesy rose like the fabulous bird, phoenix, from the ashes of those legends. Everything original and poetic flowed from his mighty brain. Amongst these things, his story stands out in most poetic beauty and majesty, with its wierd twists and turns and mystifying concatenation of events and situations. A few lines of poetry, though genuine poetry, of sublime thought and of fine speech, are criteria for a small poetic piece, like an ode, or a ballad etc, but they are collateral in an epic poetry, where the story is the mother of all such things, which are its ornaments, so to say.

        But when I turn from Homer to Vālmeeki (or Vyāsa) I feel myself as being in a different world altogether. The philosophical content of Homer's work, is almost nil or crude being saturated with. Paganism and Pagan mythology and quite not competent to spiritualise the man. It is much below the standard of a true philosophy. The crowning-piece of especially an epic, is its philosophic thought, without which the epic becomes a mere temple without the holy of Holies,- a mere structure, an empty structure at that. At best his philosophical thought, his portrayal of some of his characters, of hospitable hearths and homes, where even absolute stranger were first entertained with food and drink and then only questions about their nativity and other things asked all such things might make a man civilized but nothing more. The true philosophy that can elevate mankind in morality and to higher-up was not born till the advent of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle etc. It was their philosophy that made for the reconciliation of the two warring races of Greeks and Romans, Homer trying to nip in the bud the rebirth of the Trojan Race (as Roman Race) and Virgil pledging to take revenge on the Greeks for the sack and fire of Troy - Homer and Virgil so sang in their epics, Iliad and Aeneid. The god Poseidon, would not allow Achilles to kill Aeneas who was to become the king of Troy in the far-off land of Italy. The great Augustan Age was the culmination of that philosophy, - in effect a cultural conquest by Troy (Rome). Homer and Virgil also have some civilising thoughts, but they have become dimmed and even dissolved in the murky pagan atmosphere that pervaded their works. They were dealing with semi-barbaric times, or those on the threshold of civilisation - the times, when the sack and fire of towns and the country-side and even queens and wives of nobles being led away to serve foreign masters as slaves and even as wives (the swine-herd of Odysseus was a chieftain), was the order of the day and cruelty, ruthlessness, greed superstition and ignorance being their standard of civilization and all these being bolstered up by a heathen mythology. Perhaps and perhaps again, for this, twelve centuries after the great light of Asia (Christ) first shone upon mankind, Dante, the greatest Italian poets, in his divine comedy, placed Homer in "Hell", in its Seventh Circle, which of course was not so soul-chilling and ghoulish as the Bottom Circles, but still a melancholy region. Even Virgil, a more sober and restrained and less fiery poets of Aenaid was not allowed by Dante into the glorious "Paradise" but was stopped at the outer gates of "Purgatory" opening into "Paradise", though both the poets belonged to the same country. His (Dante's) enlightened philosophy changed the entire Pagan structure of the heavens.

        The Heathen heavens were the close preserve of the gods only and those mortals whom they had carried off from the earth to serve them in their Olympian Halls of Light and Delight. Under the new dispensation, as imagined by Dante in his epic "The Divine Comedy" - (a dream, in which Dante was guided through "Hell" and "Purgatory" by Virgil and at the threshold of "Paradise", the Chaste Lady Beatrice, the idol of his heart, symbolic of heavenly enlightenment, took on the role of a guide from Virgil and showed Dante, her votary, all the mysteries of the third and highest region "Paradise", Virgil not being allowed into "Paradise") - the guilty soul is punished in "Hell" and in the "Purgatory", the human spirit is purged off the sinful blot still clinging to it, the punishment not being of the same fiery type as in "Hell" and the spirit is then prepared for ascent to heaven ("Paradise"). In the "Purgatory", we see monarchs and other famous people groaning under the mountain-weight of the sins of the carnal pleasures indulged in by them while on earth. Thus "hell" is for punishment of brutal element, "Purgatory" for purging of human element and "paradise" for the glory of the saintly element.

        From this, I think, it is evident that Homer was in the "prison-house of heathenism" at the entrace to the "purgatory"and Virgil at the entrance to "paradise", not being allowed into "Paradise". It is here, in paradise, that we find the sage-poets Vālmeeki, singing like the sweat-throated bird ('Kōkil', Cuckoo) the sweet notes of Rāma, Rāma on the tree of poesy in paradise (कूज़तन्तं राम रामेति). This is not to say, in the least, that Homer is inferior to Vālmeeki (Vyāsa). The mount of poesy has different heights and different poets reached such different heights with varied experience. Homer scaled one of such top-most height and from there saw the rise and fall of kingdoms and the havoc of sword and fire. Shakespeare from another such top saw the "Witche's Cauldron" (macbeth) of the base human passions and Vālmeeki from antoher top-most height saw the mysteries of creation swimming into his vision and Dante was also there and Milton not lagging behind.

        In evaluating them, to apply the same standard like the Procrustean bed, is doing gross injustice to them and also exposing one's weak judgement, or crude mentality like perverse parochialism, disgusting snobbery or servility, especially with reference to alien critics. Criticism is an art next to that of poetry.

        "A thing of beauty is a joy forever" and beauty is truth and truth is beauty. All these elements can be genetically clubbed under "truth". These are the scales, in which the critics weigh the poetical works. They are the chief cynosure for their critical eyes. The greatness of a poets depends on the degree of perfection these elements have attained in his work. As for Homer, there is neither element of joy, nor of beauty, when a kingdom rises upon the ashes of another kingdom, (Even a holy one, like holy Troy) destroyed most brutally, not any element of truth in the heathen spirit pervading the work. What has even great Shakespeare to offer to mankind as regards the truth? It is a gloomy spectable of a great soul, full of great possibilities in life, being warped by base and criminal impulses, wrecked and ruined, the ruin also spreading over the whole realm, he was heading. The fate of Rāvana has no parallel to this and I will advert to it later on. The great Aristotle has to come to his aid, with his theory of tragedy. He said "tragedy has the power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions , to temper them with a kind of delight, just as in physic are used sour against sour and salt to remove salt humours etc".

        This theory concerns rather the moral responses (the moral capacity to sublimate the passions portrayed) of the reader or spectator than the business, the capabilities of the poets. Even otherwise, our moral responses vary when a petty murderer is hanged in public before our eyes or when the victim happens to be a great king or a great personage (like a Charles, or a Louis, or a Joan of Arc, burnt at the stake) and our experience, our moral responses are of an entirely different kind and. degree, when we are in a temple and a pilgrimage centre to boot. Again these "purging* processes belong to the "purgatory" of Dante and not to the "Paradise*, the proper places of Dante, Milton and Vālmeeki and not of Homer, Virgil and Shakespeare. All these ideas of mine are strictly with reference to epic, where only we find and should find truth expounded in all its grandeur, mystic qualities and abstruseness and certainly do not pertain to Shakespeare as the greatest dramatist. Vālmeeki sits majestically in a temple and Shakespeare in a hall of justice.

        Before coming to Vālmeeki, I must refer to Milton, admired most for the perfection of his style.

        Milton, the great poet, in his epic (Paradise Lost), churned the great Bible and brought out gems of thought, which have, to some extent, resemblance to our puranic (Upanishadic) thoughts. The main theme of almost all our Purands is that vice, in its contrary, is as powerful and great as virtue and virtue, at times, though temporarily, avoids confrontation with vice, but moves slowly but surely to its final victory. In heaven, Satan (called so, after his revolt against god) "was of the first, if not the first, Archangel, great in power, in favour and pre-eminence* and even in hell, after his great revolt against "the cause of truth*, "millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs of mighty cherubim" at his beck and call "illumined the Dark Hell far around". In the Titanic battle between the "faithful angels* and the "rebels angels" of Satan, Michael, the mightiest of the former angels, could not subdue Satan and his hordes, who brought against the god's army, "the triple row of cursed engines, disgorging foul their devilish glut, chained thunder bolts and hail of iron globes* (Anachronism). God had to send his son (whose annointment by god as the vice-regent of heaven, was the Apple of this great primordial discord), who, wielding ten thousand thunders, each fitted with three thunder-bolts, routed them and hurled them headlong from the etheral sky* into the "bottomless pit of Hell*, "which heard the unsufferable noise and saw heaven ruining from heaven*. All these ideas are, in a way, our puranic ideas, but clothed in a different garb of poesy and ornate style. According to our scriptures and there from our ethos, when great philosophers and seers and saints are unable to redeem virtue from vice and corruption and when the lesser gods like Indra are also incapable of stemming the rot and when virtue had received a drubbing from sin and had collapsed, god reincarnates himself and restores the fallen virtue to its high pedestal.

        Satan the "undaunted fiend" was the acknowledged "dread emperor of hell and the "great adversary of god" (and of his image, man) and he (Satan) again encountered the son of god (in the incarnation of Jesus Christ) while the Lord was doing penance in a wilderness as part of his great mission and the Lord again defeated and humiliated Satan by a sharp rebuke of his (Satan's) empty glory and temptations. The Lord also had to contend this time, with death (the formidable incestuous son of Satan by sin, the daughter and wife of Satan) on the cross and defeated death by his glorious resurrection. On our side also, in a somewhat similar way, great Vishnu in the Incamatiuon of "Adi Varaha Moorthy" destroyed Hiranyakasapa and in the incarnation of Narasimha killed Hiranyakasapa. But again those evil ones were born as Rāvana and Kumbhakarna to be slain by Rāma.

        These two evil principles (Entities) of decay of righteousness (धर्मग़्यनि) and rise of un¬righteousness (अधर्म अब्युद्दान) traced their source to Jaya and Vijaya, the celestial guards of the fates of Vaikuntha, who forfeited their holy office (a remote analogy to the Fall of Satan from heaven) by the curse of the celestial sages, Sanak, Sananda etc. who are holiness personified. They appeared again on the earth as wicked Sisupāla and Dhantavakra. On an anguished S.O.S. from the down¬trodden dharma, maha Vishnu appeared as Bhagawān Krishna and destroyed them and their hordes. At the same time, many other evil ones, in the ages past subdued by Vishnu, the great protector of the worlds, again made an atavistic appearance on the earth to overwhelm dharma. Lord Krishna, without himself wielding his great chakra, or any other missile, got them destroyed by the Pandavas, by Bheeshma, by Drona, by Kripa, by Aswathama and by others, who, by a mysterious stroke of destiny fought on the side of Dhuryodhana, the evil prince, against the Dharmic Pandavas.

        These two evil principles (Entities) of decay of righteousness (धर्मग़्यनि) and rise of un¬righteousness (अधर्म अब्युद्दान) traced their source to Jaya and Vijaya, the celestial guards of the fates of Vaikuntha, who forfeited their holy office (a remote analogy to the Fall of Satan from heaven) by the curse of the celestial sages, Sanak, Sananda etc. who are holiness personified. They appeared again on the earth as wicked Sisupāla and Dhantavakra. On an anguished S.O.S. from the down¬trodden dharma, maha Vishnu appeared as Bhagawān Krishna and destroyed them and their hordes. At the same time, many other evil ones, in the ages past subdued by Vishnu, the great protector of the worlds, again made an atavistic appearance on the earth to overwhelm dharma. Lord Krishna, without himself wielding his great chakra, or any other missile, got them destroyed by the Pandavas, by Bheeshma, by Drona, by Kripa, by Aswathama and by others, who, by a mysterious stroke of destiny fought on the side of Dhuryodhana, the evil prince, against the Dharmic Pandavas.

        It is not as if in the Armageddon (The mahābhārata war) all the allies of Pandavas (to the tune of the seven largest units of the army; 7 (अग्नोहिनीः) were righteous people. They were fit to be killed by the sword of dharma and were already the targets of death. Only the Pandavas were above-board, but, by themselves they could not face their foes in overwhelming numbers and fate, in its mysterious way, threw them on their side and a greater number on the side of the Kouravas, leaving them to decimate each other. A great number of the allies of the Pandavas were warriors of great repute and only warriors of the martial caliber of Bheeshma, Drōna, Aswathama, Krupa could exterminate them. They were great souls and their alliance with the evil forces, on the side of the Kouravas, is one of the mysteries of the Upanishadic philosophy of Vālmeeki and Vyāsa. They were formerly some celestial beings but born as human beings on earth, for instance, Bheeshma was the eighth Vasu, Prabhasa, Drona was Sukra and the aspect of the eleven Rudrās incarnated as Krupāchārya and so on. For a small lapse of theirs from celestial rectitude and sanctity, they were cursed to be born as mortals and to get their blemishes washed out through mortal coil.

        An infinitesimal, lapse in virtue, or even sin or crime on earth assumes colossal proportions, if in heaven in view of the sanctities and "beatitude past utterance" there. Milton puts this idea in a sublime way. "man's First Disobedience" in eating the fruit of the "Forbidden Tree of Knowledge", was nothing before the open armed revolt of Satan. It was an innocent lapse through the fraud of Satan. Yet the angels guarding the paradise, forsook it. The Sun changed its course, bringing in "pinching cold and scorching heat". Perpetual spring no longer smiled, seasons changed. "pestilent vapours" and "hot exhalations" rose from sea and land. "fierce antipathy" ruled. "Beast with beast, fowl with fowl fish with fish began war". Satan founded his infernal empire on earth. sin arrived to "dwell habitual habitat on earth and behind her, death came with his pale horse".

        The first parents' first disobedience is the lapse of first innocence, the pristine innocence, an innocent aberration of free will, being no match for the guile of Satan. They were quite naked before the "Fall", just as the little children are not aware of their nakedness. So the Garden of Eden, the place of bliss and beatitude being denied to them anymore, they, with tears in their eyes and "hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way", the exile being just to justify the purest and holiest ways of heaven to sinners. In glaring contrast, the arch-friends were hurled with terrific-ruin ("even hell got frightened") and wild anarchy" from heaven into the fiercest part of the chaos to welter in the lake of boiling sulphur, but being immortals could not be destroyed altogether. Their ruin was not from free will, (not predestination) but from sheer malice, envy, violence, cruelty etc. These sins descended on man only from the generation of Cain and Abel. The offerings to heaven by Abel were accepted by heaven, but those by Cain were rejected. The jealous Cain "with a stone smote his brother Abel and beat out his life".

        In view of the above, Bheeshma, Drona etc must be grouped with the first parents, Adam. It is sheer blasphemy, as some wiseacres do, to assign to them a place among the sinful mortals, who sinned and patronised sin. More to this presently with reference to "destiny".

        Before leaving Milton, I must refer to a very sublime idea of his, which is thrilling and a piece of real poetry.

        Gloating over his evil success, Satan, the prince of darkness, flew back to the pandemonium to communicate to his anxiously waiting legions, "the Stygian throng", "his fierce and evil joy". He narrated to them how he" "seduced by fraud the first parents from their creator"and "to their (his followers) wonder, with a 'crude' apple," and disguising himself as "the brute serpent". When he finished telling them his "infernal exploit", instead of "their universal shout and high applause filling his ears, he heard, contrary, on all sides, from innumerable tongues, a dismal universal hiss". He was stunned to see all of them "transformed to serpents, as accessories to his bold riot", "and dreadful was the din of hissing through the hall". "Satan himself fell down a monstrous serpent, on his belly prone, punished in the shape he sinned".

        I want to give a resume of Milton's Biblical philosophy, since it seems to me to come closer to our Upanishadic philosophy as explained in our epics, except in the philosophy of destiny.

        Free-will, a sacred duty to resist temptation from evil and sin, no compulsion of free-will like predestination. "No shadow of fate in the least;" but divine justice must be satisfied, though divine grace is always there, to soften It (our rishis explained divine justice in quite a different way, which I will explain presently); the fruit of the tree of life is immortal food, giving "Immortality and Happiness" the fruit of the tree of knowledge is mortal food, giving rise to the "knowledge of good lost and evil got" through corrupt civilisation etc., divine justice is none other than the law of nature, which ensures "that the pure immortal elements are not fouled by any gross, inharmonious mixture" (hence paradise is lost to Adam and Eve), whoever, tastes the fruit of the tree of knowledge (on our side, of Hindu thought, a corrupt penance, with corrupt motives etc.,) "and with bolder hand reaches also the tree of life, to eat its fruit to live forever", not only loses his life in sin, but also his sin, spreading like oil on water, blights also his descendants and corrupts the human race also, and hence god, took the precaution of sending away Adam and Eve from paradise (just as Rama took the pre-emptive step as regards a pseudo hermit doing penance with corrupt motives, a new Rāvana in the making, so to say and afterwards rewarding him with salvation, the punishment (of death) and reward by Rama, being both acts of god, not subject to human and inhuman cynical standards), the incarnation of the son of god, being born of The Virgin) His death on the Cross, his great resurrection and ascension to god's seat, to redeem mankind from sin, through love, nor force and might; and to destroy Satan, His holy precepts are - prayer and penitence which soften sorrow; obedience to god; implicit faith, almost child-like trust, in his holy Resurrection, "Temptation vanquished regains lost Paradise"; Satan, the great tempter when foiled in all his wiles of tempting riches, pleasures (most royal food, not crude apple, was displayed before the fasting Lord), "the monarchies of the earth and their radiant courts" etc., - Satan, thus will "lose his two arms sin and death" and shall die a natural death when the day of judgement arrives, man should worship and serve god only and "live by each word, proceeding from the mouth of god and not by bread alone," "he who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires and fears, is more a king", when man's virtue of free reason is fouled by false knowledge, when the "great umpire conscience" is dead, man is lost as man and becomes "death's minister to man"and nations also degenerate - these are the Lord's teachings, which destroy Satan inch by inch and not by a single dues or battle at once.

        I have chosen these gems of thought, (among numerous such gems) of Milton's Biblical philosophy, because of their relevance to my view of Valmeeki's (or Vyasa's) thought. I am not versed enough to comment upon pure Biblical philosophy. So J chose only Milton's ideas, he being also one of the greatest poets.

        Satan (sin) must be destroyed. There is no redemption for him and his Stygian hordes. The great act of redemption of the son of god, is only for the victims of Satan and his vicious sway, ie., the mankind. Sin (Satan symbolising it) has two forms - a violent one (coming up against virtue, dharma, with arms and warfare) and a subtle one, ruling over the hearts of men and corrupting them, with malice, envy, tyranny, slavery, fraud and so on. When Satan took up cannons and all the "faithful Angels" of god were no match for Satan., the son of god had to use thunder-bolts against him. Then the sin (Satan) resorted to guile and subtle force and invaded men's heart and conscience and seated itself there. The son of god came down to earth to conquer sin and redeem mankind through love and sacrifice, no force being there in the process, free-will being the cardinal principle of man's existence and suffered mind-boggling torture and death on the cross to save man and even nature got convulsed at that gruesome sight - "The Lamb of god which takes away the sin of the world" and "which baptises man with the holy Ghost".

        In my view, the Milton's Biblical concepts, like divine justice, divine grace etc, acquire a different colour or greater amplitude and import in the Upanishadic philosophy of Valmeeki or Vydsa. The postulate of every religion (and not of any one religion exclusively) is divine grace and divine protection of mankind. The oft-quoted verse in Gita says that god takes up the human form in every age for the protection of the virtuous and destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of dharma (righteousness) whenever there is decay of righteousness and the rise of its opposite.

        The essence of Rama's personality is told by sage Ndrada in the First Sarga (Chapter). Rama is equal to god Vishnu in might (विष्णुतुल्य परक्रम) he is an embodiment of virtue (विग्रहवान् धर्मः) etc. Within those contours Valmeeki has presented and is bound to present, Rāma, any deviation being Valmeeki's poetic conceit, to enhace by way of contrast or to serve as a foil to his character. For instance, Jesus in "overthrowing the tables and seats of money-changers etc", inside the temple and driving them away, had shown righteous anger and divine agony for the corruption in a holy place. It is not akin to our sinful and mortal impulse. Rama's personality far transcends that of a perfect man and a perfect king (being a god-Man and a Man-god); mainly "the supreme god of the Veda fulfilling himself in the highest type of manhood as Sri Rama" and even as a man "rising to the Brāhmanhood of the Veda", far above the level of a perfect man and a perfect king. John the Baptist, baptized with water, but Jesus though human born, baptized with the holy Ghost and when John baptized Jesus, "the Spirit of god lighted upon Jesus like a dove", (though not an apt analogy regarding the divine and the imaginary human aspects of Rāma).

        There is more to it than humility and devotion, when John the Baptist, an acknowledged saint, declared that he was not worthy to bear the shoes of Jesus. By most severe austerities and penance, man climbs up the ladder of righteousness to the highest rung of sainthood. But in incarnation god descends to manhood. As Gita says, "god ruling over his own nature, takes birth by his own māya". Rama's incarnation is one such. There is Godhood in his manhood and far above sainthood. Though his feet are firmly rooted in earth, Rama's head penetrates into the mystic region of Godhood. This is the crux of Vālmeeki's thought, at times perplexing us. Rama and Jesus resemble each other in this particular. Both have Godhood in their manhood. Jesus needed no purificatory fast in a wilderness and it was only a model for mankind and Rāma, from the beginning to the end of Rāmayana, was one such model personality to mankind to the end of time. John, the Baptist the greatest of the saints, did not and could not say that he himself was god, but Jesus declared frequently before vast audience that he was god, inviting persecution from the wicked and ignorant people. But Rāma did not say so and was not even aware of his Brāhmanhood and every Hindu knows the reason. (His "Ignorance" is but a pose assumed, not a fact lived" and I will deal with it in due course).

        Titanic battles raged between Rāma with his army of monkeys and Rāvana with his mighty Rākshasās hordes, just like the armed revolt of Satan in heaven, further, the inherent demonic strength of Rāvana was terribly augmented by the power of penance he did, gaining thereby boons and favours from god Brahma. By virtue of those boons, Rāvana became invincible even to Dēvās, man and monkey excepted. Hence the supreme god-head was born as Rama, the man, ordering his own mdya, to keep his god-hood in the back-ground. In comparison with his great counterpart Jesus, Rāma suffered, from more handicaps in destroying the wicked and more cross in establishing dharma. It is a mystery that this fact is overlooked by even the learned. The power of a boon is lost only by sin on the part of the beneficiary and not by the fact of a god-head superior to the giver of the boon coming-up against the beneficiary. Subject to its own limitations, the boon is given a free play in its protection of its subject. This is the Law of divine justice on our side. The divine might of Sri Rama is of no avail against Rāvana.

        Again, till the last moment, when Rama laid siege to Lanka, Rama gave time to Rāvana to relent and give up his wicked ways. But in vain; Rāvana being under a fatal delusion as to the power of his boons, Rāma had to destroy him root and branch, just as the son of god hurled thunder-bolts against Satan.

        Somehow, some people take a nArrow view of Rama's incarnation and place him on a pedastal lower than that of Lord Buddha and other gods, who vanquished their foes through love and non-violence (हिस) They forget the fact that Rama is a complete incarnation (पूणार्वतार) having in him combined all the single and isolated divine aspects of other gods. Ndrada's description vouches for it. Rama is an embodiment of righteousness (रामो विग्रहवान् धर्मः) and love and non-violence is an aspect of it. Love and non-violence had no place in the case of Rāvana and further Rama started the battle as a last resort. A purānic legend says that Rāma distributed all his Prānas (Life-forces said to number 10) among Hanumān, Bharata, Lakshmana, Vibheeshana, Sugreeva, Sita, Guha, (in this order), keeping just one for himself to complete his mission on earth. Rāma loved them as his own brother, for their virtues and not out of any gratitude for their help in the great battles. His very name Rama, means one who delights and gives great pleasure to mankind, just as Jesus is called "The Lamb" for his super-human innocence.

        According to us, all theincarnations of Sri Maha Vishnu have their roots in the incarnation of Rāma or Krishna, the complete all-round Avatara (incarnation). Gita speaks of the divine glories (विभूति). God pervades the whole universe and is the "chief factor" in all classes of beings, celestial, man, bird or beast - such as Indra among Dēvās; Meru among mountains, ocean among the lakes, lion among animals, Garuda among birds, king among men, Rāma among warriors etc. Virtuous people would like to know and adore these aspects of their god, according to their spiritual constitution. Lord Krishna expounded some of these glories of his on a question from Arjuna. In the following way many hungered to see the glory of his myriad aspects on display. Lord Siva nodded in salutation, when Rāma broke his mighty bow as if a reed. Sage Viswāmitra went into raptures when the beardless boy of Rāma killed the terrific demoness Tātaki. The arid Asrāma of Goutami bloomed again when Rāma just stepped into it. This means that even a plot of land wanted to see his holy feet and enjoy the touch. The hermit-life of Sri Rāma was a holy sight for the gods and they also were moved at his most human agony for the loss of Sita. Rāma earned the epithet of Vāvimardana, though he did it under cover and none of his foes demurred on this score. It is a celestial sight with Rāma fasting on the sea-shore- and imploring the ocean-god to facilitate his and his army crossing over to the other side. Rāma used his right hand as a pillow for his head and Vālmeeki describes that hand in a sublime way, - the hand that was the great shield for his whole army, a palladium for the dharma, the hand that gave in charities thousands upon thousands of cows etc., - depicting Rāma, the Kāmadhenu (The celestial cow) and Rāma, the lion. The celestials, with wonder and amazement, drank in the sight of Rāma, single-handed (like son of god against Satan) annihilating Rāvana and his countless hordes of reserve army (मूल बल) in a trice.

        It is sheer cynicism to carp and cavil at such a many-sided splendorous personality both human and divine, this latter personality generally not apparent, except to the sages. In utter humility, I think that Christ suffered physical torture of Crucifixion and that for a few hours. But Rāma suffered mental torture for 11,000 years (He lived for such a long time). In the whole span of his human existence, he knew pleasures and joys of life only for 12 years after his marriage till his going to the forests.

        With the destruction of Rāvana and other wicked Rākshasās, Rāma had done only half his mission. The other half of establishing dharma (righteousness) remained, which he did by personal example of unparalleled rigour and rectitude, being a model even for the celestials. He was an ideal in all aspects of human existence as a son, brother, husband, friend, master, man and king etc. On a mere whisper that his father offered a boon (of kingship) to his step-mother Kāikeyee, ages back i and when, even if his father did not choose to honour it, at that distance of time, there was neither lapse in virtue, (like dishonesty etc), nor infamy, much less sin etc. for his father. Rāma went to the forests, as if his Ayodhya was there. His mother wept, his father was half-dead, the whole populace wept and clamoured against it, the whole city got convulsed and ran after his chariot. To cap all these irresistible compulsions Bharata most piteously implored him to come back and citing most powerful principles in support of his pled. But Rāma stood like a rock against a storm.

        Temptations after temptations confronted Rāma till the last moment of his sojourn on earth and not for a short period only and he remained unshaken from his dharma. The most supreme and super-human sacrifice and a mind-boggling One at that, he made by sending away his consort, Sita Devi, (a model of chastity even for the celestials, which Rāma knew), to Valmeeki's hermitage, just to satisfy the most brutal and malicious whim of the scum of humanity. In my humble opinion, what Lord Buddha did, in stealing away from his sleeping wife and his new-born son, is somewhat a copy of what Rāma did for Sita. The former did it to seek the light of truth, while the latter did it to teach the rulers, by personal example, almost as ordeal by fire, that their duty towards their subjects over-rides all other duties and obligations (even those towards wives and children not excepted). A king is bound to satisfy even the whims of the least among the least of the citizens, even of the scum among them, as in the case of Rāma. Ever since the creation of kingship, no king had ever shown much responsiveness to his subjects and their welfare. On hearing the rumour, from the foul-mouthed sum of the society, that he was living with his wife, the daughter of a holy king, without public proof (in Ayodhya) of her chastity while in Lanka, her great fire-ordeal at Lanka being pooh-poohed, Sri Rāmachandra shuddered, not at the prospect of having to lose his wife (Sita, the heart and soul of Rāma and vice-versa) but at the most dangerous potentialities of his imaginary wrong, percolating as it were, to the lower strata of the society and corrupting it.

        When the wise men from the east came to the king Herod and told him that the king of the Jews was born in Bethlehem, Herod became panicky that a usurper of his throne was born and ordered the massacre of all children there. He misunderstood the real purpose of the news, being in a dark age. But we, even in this age of knowledge (perhaps not enlightenment), had thousands of Herods mushrooming, from a paltry knowledge of a few foreign alphabets and like influence and to vilify Rāma. Even a Tom, or a Dick can mouth some shibboleths against Rāma. Saints, from their pure hearts and simple souls, often speak or write in riddles, about their thoughts of truth or god etc. They, (mostly wiseacres and faddists) having eaten and over-eaten (as it were) the sweet-bitter "fruits of the tree of knowledge", could not enjoy the Manna-like "fruits of the tree of life and truth" to be found in the writings of those sages and saints.

        Even a good person, is lost in the wilderness of doubt, when conflicting loyalties to different Dharmas (right conduct) confront him in different situations in his life and may possibly stray away from the right path, by wrong preference. The most glorious aspect of Rāma's incarnation is that he showed to mankind by personal example, most ideal priorities in such complex and conflicting situations and both his precept and practice are no less sacrosanct than those of Christ and none can demour about that, both being of god-head.

        It is either ignorance or perversity, to put Rāma and a common man and for the matter of that even a good ruler, in the same crucible to test their virtues. Rāma is a king over kings. He had to contend with mightiest of giants, who, in addition tripped god Brahma and got from him boons of invincibility even to gods (man and monkey excepted). The temptations that tried to detract him from his chosen path of virtue are equally tremendous and more so his sacrifices.

        As regards incarnation of god, (though noted by me previously) I want to say further. A mortal is a victim, a slave of "maya, Avidya". "But god is the master of his maya". "He comes into the world, keeping his maya perfectly under his control". In order to honour the boons of god Brahma given to Rdvana, Sri Maha Vishnu took birth as Rāma (being the only way to encounter Rāvana), ordering (as it were) his god-hood to lie hidden, to hibernate as it were, in him (Rāma) without the knowledge of Rāma himself, unlike Lord Krishna, who feigned human nature. Even in the establishment of dharma (righteousness) Rāma is not aware of his god-hood. He lived as an ideal human being, teaching dnarma by personal example and personal sacrifice and not the impracticable way of life of a hermit, away from the common people.

        It is most obvious, from the description by Narada (In the First Sarga) of Rāma's personality, that only a god-head, but with a self-imposed maya, could have so numerous virtues combined in him, his own maya and his human birth operating as a filmy division between his god-hood and his manhood. Vālmeeki did not write this epic and get it sung (by Rāma's sons) in the court of Rāma to get mundane favours from him like any other poets. His epic is not the story of a Homeric war to regain the kidnapped wife, nor of the life and adventures of a great king, like that of king Arther and the Knights of the Round Table (Rāma's brothers being those Knights - a blasphemous comparison). A magnificient and abstruse theological philosophy runs through the epic and Vdlmeeki is constantly hinting at the god-hood of Rāma, of course, without Rāma's awareness of it. "A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid". This divine nature is now and then coming to the surface. Otherwise it is not possible to account for the phenomena - of Ahalya being redeemed from her curse; of Virādha from his curse (He was a Gandharva, Thambura by name, before the curse); of Kabandha similarly rescued (a celestial of the first rank, by name Dhanu); of constructing the great floating bridge to Lanka, compelling the great sea-god to float the mountains and how he came to possess the unique missile invented by Vishnu to destroy the great primordial giants, with which he got killed Lavanāsura through Satrughna and which none gave to him etc. Saints curse freely, but the end of the curse is, except in very rare cases, brought about by god's grace, intervention or assistance and in very rare cases, the redemption is by a highly virtuous person. We can presume easily that the saint, who cursed, would rather prefer to give a time-limit to his curse, than allow the fame and glory of redemption to a fellow-saint. Hence my conviction about Rāma's god-hood.

        In the last scene, of the great journey of Rāma, of the glorious ascension of Rāma, to the heaven of heavens, (वैख़ुन्ठ), Rāma was followed by the sacred Vedas, sacred Gayatri, Omkāram and the mystic formulae Vashatkara etc. in the form of holy brahmins. Almost in a similar way the Lord Christ had vouchsafed to the blessed women, who gathered at the sepulchre, on the third day after crucifixion, the glorious vision of angels, who informed them that the Lord had arisen.

        Any criticism that tends to bypass, or even run counter to, the mind of Vdlmeeki and the spirit of the epic, is not only crude, but also mischievous as it tends to destroy the age-old and morally elevating ethos of the people regarding incarnations, especially of Rāma and Krishna. Even a cursory reading of Rāmayana, shows that, in what Rāma thought, said, did or was about to do, not only mankind, but even celestials had a stake and the latter were on tenter-hooks when such impediments and temptations, (which would easily have overwhelmed even a great person) came in the way of Rāma's mission. Not only did the celestials constantly pray for their early deliverance from the tyranny of Rāvana, but also after that, they yearned for the early return of the divine couple (Rāma and Sita) to their home (Vaikuntha). No doubt from the human angle, Sita's exile is a tragic separation and a tyrannical standard of morality and king's justice. But from the celestial angle (the most important one), it is a divine comedy, so to say and divine justice. Rāmayana (and Mahābhārata) are acclaimed on all hands, as the poetic annotation on the Vēdās and the Upanishads, with their grand and also abstruse thoughts on the law of Karma, the nature of the soul, the secret of the creation, god's justice, yogas of action and non-action etc.

        When Lakshmana became inconsolable, Sumantra cleared his mists by explaining to him the divine mystery about the tragic plight of Sita, which the sage Doorwāsa (Bhagawān Doorwāsa) revealed to him (Sumantra) and Dasaratha long ago. The great sage Bhrugu rashly cursed god Vishnu with separation from his divine consort Lakshmi Devi for a long time, when the sage's wife faced the great chakra of Vishnu rushing on to slay the fleeing Asurās, to be cut down by the chakra (सुदर्शन) . She, rashly on the spur of the moment, promised to protect them. The sage repented for cursing the great protector of the worlds and worshipped him for forgiveness. But the great god smilingly accepted the curse, to suffer it as Rāma on earth. Of course, Rāma did not know this and his agony was only for a short time and he soon proved himself to be on the "giddy heights of the divine pinnacle of stoicism (विरत्र्ति). The chief characteristics of Bhagawan (the great blessed lord) are एंस्ऱ्रय [Prosperity] धर्म (righteousness), कीर्ति (Fame), श्री (Glory) घ्यान (Wisdom), वेराग्य (Stoicism), मोक्श् (Eternal spirit) - (not apt translations). Bhagwdn Valmeeki is hinting at these divine traits of Rāma in proper places. The last scene (Sarga) in which the Vēdās, Gāyatri etc accompany Rāma, as brahmins (as written previously) confirms this last aspect of Mōksha (eternal spirit or supreme bliss) of Rāma.

        Rāmayana, besides being the greatest literary epic, is also the work of a great philosopher. More than that, it is the Bible of our national Ethos, civilisation and morality. One must read it in that spirit. With liquid poetry and mainly through the thoughts and actions chiefly of Rāma and Sita, Valmeeki expounds rare gems of moral and spiritual thought. While the aesthetic values of poetry have empire over the intellect, the philosophic truths rule the heart. When we are in the sanctum sanctorium of a temple, nothing of the architectural and other beauties or drawbacks of the structure should detract our pure devotion there inside. This distinction is often lost sight of, by the critics, who mostly bring in exotic standards and values into their evaluation of their own epic, Rāmayana.

        We are in a temple and before the sanctum Sanctoirum. Worship to the idol is going on with variegated flowers, perfumes, kumkum etc., - a soul elevating spectacle. The whole interior is surcharged with spiritual vibrations, from vedic hymns recited in unison by the learned. Then, at that place and time, it is satanic to think that it is Idol-worship, (worship of the Idol) and not realising that it is worship of the supreme spirit through the Idol and more satanic to think that the Idol is not artistically made, or that the eye of the Idol had a squint or that the pillars are not in artistic alighnment etc.

        The critics of Rāma (and Rāmayana) and these critics are birds of the same feather. Philosophic ideas override hundred other standards of criticism and for understanding the former, one must approach Rāma (and Rāmayana) in a spirit of devotion, with wisdom and especially with disbelief put in cold storage. Some other critics, though in appreciation and admiration of Rāma, based their criticism on view-points which, in my humble opinion, are not in consonance with the Vālmeekian thought. In feigned appreciation and admiration of Rāma, some place him among the rank and file as being of the common clay, because he showed not superhuman virtue as a god¬head but human qualities as "troubles depressed him, like us, sorrow struck him hard, had moments of anguish, cried and wept bitter tears, was about to commit suicide row and then, was suspicious (of Bharata, inspite of his amazing self-abnegation), even lied etc". Even Rāvana had not gone so far, beyond calling him a wandering beggar and no match for him. Their reason (beyond my comprehension) seems to be that we can learn better from a common-fellow, who rose from our midst to the highest peaks of morality (and I may add, with apology to them, that it is still more better, if Rāma was previously our pot-companion). In that case (again with apology) Aerop's Fables are more relevant and better instructors than Srutis (Vedds), Smritis, Puranās etc.,and then we can learn better from a dog, a crow, or a jackal etc.

        Another line of criticism is to place Rāma, the god-head and Rāma, the great at equidistant places from us to choose whomsoever one likes to admire at worship, according to one's make-up, intellectual, moral or spiritual. Even this line misses Valmeeki, in my humble view. Sage (Bhagawān) Valmeeki is not a person to waste his grand poetical talents, much less his unique spiritual acumen to write a biography of a king, even if great, or of a great sage even if that sage is head and shoulders above himself (Vālmeeki). He has devoted one or two episodes about them but never more than that in his whole work and they also recognised Rāma's god-head. Perhaps this is crucial. Valmeeki got metamorphosed from dust into the greatest and the brightest star in the firmament of poesy and spiritual glory, through the sacred letters Ra and Ma, which belong only to the great god-head and is not a king's name or a sage's name.

        I am reminded of the glory of the six blind men of Hindustan and the elephant. Their lack of sight gave rise to their different views about the elephant by touch only. Rāma the man is the idol of honour and admiration of Valmeeki, who really worshipped Rāma, the god-head inside as "you are the great yagna, you are the mystic Vashatkāra, you are the Omkāra" (त्वं यग़्नः त्वं वषट्कार:, त्वं ॐकारः परंतप) (in the context of the great fire orderal of Sita Devi, through the mouths of Lord Brahma and other Devas there asembled).

        The whole fabric of the celestial Order had been torn by Rāvana -and not a single celestial escaped from being molested and humiliated and even terrorised by him. In that case, what can even the greatest mortal do to rescue them? The system of the lesser gods (Dēvās) is meant to guard and safe guard man and the whole creation and if that system is secure, the whole creation will be safe and if otherwise, not. Incidentally by a heavy over-dose of rationality on reading the religious literature, some adopt a definition, (which is at once wrong, crooked, malicious and blasphemous of god and his celestial system) - which fantastic and most unfortunately infectious and corrupting definition takes in a tyrant god, in perpetual dynastic sovereignty over the servile tribe of lesser gods, these latter in addition wicked vicious immoral and even lecherous as gathered from grossly misinterpreted legends. Their ridiculous cliche is that man created od-men, the great saints, only created methods of realising god. Such people forget the simple and universal truth, that god means the purest virtue, the purest goodness, mercy, love and neither imperial nor aristocratic. Even an atom of peccability throws that so-called god out of the true definition of god. He is then a mere spirit, if good, beneficial to man and if bad torments man terrorises him and driving him to indulge in obnoxious and superstitious practices in the name of religion to pacify those spirits, which never approach even the least among the gods.

        These pernicious ideas about god, trumpeted as enlightened ideas, tend to an inhuman society, euphimistically called free and liberated society. Even the numerical volume of our religious literature with varied thoughts and concepts (all free and unfettered), such as various Smritis, Samhitās, Puranās, Legends etc., militates against their stand. It is imperative that one should get initiated into the esoteric knowledge and practice through a wise and learned master, guru. Each such guru, presumably has his own way a highly individualistic way, of thinking and practice and experience which he imparts to his chosen disciple, with a religious zeal for the welfare and progress of the disciple. Thus there is neither bigotry nor unthinking loyalty (as the said rationalists misjudged), in our society, except among the incorrigibly ignorant. Our rishis were the greatest free¬thinkers. There is nothing inviolable and fixed in their religious concepts, expect in the existence of god and his perfectness, they never advocated fear of god, a sheer antithesis to their concept of god. But they vehemently proclaimed (as from house-tops) that fear of sin, nor of god, is of the very essence of a human being. It is like fear of disease and not of the Doctor, though he prescribes bitter pills and enjoins on the patients, terribly rigorous health-disciplines. God is all-pervasive from the ant to the great Brahma (पिपीलिकादि ब्रह्मपर्यन्तम्), a universally accepted truth. The vedic thought is that Rudra, the great god is the Lord of the thieves (स्थेनानां पतिः) a food for thought or a bait for the rationalists. This superb, philosophic thought means (certainly not that god is a villain - a sheer blasphemy) that god is also in the villian, but all-merciful, resides in the heart of man and in his great mercy takes into his holy hands, the broom to sweep clean the sinking Augean Stables of sin, corruption and what not, that have accumulated there from the many past lives "a long chain of existance in various forms". This fundamental concept of ours, of past births is pooh-poohed as "metaphysical twaddle" by our foreign brain-washers, but our culture and ethos takes in its stride all such kind of rationalism.

यदंशप्रेरितो जन्तुः कर्मपाशनियंत्रितः !
आजन्मक्रुत पापानां, अपहन्ति द्विजन्मानाम् !!

        I am unable to give a correct translation of this sublime philosophic thought of the great sage Viswdmitra (It is also a part of a great mantra) and so I left a blank. It means that the human being roused by the all-pervasive god inside him washes off all his sins ever since his birth.

        There is a point of Karma Theory here. In my little view, even a palpably wicked act is not immediately followed by its penal consequences and so not felt by the sinner then. (This has no reference to the penal laws administered by the man-made institutions). Unlike in the physical sphere, the reaction is not immediate. The sin takes time to become ripe for punishment. Our basic philosophy is that it may take some lives, in whatever form to come to a head. It must have been god's mercy that is holding the sin by least. This is so till the law of Karma (destiny) crosses the Rubicon and the sin, pampered in brutal ignorance perversity, or wickedness, catches the throat of the sinner, in the way of a Frankestien Monster. Even then there is god's mercy seasoning the justice of the destiny (कर्म). Hence we see various misfortunes all varying from person to person. Since the source for all these cannot be pin-pointed to that particular life, (and may have to be traced to previous births) the Agnostics step in and with their fanciful logic and premises, (even at the last frontiers of mundane knowledge and inspite of so many uncanny phenomena happening around and about the most essential spiritual discipline required for such an exercise transcendentalism, the less said being the better) proclaim all the vedic thoughts of the great sages as humbug meant to deceive people. Then why they cannot answer except by pointing to a few misfits in society who distort religion to their own selfish ends. But the same cannot be said (at the risk of profanity) of the great saints who not propounded, but realised those truths by penance far from the madding crowd, where as rationalism was born deep in the madding crowd.

        It is most difficult to dislodge, from man the blind superstitions at one end the too critical rationalism at the other extreme. Our rishis never neglected the rational spirit. But they laid more stress on wisdom perhaps sublimated rationalism. As Gīta says "certainly, there is nothing, in this world, equal to wisdom, wisdom of the self, wisdom about god either in purity and in purifying effect". (Gita Chapter-4; Slōka-38). Any comment upon our religion which does not bring out or ignores this fundamental aspect of wisdom, is like a drainage inspector's report about a city, so to say.

        What has rationalism done by dethroning the simple, innocuous and age-old belief and enthroning reason? It is a mere futile and iconoclastic exercise, no new moorings being provided for mankind. Man's inhumanity to man, his wickedness, egotism, unbridled lust for power, self deception etc., are persisting in a more vicious way a Pandora's box in a human form. Money and muscle are ruling the roost and the poor and the weak are getting servile and more servile to the former and civilisation looks like a tiger with a cow's face. True religion is no where in sight.

        The rishis invented two great safety valves of our society, to prevent alien influence and corruption and such like things in our society - namely fear of sin and "a {postmortem - heavenly existence with supra-sensuous carnal pleasures". Needless to say, that this is the most minimum meaning of our religion and mostly meant for the rank and file, who form the rank and file who form the major chunk of the society and who are more attracted by this portion of the Vedds dealing with Karma Kānda (ritualistic portion) in flowery words (पुष्पितां वाचम्) - Gita 2-42].

        These safety valves are closed by the unthinking thinkers. In the result if the great god, in his great mercy, thinks of again coming down to earth, he will be again harassed and tortured. The mankind has not learnt anything from his life (in the previous incarnation) and his teachings all went in vain as pearls before swine.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE ROLE OF INDRA AND OTHER LESSER GODS

        Our brain-washers are apt to ridicule their role as protectors of mankind under the over-all command of the great Trinity (especially of Lord Vishnu). Some of the purānic stories about their lives in heaven (स्वर्ग) appear rubbish- and cock-and-bull stories and some even shading into pornography. Many of them are, perhaps, interpolation. Whatever that might be, I humbly think that it is not only a superficial view, but also a belittling and perverse interpretation. Many of the authors of those stories were rishis (sage-poets) dwelling in the forests, on the skirts of civilistion, leading innocent and pious lives. It was universal tendency in those days, to write everything, even simple mathematics, in the form of poetry. So they introduced all the set standards of poetry of the court- poets, into their compositions, like, rasas (dominant emotions). The Srungara rasa (dominant emotion of love) comes in handy in the context of their having to show to the virtuous persons, (who spend all their lives in practising rigourous austerities as enjoined in the ritualistic portion of the Vedds (कर्म कांड) as a reward after death, a world, which is free from the restrictions of fate, where there is only joy and happiness no disease and old age and a mere nominal subordination to the over-lord (Indra), no corrupt human passions but all the nine rasas (of poesy) giving delight and not even a shadow of peceability there (except in the minds of the critics). For the rishi-poets, it is an exercise in poetry and also in piety. What they wrote is very similar to what the great Vyāsa, in his epic Bhagawatam wrote as regards the antics and the Rāsaleela of the great Lord and Yogi (Krishna) only those lacking in Krishna consciousness will disparage them.

        There is a deeper philosophy in this. The Srungārarasa they are portraying in the lives of the celestials is not the putrid erotism to be found in a red-light region in a city. It is sublimated and sublimated till it reaches the acme of supreme holiness in the form of the divinity variously worshipped as Rādha and Krishna in Rāsaloka (not Krishna of Yādavās) or Mahd Tripura Sundari, Lalitāmba, Mahd Kameswari etc., - the supreme mother of the great Trinity. Mahd Kali, Durga are all her various aspects in various rasas (रोद्र् etc). That celestial beauty is truth and truth is that celestial beauty. She is called Srungara Devata.

        Suppose on a Television screen a conflagration is shown. Will it attack the screen also? (Perhaps not a valid example as to the celestials behaviour). It is an incentive for the good, when the great sages declared that Indra and other denizens of heaven were previously just human beings and for that matter, the Bird-King (Garuda) earned the most sacred privilege of being the carrier of the great Lord (श्री महा विष्णु). the Snake-King (the great Ananta) got by penance (dissociating himself from his most vicious tribe of Nagas, the snakes, headed by the most vicious Takshaka) the equal privilege of being the sacred couch of the same great Lord and an Asura (Rākshasa) is carrying the great Lord Ganapati etc. I don't know how long a time will the mists take to drop from the eyes of the critics.

        As for Yamā, the great God of Justice and Death, one of the indicia of a civilised society is its judiciary and the penal laws, without which the society will go to the dogs. Since it is the well-established truth that man came from god (and established his institutions on his knowledge of god) it stands to reason that the celestial sphere (hell) would have a penal institution presided over by some deity (god Yama, in our case) to purge the disembodied spirits (प्रंत), of their sins, committed by them in their human existence on earth. No doubt the imagery of the hell, to be found in our Purdnas (गरुड पुराण) etc., is soul-chilling. A similar imagery is to be found, Milton's "Chaos" (Paradise Lost) and in Dante's "Hell". But it is an endemic disease with the critics to call everything in our Purānās, cock-and-bull stories. It is meant to terrorise man into leading a good and principled life, (and not to give golden keys of heaven, into the hands of few persons or class of persons - a perennial accusation).

        Even the slightest lapse of these gods from their celestial virtue if in their blind enjoyment of the heavenly pleasures, will banish them from heaven, till they get themselves purified by long penance in a sacred place on earth or by a human birth. (Our Bheeshmās etc., are such celestial entities and destiny made use of their supernatural might, which became the only solution left for the restoration of dharma on earth and their restoration to heaven). The amorous escapade of Indra, with poor Ahalya the wife of the sage Goutama and the terrible punishment he (Indra) got is ample proof that the gods in heaven (swarga) are not reckless, proud libertines, but sacred functionaries in their respective dominion, sage Goutama was quite capable of cursing Indra with permanent loss of his office, but keeping in view his role in the universe was content with taking away his masculine sign - tremendously humiliating for the Lord of the swarga (of eternal pleasures). This is the effect of the curse of the great sage. But the dharma of the swarga is not propitiated by this chastisement and inflicted a more severe and more humiliating punishment on the great god of swarga the over-lord of three crores of celestials. The eldest son of Rāvana, the mighty Megandtha defeated Indra in battle and captured him, but released him on the orders of the great god Brahma. All the special missiles (Vajra, thunderbolt etc.,) of Indra became useless before the onslaught of destiny.

        All this digression is meant to say that the celestial system of heavens (स्वर्ग) consists of the holy Orders (under the command of the great Trinity) of "thrpnes, princedoms, powers, dominions" (called by us Ashta Dhikpāluru - rulers of the heavenly regions, towards the 8 points of the compass). The comparision of Indra (of the highly spiritual atmosphere of the Vēdās) with Zews (Jupiter) of the glory, Heathen atmosphere of the ancient west is, in my view, very crude.

        But even in our society there are some barbaric segments who look upon the celestial beings, with the same superstitious dread as' the brutish cave-man in ancient times did and in some cases, the religion is prostituted into a witchcraft and black-magic for nefarious ends.

        With this celestial system, lying prostrate at the feet of the mighty Rāvana, his throne being surrounded by the mightiest Rākshasas (who crossed swords with Lord Vishnu in the first celestial war and were pushed into the worlds below Rasātala etc.,) who again flocked to Lanka, it is jejune to think that Rāma could redeem it, without the intrinsic god-hood in him. The great battle he had to wage against Rāvana would be not a whit less fierce than the great battle Lord Vishnu waged against the great primordial Titans (दैत्याः) in the hoary past. No doubt, greatest king's like Dileepa and even Dasaratha, Dhushyanta (Kālidāsa's creation in Sdkuntalam.) etc., were in times past, were summoned by Indra, to assist him in his battles against the Rākshasās. But they were mere skirmishes, so to say, with the lesser fry of the Rākshasās. Where were Dileepa, Raghu, Dāsaratha etc., when Rāvana stationed his great garrison in their own kingdom and within a few day's march, to stifle all penance and sacrifies (yagna) in the penance-groves? The great Parasurāma has divinity in him. But the fates had used him, to wipe out the wicked rulers to restore the dharma and when he achieved that, presumably, he became a spent-force and more over he became disgusted with the horrendous royal-blood bath he had and in terrible remorse took to penance and so perhaps, the celestials had no use with him against Rāvana. Only the divinity of Krishna, could accomplish the great holocaust of the Mahābhārata war as the only way of restoring dharma. The same is the case with Lord Buddha. Only his god-hood could prevent the rivers of blood of the innocent sacrificial animals flowing by the altars of the sacrifices, performed in the name of religion.

        Thus Rāma should not be looked upon as a great human being, with a slight admixture of human foibles. The admixture is Vālmeekian, Vālmeeki intending to present Rāmāyana as a Kāvya, satisfying the laws of poetics like rasa etc. Even if there were any previous legends and stories about Rāma, Vdlmeeki is not a mere chronicler, but a supremely gifted and universal poet and a great sage in addition. But there were no such legends prior to it. I am able to say this on the strength of the following Slōka.

        It is meaningless to attribute purifying potentiality to even a small word about Rāma in those stories, about him, if they are mere legends, folk-lore etc. Only when the rishis are the authors, they become sacred. The obvious inference is that, Vdlmeeki is the author of many of the incidents in the story in conformity with the rules of poetry, regarding a Kāvya and various rishis (in thousands upon thousands of Slokds) commented upon his Rdmdyana, in the form of devotional exercises or exposition of the truth about the incarnation of Rāma (namely that Rāma is Param Brahma and Sita is his māya, Prakruti). These various versions of Rdmdyana were made possible by the great sage Vālmeeki tearing the veil about Rāma and exposing his god-hood in more places than one, while depicting the various rasas with supreme poetic skill (thereby earning the name of being the first poets, Adi Kavi.

        This is not an exercise in scholarship (of which I am not capable) but purely guess-work. Some scholars opine that Vālmeeki wrote his great work, while Sita was in his hermitage, being abandoned by Rāma. The great rishi must have been upset by this cruel act of Rāma, for an obviously absurd cause. His long-cherished love and admiration for Rāma almost evaporated. He previously believed that Rāma would perfectly answer to the description of the most ideal person in his querries to Nārada. He received a severe jolt as regards Rāma's rectitude, with daily seeing Sita all a-tears and her royal infants crawling in dust and dirt about his hermitage, god Brahma perceived this great change in the to-be author of the great epic. He sent Ndrada to clear his mists. The most crucial thing about Nārada's story of Rāma, (Bala Rdmdyana) is that it is a slightly elaborated (in just 1000 Slokds) story of Rāma as told in the holy Sri Rāma Tāpaneyopanishad (a few Slokds called mantras). That is the great truth (तत्व) about Rāma. One may derive great pleasure from Vdlmeeki's Rdmdyana, viewing it as a great literary work as Homer, Virgil etc. But its main idea is quite otherwise being a vedic commentary. Vdlmeeki dropped his mental blinkers and after Ndrada's departure, roamed about the forest with a pure and tranquil mind, again to receive another jolt from the hunter killing the (Crouncha) bird. From this jolt, Rdmdyana received the form and content of a Maha Kāvya, with the description of cities, forests, mountains, ocean, seasons, Sun-rise, Sun-set, Moon, pleasure-gardens, marriage, journeys, wars, embassy, battles etc., and above all, the art of suggestion (ध्वनि). The Rāmayana is full of all these devices and indicia of a great Kdvya in superb form and Vdlmeeki's art especially in the matter of (Dhwani) figures of speech, (similies especially) held as it were, imperial, sway over the succeeding generation of poets. It is also a dharma sāstra (dealing with righteous conduct).

        It is also a Purāna (dealing with myths and legends). Since it also deals with the history of the ancient times it is an epic of the highest rank. Above all and ultimately it is Veda, in the form of a Maha Kdvya. Its hero is not Rāma the son of Kousalya and Dasaratha but the supreme Upanishadic Rāma with all the dominant emotions (rasas) of a (Kdvya) superbly handled by the sage-poet, "Charioted" (Keats)'not only by poesy but also by spirituality a rare combination and hence woefully lost sight of by the alien critics.

श्रुन्गारं जनकात्मजे रघुपतेः धनुर्भन्जने !
कारुन्यं खगमोक्षणे अदभुत रससिन्धौच (great bridge) !
रक्षस्त्रियां सूर्पणख हास्यं तत्रखरेभयंहि !!

        Rāma by killing him and annihilating the whole garrison in a trice, generating fear posychosis in the Rākshasās even in the great Rāvana (मूल बल विध्वंसेतु भीभत्सकं). The great Gandharvdstra, Rāma employed was known only to Siva and no other god and which created tremendous stampede unto death among those mighty armies.

रौद्रं रावण भन्जने!
मुनिजने शान्तं वपुःपातुनः!!

        May that god Rāma protect us. (The meaning is clear hence no translation attempted).

        No one (among the Hindus) has any quarrel with the critics, if they view the epic as a literary work. But the hitch (I should say, with due respect of course, it is the most obnoxious thing about their criticism) comes in when they take Rāma to be undoubtedly "the most immaculate human being' but with the reservation that he had also a lower nature though his mastery over it is far above the ordinary. The very first step they took in their criticism is wrong and anti-Vālmeekian. They started with the premise that Rāma is a supreme human being but when he is in straits, there is bound to be some sliding down, which naturally leads the critics to a "lower nature of man" - a Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, though the latter is not so active as in lesser people. They cannot stomac the fact that Rāma is an incarnation of Vishnu. But when the premise is quite the reverse (Vālmeekian conception). Rāma appears as an entirely different personality. The usual phenomenon of evolution, step by step into a perfect personality, as sainthood is not seen in the case of Rāma.

        Rāvana was a scion on his mother's side (कैकसि) of the mighty Titans of the past. Further he got the boon of invincibility (with its well known reservation) from Lord Brahma and became the despair of God Indra, the Over-Lord of heavens. When Indra, as Indra received the beating from Rāvana, it is inconceivable that Indra Incarnating himself as a great human being or as a monkey (as he did so as Vali) could withstand Rāvana. Vali might be more than a match to Rāvana in a duel. But he had to reckon with the mightiest of the mightiest military machines of Rāvana. Possibly his garrison at Dandaka can wipe out Kishkindha. Perhaps that is why, no monkey-chief dared Rāma, when he brought down Vali with a single arrow. All the stories about the invincibility of Vali are fanciful, especially in the context of battles between the armies on both sides. Hence only such a human being as is mightier than Indra, can save the heavens. Obviously Lord Sri Maha Vishnu alone can do it, of course in a human incarnation the other two great Lords Brahma and Siva and Siva being out of the picture, Rāvana being their - minion and votary. Pruning off His divinity to form an exact equation in the form of a mighty counter force to Rdvana and his boon Lord Vishnu appeared as Rāma on earth a perfect human being, mightier than Indra (as he should be, as above noted) Vdlmeeki calling him often Vishnutulya Parākrāma (विष्णुनसद्रुसे वियं - Bāla Kānda; कस्य बिभ्यति देवस्य जाता रोषस्य सम्युगे) - query of Vdlmeeki to Nārada).

        Thus in Vālmeeki's conception his hero is an Upanishadic Rāma but a perfect human being, never falling even in adversity, below the level of the highest type of a human being. He is incarnate dharma (रामो विग्रहवान् धर्म). It is a contradiction in terms to say that he has also a lower side of man, though under his perfect control.

        Again, the inexorable Law of Karma (an anathema for the critics) plays a very crucial part in the epic. As mentioned earlier, Lord Vishnu, smilingly took upon himself to suffer the curse of the great sage (Bhrughu Maharshi) in his incarnation thereby honouring both the curse of Bhrughu and the boon of Brahma to Rāvana. Generations upon generations of Hindus walked on these two legs of Hindu thought, namely Law of boons or curses and the Law of Karma, happily and peacefully, with no damage to their pesonality (moral or spiritual) except the case of crooks and ignoramuses etc. But the rationalism stepped in and maiming those two legs, wants humanity to walk, instead, on the crutches supplied by it.

        I think it is necessary to react that in the case of petty mortals, their birth is not of their volition but is dependent on their past deeds, acts of commission and ommission (Law of Karma). As Gīta says, in the case of incarnation (IV-6) god ruling over his own nature takes birth by his own māya. As noted by me earlier, in the case of Rāma he ordered his mdya which is, as it were, his most obedient servant to keep him (Rāma) deluded as an absolute human being, screening his Godhood, and allowing the curse and the boon to have their own way. Hence Rāma's bitter tears, beating of breast, tearing of hair, grovelling in dust in grief of seperation from Sita etc., all this must have been sweet music to the alien critics. The truth is that Rāma, is as it were just like a catalyst in a chemical action which does not undergo any chemical change but without which, there is no chemical action at all.

        The following (human though poetic) illustration is perhaps more to the point. In Homer's "Odyssey" two sea-nymphs, Sirens, used to draw the sailors sailing past their fatal island, by their enchanting music to their shore and kill them. Odyssey wanting to hear ordered his men to bind him fast to the mast after sealing their ears with wax, only himelf being free to listen to the fatal music. He strictly ordered them not to lose his fetters, under any circumstances, till they were far past the fatal shores. As they rowed on, intoxicated with the music, he raved, wept, and begged them, only to be more tightly bound to the mast. The island vanished along with their nightmare. He became free again both in body and spirit and showered praises on his men.

        From chemistry to poetry and now to philosophy as regards the truth about Rāma:

        These are the common ideas of almost all the Hindus about Rāma, there being no novelty about them.. When these notions are set aside, the result is a lampoon and a charge-sheet against Rāma. The oft-cited example of the philosophy about Rāma, is the sky and its reflection in a vessel full of water. The great blue above takes the shape of the vessel and the colour of the water inside, and if the water is disturbed we see no sky at all inside. The sky above the real sky, seems to be laughing at our ignorance, if we, without looking up, take the sky (a reflection) inside, as the real sky. That is why wise persons say that wisdom is necessary to understand Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata and devotion for understanding (Srimad Bhāgavatam).

        To be Astra guru (teacher in archery) to Sree Rāma, sage Viswāmitra considers as the summum bonum of all his (Viswāmitra's) life devoted to Loka Kalyāna. He embraces him in all ecstasy to the point of his (Rāma's) suffocation of breaking of bones. Equally so is the sage Agastya. Sabari's rapture on seeing Rāma is well-known, sage Sona Bhanga was about to quit this world to go to Brahma Loka (the highest celestial region) earned by his great penance, but delayed his departure to see the glory of the highest human form (सवांत्तम रुपं) the great formless and so nameless (अरुपं) Aroopam. Absolute (सच्चिदानन्द) has taken as Rāma. Enjoying the beatific vision of Sri Rāmachandra, to his hearts content he offered to Sree Rāma all the spiritual merit, with which the sage conquered the (Brahmaloka) and other Lōkas, not minding to begin de novo his spiritual life. Rāma's reply (that he will by his own (spiritual) effort gain all those heavens offered to him by the sage etc), is highly significant and is sufficient I think, to put his critics on the right path. Valmeeki implies another philosophic thought as Rāma, being human cannot be so explicit as his free counterpart, Krishna. It is that god cannot accept any surrender from man, if it is a gift, but accepts it only when done as a duty, as a form of worship, in utter helplessness as a rudderless ship of the stormy sea of life (संसार) and not even an iota of ego clinging to him.

        The function of the critic is to observe his subject and not to play the spy on him. The point is how did Rāma behave at all crucial times (emphasis on crucial times) and without the least doubt, Rāma behaved as one word and embodiment of all human virtues at all such times that should be the end of the matter. One should not make a mountain out of a mole-hill and present a debris of all sorts of trivial things.

        In my humble opinion, tragic heroes (like Othello, Mcbeth, Lear, Hamlet etc), deserve sympathy, because they are noble souls, but brought ruin upon themselves by some fatal obsession. Rāma is most certainly not a tragic hero. On the other hand, his counterpart Rāvana is one such tragic hero and deserves our sympathy. Instead of directing their criticism towards rousing our sympathy towards Rāvana, the critics employed it against Rāma himself perhaps a standing on the head, as it were. Valmeeki is far ahead of them. Noble Vibheeshana falling on the dead body of his still brother Rāvana pours forth his agony along with Mandōdari Every one was safe from Rāvana provided one did homage to him. He was afraid of hermits and did everything to stifle their penances and sacrifices, as he was afraid that they may create a mightier demon against him, as the great hermits once created Vrutāsura to humiliate Indra. Of course, he had a fatal attraction for women, which wiped out all his virtues which are nearly the same as Rāma's. Vibheeshana (Sundarā Kānda - 52 slōka) says of him as धर्मजशच, क्रुतग्स्च etc.

        Again the postulate of the critics, that man learns and improves better from a fellow being sharing the same weakness seems to me not correct.

        It flies in the teeth of the ancient saying "यथा राजा तथा प्राजा" Thousands and thousands of common people may put their shoulders to the ship of state, which would not bridge even an inch, inless they are led by their king, ruler or leader. Shakespeare's plays would have been gathering dust in his own library had not his heroes been kings, princes, commanders, captains etc. Gita says that wise kings of Yore like Janaka and Aswapati though they attained perfection through wisdom (ग्यन) yet for the sake of the masses they adopted (Karma Yoga), Yoga of service.

        To conclude this rigmarole, Rāma has two sides in his personality - human and divine -certainly not a dark side (a blasphemy) and a bright side but one windward and the other on the lee, so to say, and his thought and action are to be judged accordingly. "Give unto Ceasar what is Caesar's and unto god, what is god's". The poesy of Valmeeki and Vyasa, is sage-poetry not born of mere poetic imagination had, on purpose devoted so may pages to Homer etc., to show by contrast and comparison the distinctive quality of the poesy of Vālmeeki (Vyāsa, also). I think that the grand streams of poesy of Homer, Virgil, even of Shakespeare, Vālmeeki, Vyāsa, etc., run parallel to each other and are of the same superb quality. But Vālmeeki and Vyāsa, pave ways with them when they are, in addition to their poetic inspiration drawing upon spiritual inspiration -like thoughts on mystery of the creation, of soul, super soul, god, other celestial system and above all the mystery of destiny etc. Their poetry is largely based on this syndrome and its standards of criticism are and should be different from those relating to a pagan syndrome (Homer etc.,) or a syndrome of tragedy or tragi-comedy (Shakespeare etc.,) or a syndrome of a glittering court-atmosphere (court-poets). Valmeeki wrote the Rāmayana after examining all the Upanishads.

क्रुत्स्नोपनिषदं सर्व अलोच्यमुनिनाक्रुतं

        The following illustrations will better explain my position from Kalidasa's "Sakuntala". Though the plot of the play is invented, Kālidasa is a close disciple of Valmeeki. His introduction of Doorwasa in the play is a Vālmeekian (or a Vyasa,) device. Doorwasa is a treasure house of Vēdās (दूवांसोपेदनिधः). He is the greatest sage perhaps even superior to the sage Narāda. Great sages sometimes behave as mad persons or as children (उन्मत्त बालिका) like the great Dattātrēya a naked fakir etc. When even angels fear to criticise him, some critics are free with their tongue, dubbing him as a "troublesome begging Brahman, distributing curses, a religious beggar, being a curse upon the land", or for the sake of alliteration as the "ever-hungry, the ever-angry man". Such great sages apparently behaving very oddly are, as a matter of fact, actuated by the motive of welfare of the humanity (लोक कल्याणं) or to further the ends of destiny or to remove some otherwise insuperable obstructions in the way of destiny (a divine comedy at times). This is celestial Doorwasa, also of Kalidasa's conception though not so apparent, but the critics made a caricature of him from some cut and dry standards of art not hesitating that it is an entirely alien conception. Such persons, especially this sage appears when the destiny is at cross-roads.

        The most crucial thing about his appearance in this play is, that it is not on the stage but behind the scenes. In my view, his utterance, (curse) can be equated to the vice of heaven (आकाश वाणि) in philosophical parlance. Though in the form of a curse, coming as it was from a celestial sage, it can be construed as warning from heavens, (the well known example is the warning of heavens to (Kamsa) about the danger from the eighth to-be-born son (Lord Krishna) of his sister Devaki Devi.

लौकिकानांहि साधुनां अर्थं वागनुवर्तते!
त्रृषीनां पुनः अधानां वाचं अथांनुधावति!!

        (In the case of ordinary persons though virtuous, the meaning follows their words (speech) -the word and then its meanings; but in the case of the sages and of the highest order at that, the reverse is the case, ie., the meaning stands before their fiery words and because of their fiery nature, should not be construed as a curse, but an emphatic statement of what is about to befall the subject. Sakuntala is the most unsophisticated and hermitage-bred young woman, quite ignorant of the ways of the kings and their harem. Had she but waited for the return of her "father" the sage Kanva and not succumbed to the impulsive king, the sage would have given her in marriage to him in the most solemn manner. That would have been the greatest and the most indisputable proof of her being the chief royal consort of Dhushyanta. As matters stood, there was no proof of her even Gandharva marriage besides her two friends. The only positive proof is the royal ring on her finger. Her very existence twins upon that royal signet-ring. If that ring is safe with her she will be safe with the king - otherwise not. No Doorvāsa is required to warn her of this. Her absent minded behaviour in the hermitage is positive proof that she will certainly lose the ring. All her thoughts are, when will the call from the court come, and not what will happen to her when there is no call at all. The poor girl is quite innocent of way of kings with many other wives and the palace-intrigues for their precedence. The king though noble, is apt to succumb to them and forget Sakuntala. This studdering prospect, Doorwāsa warned her against, but in his habitual angry tone (a purely righteous anger towards the innocent and idiotic hermit girl). It is not that the king would forget her on account of his curse, but would do so from palace-intrigues. It is a warning, (not a curse, from some apparent discourtesy, but a worldly-wise warning) to his friend's (Kanva of the same fraternity of sages) foster-daughter. This view does not negate the poets's conception of a noble hero. His innocence is always there. Instead of being the innocent victim of a curse, he becomes the innocent victim of palace-intrigues. In fact he forgot her, and there is sufficient time-lag between his departure from the penance-grove and the coming of Doorwāsa and there is no hint that he ever remembered Sakuntala in the meanwhile.

        This view certainly militates against the art of the court-poets just as the harsh and false criticism of Doorwāsa, damages the celestial personality of Doorwāsa (on the plane of philosophy). Any thing is grist for the mill of anti-brahmin tirade.

        The following view steers clear of these two opposing criteria and, I think, gives the true nature of the Vālmeekian philosophy through this play "Sakuntala".

        The sage Doorwāsa is of the celestial order of Sanaka, Sananda etc., and is above the spiritual rank of the sage Kanva. The sins of the parents descend on their children. These are my two postulates. Sakuntala had to suffer for the sin of her mother Menaka in seducing the great sage Viswāmitra and ruining his penance. As she was growing up in his hermitage her "father" Kanva was very much worried at the adverse fate staring her in the face and was doing all sorts of sacrifices and penance to mitigate its influence. At the time, the play opened, he was on a piligrimage to a far-off holy place for the same purpose. But the fates had crossed the Rubicon and situation required a sage of greater spiritual calibre. Obviously Doorāvasa answers to it and discends on the hermitage as a saviour and not one as the rubbish criticism makes him out to be. Even then he cannot entirely set aside the fate. He can only lessen the duration and the rigour of the suffering. Thus his curse is a blessing in disguise. Sakuntala's agony, torture and hell began as soon as the king could not recognise her and the king's agony of remorse began as soon as his ring surfaced. In the eye of the religion he and his consort was one and he must also suffer. At one point he became even mad with remorse. All that was only for a short but severe period of almost five years and god knows how much period was condensed into this period obviously by the power of Doorwāsa. This is the only explanation (that it is a veiled boon from Doorwāsa) that can take in the fact that sage Kanva knew this beforehand. After the reunion, when the happy couple wanted that to be conveyed to the sage Kanva, the great sage Mareecha told them that Kanva knew all this by his divine insight. There is no suggestion anywhere either from Kanva or Māreechi, or even the poets, that the curse is a wanton one. It is only the wanton criticism of Doorwāsa. The curse is that the king will recognise Sakuntala, as soon as he sees the ring. Then the curse ends. But the king, no doubt, does not know where was Sakuntala, being carried off by a celestial. But Kanva knows this and if the curse is wanton and is also at an end, he would have sent for his "daughter" and joined them. Again, if the curse is wanton (it is most certainly wanton, if it hinges only on her absent-mindedness) and if the curse has run out its course, the great sage Mareecha (of the rank of Prajāpati) would have sent for the king. Sage Mareecha being of the rank of Prajāpati, can even send for Doorwdsa and bring him to repentance, if he was really rash. Also the curse, as noted above, is over. Then why did those sages Kanva and Mareecha prolong the suffering of Sakuntala purposelessly? Where has gone all the paternal affection of Kanva? Critics might say that the poets wanted to say that "her silent suffering and the spiritual atmosphere of Mareecha's hermitage has transformed her love from its earlier material nature to that of a spiritual and unselfish one". But Kālidasa is not such poets as to degrade one celestial being Doorwāsa to upgrade a mortal. Perhaps Doorwdsa might have intended to make her a great mother to a great son (Bharata) through the baptism of his curse.

        The critics may spin any amount of yarn in the name of aesthetics, but if any philosophical thought is brought to their notice it is anathema to them. The rage for aesthetics has driven poets to pornography. The aesthetic touch is only the intellectual and the momentarily emotional side of man. But the poesy of Vālmeeki (व्यास) sets up vibrations in the moral and the still-deeper spiritual sheaths (Kōsamulu} of man and make for his spiritual uplift, - the great goal of life and not mere aesthetic enjoyment. "Sākuntalam" also, from all the above, perhaps, has some philosophical thought (Law of destiny) in it. A legend says: Satyabhāma, the war-like queen of Lord Krishna accompanied him to the battle against Narakāsura. When Krishna became tired she took up the bow and fought to the amazement of Krishna himself and finally Krishna killed the demon, Naraka with his chakra.

        There was jubilation everywhere, praises were showered on her along with the rain of flowers from the heavens. But the court-poets could not see her face was full of remorse. Deep melancholy sat on her countenance, which only sages (sage-poets) could see. She was the incarnation of the Mother-earth, the divine consort of Mahā Vishnu, in his incarnation as Adivarāha Moorthy and the Rakshasa Naraka was their son. As soon as Naraka had fallen, the mother (of past life) in her woke up. This philosophic thought is thrilling, though not so to the mundane critics and who cannot see wood for trees.

        Another legend says: On the death of Abhimanyu after covering himself with glory on par with that of his father his mortal parents Subhadra and Arjuna were rolling in dust and their agony had no bounds. But the joy of his celestial parents (Budha and his wife) in heaven also knew no bounds on his home-coming after brief absence of about 35years. They sent him to earth, along with other celestials to join the mission of Lord Krishna, on the stipulation that he should be sent back to his home (heaven) after that short period. These transcedental truths are either unknown to aesthetic poets are considered as being out of place in their art which concerns itself only with sentiments, emotions and their conflict, interplay etc., which might be true or flase or half-truths etc.

        On seeing Sita, pining away for Rama, under the Asoka tree in Lanka, the court -poets will pour forth their grand poetry of sentiment in describing her situation and agony. Valmeeki describes her in abstract similies, with allegorical meanings, also conveying thrilling estoric, logic philosophic and mantra sāstra secrets.

क्षीनापुण्यां च्युतां भूमो तारां निपतितामिव!
अभूतेन अपवादेन कीर्तिं निपतितामिव!!

        These concepts are like "grapes are sour" to the court-poets.

        In the thick of the battle, Arjuna fiercely fought, with grim determination to do (to kill Saindhava before sunset) or die to avenge his son's death (Abhimanyu) and even the celestial from above marvelled at his feats of archery, equating him with Rama. Arjuna saw before his rushing chariot, a magnificent god-like personage, going before his chariot and slaughtering the army and Arjuna wondered whether he was only killing the already-slain warriors with all his skill in archery. The great Vyasa, explained to him that the great personage, was no other than the great god Rudra. In the view of destiny, those warriors were deemed dead and Arjuna was only its human instrument. A murky parallel is in "Iliad", god Phoebes, Apollo fought on the side of the Trojans against the Greeks and led the Trojans up to the Greek ships, demolishing the great Greek wall like a child playing on the sands and playfully crushing its sandy structures to build another. But this is only a figment of imagination of course poetic. But Vyāsa,'s is a holy Apocalypse. The great battle came to a close. Dhuryodhana was lying at death's door. The Pandavā's camp was fast asleep. Significantly, Krishna took away the Pāndavās ostensbly to celebrate their victory elsewhere. Destiny had spread its dark wings over the camp and Krishna saw it. Apparently it was a hideous massacre shaming even the fall of Troy (Virgil). Lord Rudra is again there at the entrance. He gave a miraculous sword to Aswathāma and allowed him to do his apparently nefarious work. Cynics cannot comprehend this mystery. In their eyes Lord Rudra is an accomplice (a blasphemy). Lord Rudra tested him and found him fit to accomplish the great destiny. Aswathdma fought with the Lord fiercely for an entrance. Of course Aswathdma was punished sufficiently for his status. He was humiliated by Bheema and was cursed by Vyāsa,. In my litle view, Vyasa, cursed him not for the massacre, (by destiny so to say) but for indiscriminately using the noble missiles and over-stepping the writ of destiny using the great missile named Brahma Sirō (ब्राहा सिरोनामकास्त्र) to wipe out the Pāndava Dynasty, not even sparing the unborn Pareekshith, defying even Lord Krishna. All other Pāndava princesses became barren from that missile.

        By outward show of great devotion, and hospitality Duryodhana deceived the sage Doorwdsa (the fiery sage) and entrusted him to go to Dharmarāja ostensibly just to know whether Dharmarāja would show the same degree of devotion and hospitality towards him (Dhoorvāsa). The innocent sage with 10,000 followers, set out for the forest-abode of Dharmardja, at an odd hour as entreated by Dhuryodhana and accepted by the sage. At that odd hour the magic food-plate (a boon from Sun-god) could not give the food desired (in any quantity) and the villain became sure that the angry sage would curse Dharmardja with his most spontaneous curses. But Lord Krishna came to rescue of the Pāndavas and turned the tables against Dhuryodhana. The sage coming to know of the plot cursed Dhuryodhana. This apparently silly episode is meant by Vyasa, not to decry the great sage (He is as much a minor incarnation of Lord Rudra as Vyasa, is of Lord Vishnu), but to suggest a sublime thought. It is that, seeing the great power of Dhoorwdsa being neutralised by the greater powers of Lord Krishna, the great palladium of Pāndavas, the villain, Dhuryodhana should have stopped his wicked way and turned over a new leaf thereby nullifying the destiny, which is not so inexorable as the ignorant think.

        The following fine Slōka gives the true meaning of the above episode and the true role of destiny in human affairs

द्वाविमो पुरुषौ मुर्धे! धुर्यांधन दशाननो!!
गोग्रहं वनभंगन्च! द्रुष्ट्वा युद्धं पुनः पुनः!!

        Rāvana did not learn anything from the superhuman feat of Hanumān in destroying Asōka vana and Lanka not the thrashing Dhuryodhana got from the Pāndavas at Virātanagar etc., could open his eyes. They are the two typically perverse fellows.

        In my humble opinion, there is some misconception about the sage-poetry, as distinguished from Court-Poetry (Aesthetic poetry). The former is not cock-and-bull stories. Those poets can with perfect reason retort "Horatio, there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Shakespeare spelt this out on the basis of Ghosts "gibbering Ghosts" the most miserable and desolate and helpless form of darkness. Then what to speak of the great sages who saw the light of lights and experienced the joy of joys and wrote about that in the form of poetry for (लोक कल्यानम्) never seeking any royal patronage? The soul of poetry is rasa (काव्यो रस्तयकाः) the dominant sentiment, persisting for a long time as the echo after the sound. But there is a world of difference between what is rasa in both the schools of poetry (so to say). The aesthetic experience in the art of court-poets does not last long and it vanishes as soon as the stimulus is gone. Also the poets does not require necessarily moral elevation. Again it is confined to the intellectual plane oj the human personality. A thought produces an action and the action gives rise to a thought. The thought and the action chase one another in their interplay in the intellectual plane (of psychology). There are many planes (sheaths कोशः) inside (many Astral planes one deeper than the other in our psychic constitution) and this court-poetry (Aesthetic) cannot free itself from the plane it usually works in and if it refers to things or thoughts in other planes it is only a figment of imagination, true or false, like the above quotation from "Hamlet". Again that poetic imagination (Inspiration) is a fleeting one, unlike that of the sage-poets, who reached the (Brahmastiti) (communion with god, the great Super-Soul), which is a permanent inspiration or one at their back and call. The sage-poets factually roam about in the above-mentioned Astral planes, or those planes are easily accessible to them, especially when they take up the pen. The truth, as seen from those planes, is obviously different from the dusty truths the court-poets give us fleeting misleading truths not conducive to or too weak for the spiritual uplift of mankind. Thought is the cause for action (verbal or otherwise). The aim of the epic poets is to know the causation for that cause and the further causation for that causes. In this way, they remove the veil round the great destiny, the mystery of the creation etc., and show us, the erring mankind the great truths. In the process their poesy acquires the sanctity of Vēdās, and their rasa is far outside the spectrum of the rasas , the poets are catering for us. To those rishi-poets god is rasa (विष्णोवेरसः ब्रह्मो वेरसः) god is the poets of poets (कवी कवीनां) etc. Their poesy, can be, and is, equated with the word of god in our national ethos. Hence the wise say that:

        (Needless to repeat and the whole of this rigmarole is for this idea)

वेदवेधे परे पुम्सि जाते दसरथात्मजे!
वेदः प्राचेतसात् आसेत् साअत् रमायणात्मना!!

        "The supreme god of the Veda fulfilled himself in the highest type of manhood as embodied in Sri Rama the son of Dasaratha the ultra-human Veda had its delightful fulfilment in the human Rdmayana through the seer-poets प्राचेतस (Vālmeeki the son of the great sage प्रचेत)".

        Of all the poets, only Vālmeeki and Vyāsa, declared that what they wrote was truth and absolute truth. No doubt, there is joy in myth. A further process brings us the joy of cream, of butter and finally of ghee, a very sacred item in sacrifice (yagna). "Astronomers say that universe is very big, but biologists say it is very small".

        In view of the large volume of writing indulged in by me as being absolutely necessary, it is not possible for me, from constraints of space, to translate every Slōka but to give a gist of the Sargās.

        Rāma was listening to the musical recital by his sons Lava and kusa, of Rāmayana of Veda. Of course Rama did not know that they were his sons. But he was feeling some tender paternal stirring towards them. In the great' hall of audience leaving the great throne Rama sat among the people assembled. Humility! Thy name is Rama. Before beginning the story. I want to quote a Slōka (not from Vālmeeki) depicting his unique humility on the eve of his departure to his celestial abode (वैकुन्ठ) It is a humble entreaty to the future generations of kings and rulers to sustain and nourish the great institution of dharma founded by him.

भूयोभूयो भाविनो भुमिपालन्!
नत्वा याचते रामचन्द्रः!!
बह्दोयं धर्मसेतुः नरणां!
काले काले पालनियोभवदभिः!!
स्नेहं दयांतथांसोख़्यं यदिवा जानकीमपि!
आराधनाय लोक्स्य मुन्चतो नास्तिमे व्यधा!!
प्रजा पीडन संतापात् समुदभातो हुताशनः!
राज्यं कुलंश्रियं प्राणान् नादग्ध्वा विनिवर्तते!!

        Apart from the holy atmosphere (Rāma was performing an Aswamēdha sacrifice and many rishis from far and wide had gathered there to witness it) there was a triple confluence of beauty -beauty of the verse, beauty of the singing with rhythm and the beauty personified in the singers, Lava and kusa mirror of Rāma. Vālmeeki taught them his Ramayana and other sāstras and sent them to the great sacrifice with the intention of reuniting the royal couple, Rama and Sita. But even this great sage was outwitted by the divine play and they parted for ever, of course in this world, for almost 1,000 years a great trial of the divine stoicism of Rama.