Citations & References:"We can't just erase history. We can only explain it better and hope to learn a lesson from it. Our past indeed, is not always easy to deal with, but learning from the past, makes us understand what happened and use the situation, as a guide in the future. The historical context presented about people, places and past events, will help us all, learn to consider things," Bulan pondered for a moment."So, listen, what I'm going to tell you is just a metaphor, about an incident in the land of Emerald. It's about Shakti, the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the universe. This energy is thought of as creative, sustaining, as well as destructive, and is sometimes referred to as auspicious source energy.The story goes like this : Shakti asks Shiva, to narrate a tale that will comfort all in turbulent times. But wait, who is or what is Shakti? In the complex movement called Tantrism, a central role was played by the emergence and predominance of the figure and of the symbol of a goddess or divine woman, Shakti, in its various epiphanies. She may be either portrayed by herself, as the supreme principle of the universe, or reproduced under the species of multiple Shaktis. The various goddesses, modifications of the one Shakti, were differentiated in two kinds: the first, luminous and beneficial (e.g., Parvati-the power, Uma-the knowledge, Lakshmi-prosperity, Gauri-fertility); the second, frightful and dark, (e.g. Kali-destruction, Durga Bhairavi, Chamunda-sacriface). People turned to devotion and to cult (bhakti and puja), in order to achieve emotional experiences (rasa) with mystical overtones.Shiva narrates the Ramayana, the story of Sita and Rama. The story pours out in different ways, in different tongues, different words, different nuances and different emotions. Sometimes it is poetry, sometimes prose and sometimes just a gesture. Characters emerge, transform and then disappear in a blink. It tells of plants that talk and animals that think; gods who fail and demons who triumph; heroic villains and villainous heroes; sages and hunters; victims and seducers. Time twists and space unfolds as the narration proceeds.A curious crow called Kakabhusandi overhears this narration and shares what he can remember with Narada, the travelling sage who loves to gossip and exchange ideas between heaven and earth. Narada narrates what he recollects to Valmiki, who turns the story into a song and teaches it to the twins Luv and Kush.Luv and Kush sing it before the king of Ayodhya, not realizing that he is the protagonist of the tale, and their father. Rama does not recognize his sons either, and finds it hard to believe that the song they sing so beautifully is all about him. The Rama they describe is so perfect. The Sita he remembers is even better. But the song is incomplete. There is more to the story.The song of Luv and Kush is Purva-Ramayana, the early section. It describes Rama as eka-bani (he whose arrows always strike the target), eka-vachani (he who always keeps his word) and eka-patni (he who is devoted to a single wife). He is maryada purushottam, supreme upholder of rules. It ends happily after six chapters with the triumph of Rama over the rakshasa-king Ravana, and his eventual coronation as king of Ayodhya with his wife, Sita, by his side.Ramayana is a segment of a vast cyclical tale, one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle. Events in the tale are a consequence of the past and the cause of the future. It cannot be seen in isolation. To do so is to see the stars and miss the sky. Ramayana is not a single text, or even multiple texts. It is a belief, a tradition, a subjective truth, a thought materialized, ritualized and celebrated through narrations, songs, dances, sculptures, plays, paintings and puppets across hundreds of locations, over hundreds of years. Each retelling has many tributaries and many branches. Each has its own tilt, focusing on different plots, on different characters, on different aspects of the human condition, each one innovatively recreating as well as contributing to the plots and the themes.But the tale continues into Uttara-Ramayana, the latter section, with a chapter describing the separation of Sita and Rama, the fight between father and sons, the reconciliation ending with her disappearing into the earth and with him walking into the river Sarayu, never to rise again.So where does the Ramayana actually end? Neither, says the sage Vyasa, he who collected and classified the hymns of the Vedas. He informs us that after shedding his body that was Rama, Vishnu ascends to Vaikuntha, his celestial abode on the ocean of milk, and then returns with a new body, that of Krishna, who is very different from Rama.Neither king nor faithful to a single wife, Krishna is a cowherd and charioteer lovingly reviled as makkhan-chor (one who steals butter), chitta-chor (one who steals hearts) and rana-chhor (one who runs away from battle and lives to fight another day). He is leela purushottam, the supreme game changer. His story is told in the Mahabharata. That makes the Mahabharata an extension of the Ramayana.Does the Mahabharata then mark the end of the story that begins as the Ramayana? Not quite. In the chronicles known as Puranas, we are informed that after Krishna, Vishnu takes many more forms before descending as Kalki, who rides a horse, brandishes a sword, very much like an invading plunderer, and heralds pralaya, the end of society as we know it.Is pralaya then the end of the Ramayana? No, for just when the sea is about to rise and submerge all the lands, Vishnu takes the form of a small fish and begs humanity to save him from bigger fish. The man who responds to his cries becomes Manu, the founder of a new social order, for he demonstrates the uniquely human potential to help the helpless, defying nature’s law that favours the strong.Ramayana is a segment of a vast cyclical tale, one piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle. Events in the tale are a consequence of the past and the cause of the future. It cannot be seen in isolation. To do so is to see the stars and miss the sky. Ramayana is not a single text, or even multiple texts. It is a belief, a tradition, a subjective truth, a thought materialized, ritualized and celebrated through narrations, songs, dances, sculptures, plays, paintings and puppets across hundreds of locations, over hundreds of years. Each retelling has many tributaries and many branches. Each has its own tilt, focusing on different plots, on different characters, on different aspects of the human condition, each one innovatively recreating as well as contributing to the plots and the themes.Then, what are the implications? In many ways, history both begins and ends with questions; which is to say that it never really ends, but is a process. ‘History’ often refers to both the past itself, and to what historians write about the past. ‘Historiography’ can mean either the process of writing history, or the study of that process. Historiography is the process of writing history; and ‘history’ to mean the end product of that process. There is an essential difference between ‘history’ and ‘the past’. Language inded can be confusing.Often, historians would have interpreted a story differently. Some would not have thought it important or intriguing at all. These choices are not just to do with chance or cleverness, but with what interests us. If we are historians, we are caught up in our own bundles of interests, morals, ethics, philosophies, ideas on how the world works, and why people do the things they do. The evidence of the records presents us with pictures and puzzles; in fact, challenges.There are maybe a blanks in a story, historians fill in these blanks, with the art of good guessing. ‘Guessing’ suggests a degree of uncertainty about the historiographical process. It might even suggest that at times historians get things wrong. They do, of course: historians, like everyone else, can misread, misremember, misinterpret, or misunderstand things. But in a wider sense, historians always get things ‘wrong’. We do this first because we cannot ever get it totally ‘right’. Every historical account has gaps, problems, contradictions, areas of uncertainty. We also get it ‘wrong’ because we cannot always agree with each other; we need to get it ‘wrong’ in our own ways. However, whilst getting it wrong, historians always attempt to get it ‘right’. We try to stick to what we think the evidence actually says, to search out all the available material, to understand fully what is happening, and we never fabricate ‘the facts’. Historians sometimes like to define their work against that of literature. An author of fiction can invent people, places, and happenings, whereas a historian is bound by what the evidence will support. This comparison might make history seem somewhat dry and unimaginative. However, history also involves imagination, in dealing with that evidence, presenting it, and explaining it. For every historian, what is at stake is what actually happened – and what it might mean. There is an excitement to these precarious attempts to grasp the ‘truth’, a truth that might at any point be revealed as illusory.These doubts are necessary for ‘history’ to exist. If the past came without gaps and problems, there would be no task for the historian to complete. And if the evidence that existed always spoke plainly, truthfully, and clearly to us, not only would historians have no work to do, we would have no opportunity to argue with each other. History is above all else an argument. It is an argument between different historians; and, perhaps, an argument between the past and the present, an argument between what actually happened, and what is going to happen next. Arguments are important; they create the possibility of changing things.History is ‘true’ in that it must agree with the evidence, the facts that it calls upon; or else, it must show why those ‘facts’ are wrong, and need reworking. At the same time, it is a ‘story’, in that it is an interpretation, placing those ‘facts’ within a wider context or narrative. Historians tell stories, in the sense that they are out to persuade you—and themselves—of something. Their methods of persuasion depend in part upon the ‘truth’–not making things up, not presenting matters as other than they are–but also in creating an interesting, coherent and useful narrative about the past. The past itself is not a narrative. In its entirety, it is as chaotic, uncoordinated, and complex as life. History is about making sense of that mess, finding or creating patterns and meanings and stories from the maelstrom.Thinking about history presents us with both opportunities and dangers. It allows us to reflect upon our relationship to the past, to look at the kinds of stories we have chosen to tell about the past, the ways in which we have come to those stories, and the effects of telling those stories. When the past re-enters the present, it becomes a powerful place. Part of thinking about ‘history’ is to think about what—or who—history is for.We are, of course, engaged in our own, contemporary, historical enquiry. We can look back to ‘historicize’ history itself; that is, to see what its roots are, where it comes from, how it has changed, and what it has been used for in different times and places. Our focus, has to be upon the present: to use past historiography as a comparison to what we do now, and as a reminder that if history, as a subject, has changed over time, it may yet change again. Consequently, there will be large gaps in the story that follows. However, all history in some ways wishes to say something about its own present time.We must be careful that part of the stories, are mixed up with what we would recognize as a more ‘factual’ political history. Herodotus, sometimes labelled the ‘Father of History,’ is always happy to diverge from his account of political events to tell us about the local customs of a people, the weird and wonderful animals in different areas, and any fabulous story that had caught his interest. Herodotus is therefore also known as the ‘Father of Lies’. But Herodotus himself would not have seen any difference between these elements: indeed, he often takes pains to state that what he is saying can be believed because of the witnesses who confirm it.The Roman writers Sallust and Cicero had argued that there were rules and codes to follow in writing of all kinds, and specific ones for writing history. The ‘rhetor’ (or narrator) of history should tell the truth impartially, even if that offended other people; should arrange things chronologically and geographically; should tell what ‘great deeds’ were done, paying attention to their causes, including character and chance; and should ‘write serenely in an easy flowing style’. The point of the rules was that the history thus written should be persuasive, and well received. This rhetorical element had a long historiographical legacy.Indeed, history is so complex, so difficult, and not totally secure, but why does it matter? It is sometimes suggested that we should study history to learn lessons for the present. This is a problematic. If we mean by this that history presents us with lessons to be learnt, no one in the classroom is paying attention. Apart from anything else, were these lessons—patterns, structures, necessary outcomes—to exist, they would allow us to predict the future. But they do not; the future remains as opaque and exciting as ever it did. If, however, we mean that the past presents us with an opportunity to draw lessons for consideration, it is more persuaded. Thinking about what human beings have done in the past–the bad and the good–provides us with examples through which we might contemplate our future actions, just as does the study of novels, films, and television. But to imagine that there are concrete patterns to past events, which can provide templates for our lives and decisions, is to project onto history a hope for certainty which it cannot fulfil.Another suggestion, is that history provides us with an identity, just as memory does for an individual. This is certainly true as a phenomenon: various groups, lay claim to past events as a basis for their collective identities. But it is also a danger, as the bloody conflicts between different ethnic groups across Europe surely attest. We can lay claim to the past for part of our identity, but to become imprisoned by the past is to lose something of our humanity, our capacity for making different choices and choosing different ways of seeing ourselves.It is also sometimes thought that history can show us some deep, fundamental insights into the human condition; that sifting through the past we may discover some intrinsic thread to our lives. Historians have long been charged with the job of divining ‘essences’, to human nature, God, situations, laws, and so on. But are ‘essences’ of any use to us now? Do we believe in any ‘essential’ links between different peoples and times? If we do, it is because we wish to present universal human rights, we wish to hang on to decency and hope. And as well we should. But the historian is not, and should not be, of much use here: the historian can remind us that ‘human rights’ are a historical invention (no less ‘real’ for all that) just as are ‘natural law’, ‘property’, ‘family’, and so on.‘Essences’ can get us into trouble, as when we come to believe that the term ‘man’ can always stand in for ‘woman’ also; or when we think that different ‘races’ have intrinsic characteristics; or when we imagine that our mode of politics and government is the only proper pattern of behaviour. So the historian might take on another job: as reminder to those who seek ‘essences’ of the price that might be exacted.But there are alternative reasons for doing history and for why it matters. The first is simply ‘enjoyment’. There is a pleasure in studying the past, just as there is in studying music or art or films or botany or the stars. Some of us gain pleasure from looking at old documents, gazing at old paintings, and seeing something of a world that is not entirely our own. If nothing else, you will allowed to enjoy certain elements of the historical past, that you have gained pleasure in meeting Guilhem de Rodes, Lorenzo Valla, Leopold von Ranke, George Burdett, and Sojourner Truth.Secondly, using history as something with which to think. Studying history necessarily involves taking oneself out of one’s present context and exploring an alternative world. This cannot help but make us more aware of our own lives and contexts. To see how differently people have behaved in the past presents us with an opportunity to think about how we behave, why we think in the ways we do, what things we take for granted or rely upon. To study history is to study ourselves, not because of an elusive ‘human nature’ to be refracted from centuries gone by, but because history throws us into stark relief. Visiting the past is something like visiting a foreign country: they do some things the same and some things differently, but above all else they make us more aware of what we call ‘home.'Thirdly, this again is connected with the first two: to think differently about oneself, to gather something of how we ‘come about’ as individual human beings, is also to be made aware of the possibility of doing things differently. History is an argument, and arguments present the opportunity for change. When presented with some dogmatist claiming that ‘this is the only course of action’ or ‘this is how things have always been’, history allows us to demur, to point out that there have always been many courses of action, many ways of being. History provides us with the tools to dissent."The Moon closed her contemplation, "And so, history is never really ends, but We must bring this short talk to a close. Now that I have made the introductions, ‘Bestie, this is history; history, this is my bestie,’ and I greatly hope you will continue your acquaintance. Chao and Allah know best!"
- John H. Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press
- Devdutt Pattanaik, Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana, Penguins Book
[Part 10]
[Part 8]
