The head priest of the newly constructed Ram temple in Ayodhya that has huge political backing, has demanded an immediate ban on one of the latest films released by Bollywood. the movie ‘Adipurush’. Reason for the ‘outrage?’ Unsurprisingly, he alleges that the movie has ‘wrongly portrayed Lord Ram, Hanuman and Ravana’. Only recently, a 1.46-minute teaser of the movie, based on the Hindu epic Ramayana, was launched at a lavish ceremony in Ayodhya. However, it has been receiving strong criticism on social media since then for a number of ‘issues’.
Not surprisingly, the supremacist, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) echoed Ayodhya priest priest Satyendra Das’s objections. The outfit criticised the portrayal of Lord Ram, Lakshman and Ravana in the teaser of the film, claiming that it “ridiculed Hindu society”.What are social media users riled about? While some are complaining about ‘poor VFX’, others have claimed that the film is ‘misrepresenting’ Lord Ram and Ravana. Hindustan Times (HT) has reported that the head priest has alleged that the film ‘wrongly portrays’ Lord Ram, Hanuman and Ravana and is therefore against their dignity. “Making a film is not a crime but they should not be made to create deliberate controversies to hog the limelight,” head priest Satyendra Das reportedly told HT.
Not to be outdone, it was the vocal Madhya Pradesh (MP) Home Minister Narottam Mishra also accused the filmmakers of wrongly depicting the Hindu deities in the teaser reported The Indian Express. “I have seen the trailer of Adipurush. There are objectionable scenes in it,” he has said.
How many Ramayanas exist and which depiction is ‘real’ and ‘authentic?
The realm of study, history and anthropology tell a rich and varied tale. Communalism Combat’s exclusive cover story of May 2008, Three Hundred Ramayans documents this scholarship.[1]
While the entire text is fascinating the footnotes to the translation are no less so. Ramanujan first wrote this essay as a lecture delivered at the Workshop on South Asia at the University of Chicago in 1985-86. In a revised and expanded form it appeared in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), The second section of the essay draws on a short paper on ‘The Ahalya Episode in Two Ramayanas (Valmiki and Kampan)’ which Ramanujan presented at the Association for Asian Studies Conference in Boston in 1968. Gen Ed.)
Ramanujan mentions, and credits that several works and collections of essays have appeared over the years on the many Ramayanas of South and South-east Asia. Some of these are : AK Banerjee 1983; P. Banerjee 1986; JL Brockington 1984; V. Raghavan 1975 and 1980; Sen 1920; CR Sharma 1973; and S. Singaravelu 1968.Ramanujan notes that when he mentioned Bulcke’s (1950) count of three hundred Ramayanas to a Kannada scholar, he said that he had recently counted over a thousand in Kannada alone; a Telugu scholar also mentioned a thousand in Telugu. Both counts included Rama stories in various genres. So there are many many more than 300 Ramayans even.
Hindutva supremacists got this essay removed from the curriculum of Delhi university’s undergraduate course in 2008. Today, now instead of this rich and varied scholarship within history and anthropology. the Mukesh Ambani-owned television channel and web portal, News 18, has delved deep into what is considered as ‘objectionable around this film as also several portrayals of the Ramayana.
Today, Adipurush is the latest big-budget Indian film to draw on Hindu mythology and culture, following in the footsteps of SS Rajamouli’s RRR and Ayan Mukerji’s Brahmastra. Director Om Raut, who directed Adipurush has called it a ‘passion project’ for the entire crew, according to a report by Indian Express.
The grand launch event took place at Ram ki Paidi in Ayodhya, on the banks of the Sarayu River, and featured the unveiling of a 50-foot poster of the film that emerged from water. Sunny Singh, who plays Lakshman in Adipurush, and Saif Ali Khan were both absent from the premiere.
Bollywood has been currently seeing a rise in films based on Hindu mythology, which have received mixed reviews and reception. The recently-released Brahmastra, starring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhat and Mouni Roy, also got its fair share of controversy. The film revolves around a superhero drama about a simpleton who has a special relationship with fire. The films takes inspiration from Hindu mythology, with the plot following Brahmstra, a supernatural weapon said to be capable of destroying the universe.
Other upcoming films on Hindu themes include Akshay Kumar’s ‘Ram Setu’. Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Sita’ is also set to present a portrayal of the centric female character of Lord Ram’s wife Goddess Sita from Ramayana. However, with recent ‘anti-Bollywood’ sentiments expressed on social media sites, the films’ reception has been ‘mixed’.
Why has Adipurush received hate flak?
The film has received criticism from right-wing Hindu leaders, online and otherwise. In his criticism of the film, Ajay Sharma, Prachar Pramukh of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) Sambhal unit, told reporters that the way in which Lord Ram, Ravana and Lakshman had been portrayed in ‘Adipurush’ was a mockery of Hinduism. “The values of Hindu society have been ridiculed. Hindu society will not tolerate this,” he said. He also said that the way Ravana had been depicted was not in line with the Ramayana and related religious scriptures.
The multilingual period saga sees Saif Ali Khan play the role of a 10-headed demon king called Lankesh. With a beard, fierce eyes and a buzz cut, this Lankesh seems barbarism personified and many called out the filmmakers for the apparent Islamisation of Ravana. The portrayal of Hanuman, with a beard, without a moustache and dressed in leather, also attracted criticism.
Ramayana’s Earlier Depictions
While the much politicised epic (since the 1980s) has inspired many movies, shows, two that saw love from the audiences was the 1987 TV series Ramayana and the 1993 ‘anime’ film on the Hindu epic. The show first aired on DD National between 1987 and 1988, and was narrated by Ashok Kumar and directed by Ramanand Sagar. The show became the most watched television series in the world, with an 82 percent viewership. The repeat telecast aired at various times on 20 different channels in 17 countries across all five continents. The series’ success was well documented by the media. According to the BBC, over 650 million people watched the serial.
The serial’s success coincided with the VHP-driven movement for construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya –launched in 1986 precisely –at the exact spot where the Babri Masjid stood. Ayodhya already had hundreds of temples to honour Lord Ram when the Babri Masjid was demolished in cold daylight on December 6, 1992. Between 1986-1992, the deadly and violent Rath Yatra, led by former mahapurush (militant man) of the party and subsequent Indian home minister, LK Advani, caused violence and bloodhed in its wake, be it Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra or Karnataka.
The “love” for the series coincided with the spiralling growth of the RSS’ parliamentary wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), politically. Arun Govil who starred in the serial joined the BJP in 2021. A clear political bent to the ‘standardisation’ of the Ramayan epic is now in place as can be seen from the reactions of even Dipika Chikhlia, who then portrayed Sita. She was quick to criticise Adipurush. “I have seen the teaser of Adipurush. Ramayan is a true story with which the emotions and beliefs of millions of people are associated. Since Ramayan is an important part of people’s faith, it is important to be careful about how its characters, simplicity, and emotions are depicted. I know times have changed and that VFX has become an essential part of movie-making but VFX is good only till it does not hurt people’s sentiments. However, it is only a teaser and may not do justice to the film,” she reportedly told India Today.
Another ‘popular’ depiction is that of Yugo Sako, who produced and directed the 1993 anime film based on the Hindu epic Ramayana, which was co-produced by Japan and India. It captivated audiences with its faithful adaptation and svelte, godly depictions of Hindu deities.
Japanese producer and director Yugo Sako had detailed his immense preparation before making the Ramayana, “Sako spent months researching the narrative and checking out clothes and architectural aspects, meeting with academics, archaeologists, and historians. He wanted to be extra careful as a foreigner to keep loyal to the epic,” reports said.
Today, in the 75th year of Indian independence, as the India of 2022 veers towards an authoritarian totalitarianism based on majoritarian faith and culture, the location of the multi-dimensional epic(s) Ramayan and Mahabharat in a standardised and stultified form has shorn the epics and Indian culture itself of the magic of the many-dimensional. As the Karnataka scholar told Ramanujan, there are not 300 but one thousand depictions of the lores and tales ad characters in this much loved and lived epic fable, but the rigid hawkishness of the powers that be will prevent Indians from enjoying these. At least on the massively visible silver screen.
[1] Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas is a scholarly essay that summarizes the history of the Rāmāyaṇa and its spread across India and Asia over a period of 2,500 years or more. It seeks to demonstrate factually how the story of Rama has undergone numerous variations while being transmitted across different languages, societies, geographical regions, religions, and historical periods. It does not seek to document all the recorded tellings and re-tellings of the Rāmāyaṇa. Instead, it focuses on only five specific tellings of the Rāmāyaṇa from different languages, regions, cultures, and periods, which serve purely as indicators of a much larger range of actual variations. The count of 300 Ramayanas in the title of the essay is based on a work of Camille Bulcke[1] and it has been pointed out that it is an underestimate of the actual count. However, Ramanujan considers only five tellings of Ramayana, namely, the tellings by Valmiki, Kamban, the Jain telling, the Thai Ramakien and the South Indian folk tellings. Ramanujan specifically prefers the term “tellings” to the usual terms “versions” and “variants” because the latter terms can and do imply the existence of an invariant original text. One of Ramanujan’s main observations in the essay is that there is no such original Ramayana and that Valmiki’s Ramayana telling is only one among many Ramayana tellings.
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