Historical Importace of the legend ofRamaym;ta. U'W-'fUT (The journey of Ram a)

Abstract

RimayaiJa. was the first classical Sanskrit epic of India. It is the work of Valmiki. According to scholars this legend was turned into a poem in the 41h century B.C. This consists of 24,000 Sanskrit stanzas. It is far shorter than the Mahiibharatha. RamayalJa relates the adventures of Rama who went to Dm).<;iakaranya together with his brother LakSamana and wife Seeta. There are diverse regional versions of the RamayalJa written by various authors in India. Indian tradition regards the Ramayal).a as part of their history. Valkmiki's RimiyalJa has been traditionally divided into seven cantos (kandas) dealing with the life of Rama from his birth to his death. 1. Bala kanda 4. Kiskindya Kanda 7. Uttara Kanda 2. Ayodhya kanda 5. Sundara Kanda 3. Aranya Kanda 6. Lanka Kanda Chroniclers in Sri Lanka had not included the story of RamiyalJa into Sri Lankan history. For this we can identify two reasons. 1. Defeat of Rawana by Rama 2. Hindu concept of god included in the RamiyalJa was alien and unacceptable to Buddhism. Some Sinhala scholars have rejected the usage of RiimayaJJa, for example, Totagamuve Rahula thero who wrote Kavyashekara, V eedagama thero who wrote Budugunalankaraya, Buddhagosha thero who wrote Papanchasudani had not considered them as worthy of study. I Iowever, one cannot ignore the fact that, Riimiiya1Ja is important as a historical source building up Sri Lankan History. There are many places which are related to the story of Riimiiya1Ja in Sri Lanka, i.e. Seethawaka, Seetha Etiya, Rawana Ella, Roomassala (Unawaturna), Although our chroniclers took no notice of RamayaQ.a in constructing Sri Lankan history we should not ignore the story ofRamayal).a when studying history.