Jabali
Jabali | |
---|---|
Ramayana character | |
Created by | Valmiki |
Alias | Javali |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Priest, Dasharatha's advisor |
Jabali (
Attempt to persuade Rama
In Ramayana, Rama abandons his claim to the royal throne and goes on a 14-year exile, in order to fulfill his father's promise. Rama considers his decision as his dharma (righteous duty), necessary for his father's honour. In Ayodhya Khanda, Jabali accompanies Bharata to the forest, as part of a group that tries to convince Rama to give up his exile.[1] He reminds him of the fact he said when he came to ayodhya after completing gurukul that.... never give up your pleasures for the one who don't care about your martyr and just throw you out
Jabali uses nihilist and atheistic reasoning to dissuade Rama from continuing the exile. He states that those give up artha (material pleasures) for the sake of dharma suffer in this life and meet extinction after their death. Showing further disbelief in the concept of afterlife, he criticizes the shraddha ritual, in which people offer food to their dead ancestors. He calls it a wastage of food, and sarcastically suggests that if food eaten by one person at a given place could nourish another person at another place, shraddha should be conducted for those going on long journeys, so they would not need to eat anything.[1] However, even after listening to the arguments of Jabali and others, Rama refuses to give up his exile and extols the virtues of following the dharma.
Rama's response
Valmiki's Ramayana contains a section that describes Rama angrily denouncing Jabali, which includes the following verses:
Ramayana (2:109:34)[2] | Translation by Ralph T. H. Griffith[3] | Translation by Shyam Ranganathan[4] | Translation by D. H. Rao & K. M. K. Murthy[2] |
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निन्दाम्यहं कर्म पितुः कृतं त । |
My father's thoughtless act I chide |
I denounce the action mentioned below, of my father, who picked up you as his councilor-priest, a staunch unbeliever, who has not only stayed away from the path of dharma but whose mind is set on a wrong path opposed to the Vedic path, nay who is moving about in this world with such an ideology conforming to the doctrine of Chaarvaaka, who believes only in the world of senses as has been set forth in your foregoing speech. |
I accuse the act done by my father in taking you into his service, you with your misleading intelligence, a firm atheist fallen from the true path. (2-109-33)
It is an exact state of the case that a mere thought deserves to be punished as it were a thief and know an atheist to be on par with a mere intellectual. Therefore, he is the most suspect, and should be punished in the interest of the people. In no case should a wise man consort with an atheist. (2-109-34) |
In these and subsequent verses, Rama becomes so angry that he denounces his own father for keeping Jabali as an adviser.
Interpolation
The verses depicting Rama's anger are considered a later insertion in Valimiki's original text. Every canto of Ramayana ends with one long shloka written in a different metre, compared to the other verses. However, the version of the canto containing these verses contains six long shlokas in a different metre. The dialogue between Rama and Jabali is finished in the first shloka, in which Rama is not depicted as annoyed. However, the next few shlokas re-open the dialogue abruptly, and the tone of the conversation contradicts the tone of the earlier dialogue.[7] In his translation, Griffith calls these lines "manifestly spurious" and cautions that these need to be "regarded with suspicion". August Wilhelm Schlegel, who translated Ramayana to German (1829), also called these lines fake, and later regretted having included them in his translation.[3][5]
According to
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84331-727-2.
- ^ a b Valmiki. "Book II: Ayodhya Kanda - Book Of Ayodhya, Chapter [Sarga] 109". Valmiki's Ramayana. Translated by Desiraju Hanumanta Rao & K. M. K. Murthy.
- ^ a b Valmiki. "Book II: Canto CIX.: The Praises of Truth". The Rámáyan of Válmíki. Translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith.
- ^ ISBN 978-81-208-3193-3.
- ^ a b John Muir (1862). "Verses from the Sarva-Darśana-Sangraha, the Vishnu Purāna, and the Rāmāyana, Illustrating the Tenets of the Chārvākas, or Indian Materialists, with Some Remarks on Freedom of Speculation in Ancient India". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. 19. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society: 299–314.
- ISBN 978-81-8069-595-7.
- ^ Mahadev Moreshwar Kunte (1880). The Vicissitudes of Âryan Civilization in India: An Essay, which Treats of the History of the Vedic and Buddhistic Polities, Explaining Their Origin, Prosperity, and Decline. printed at the Oriental Printing Press by N. W. Ghumre. p. 449.
- ^ The Indian Year Book of International Affairs. Indian Study Group of International Affairs, University of Madras. 1963. p. 458.
- ISBN 978-0-674-03067-1.