A Request, a Falsehood, and a Wishful Thought

In response to Dr. Thursdays request posted on "The Flying-Ins," I have written a work of verse fiction, "The Writing of the Ramayana."

Background info.

In real life, the Ramayana is one of the great poems of Hindu India. Ostensibly written by the poet Vlakimi in a drugged stupor, it recounts the story of Rama's rescue of his beloved, Sita, from the devil Ravana. Traditionally, Rama is seen as one of the seven incarnations of Vishnu (one of the three cheif deities of Hinduism and one of the three chief symbols of Brahma, the pantheistic deity).

When I read an abriged prose version of the tale, I was very impressed by the story, but I thought the Hindu theology ruined it. Therefore, I have written a fictional (but not historically impossible) account of the real intentions of the author (I misspell his name throughout both here and the poem itself), and the circumstances of the poem's writing.

The poem is filled with Chestertonian allusions, especially to The Everlasting Man


The Writing of the Ramayana
By Old Fashioned Liberal

Canto 1:

With trumpet blare and flourished flare
Elephants bouncing round the square
Heralds cried, selling verbal ware:
�Behold, our king shalt be sat there;

Returning home in majesty,
From conq�ring rival Rajahstie,
He commands joy and minstrelsy
From all you standing here!

Make merry, wear the colored cloth
Saris, uneaten by the moth
Rejoice as at a plighted troth
And then your lord revere!

� Another herald, swift and sleek,
From eating vegetables, not beef,
Came to the house of Vlakimi,
The poet, old and sage.

�Great sir, I speak great news� he said,
Our king is vict�rous, live, not dead,
Feast of his power you must bespread,
For the people, for a just wage.�

Vlakimi locked himself inside,
While lab�rous mirth took place outside
Ritu�ls ornate by law implied
Laws local, neither just nor fair.

Canto 2:

With travels wide and knowledge great
Poet Vlakimi�s mind was sate.
Both things of will and things of fate
Things of early and things of late.

Of word and wonder this poet knew,
Of myths and gods in magic zoo
Convoluted. Color and hue
Men, women, justice, and evil�s lair.

Of one thing other, Greece in name
Vlakimi knew through word and fame.
In search of wisdom�s hidden flame,
He had sent a scholar there.

Cross marches wide of oven sand,
Mountains, valleys, and fertile land,
Where man first looked, and found him Man,
The learner bore his gift.

Beauties, arts, and cogitations,
Traditions of generations,
Subtle thinkers� generalizations
He listened for to sift.

From these, he picked one precious pearl
Good unfurled, but with evil swirled
In drama great to shake the world
The Odyssey was its name.

Bearing this seed of mind and gladness
Good, bad, and poetic madness,
Cross mud and mount and musty sand-dust
The traveler finely came.

Possessing eagle-poet-sight,
Vlakimi pondered days and nights
Pondered on wrongs, and pondered rights
The epic work revealed.

Then, by reason�s mannerism,
He saw his culture�s aneurism:
Deathly-sweet slav�ry: pantheism!
Occult by rite concealed.

So when the man with burnished belly
Told him to start �story-telly�
No meats from this psychi-deli
Would this tale relate!

Canto 3

Who walks in robes of fleshy green
Through halls of occident court-scene?
Whose thin chests, heads near burst at seams?
The Brahmins, wise men of the king.

Their presence makes a fair court foul.
Their heads that bear the dot, not cowl,
Have schemes to beat Greek Female Owl.
And the king carries them out.

They are the prop behind the throne,
Under them, royal pow�r has grown,
So even kings are overthrown,
Their armies all in rout.

Under them, lower castes chafe,
With arrows they the children strafe,
High taxes make the land unsafe
For thieves are everywhere.

Lands near and far this fear have felt
(Sometimes their towns have badly smelt
Of burning flesh, dead human pelts)
When they fall in the snare.

So deplorable is this state,
That even beneath soul-crushing weight
Of pantheism, they feel hate!
Of revolution, some do sing!

Canto 4
With Greek treasure, and skill assured
And knowledge of pol�cy deplored,
Vlakimi took his writing-board
And his imagination soared.

No praise-song to Brahmin war-king
In fact, would this sage minstrel sing.
Of Rama, great in everything,
Would he speak instead.

As praise of war-chief would they see
This poem, but one thing would not be.
This time, from Hindu triune three,
Rama would not be descended.

Whate�r as praise to Rama cried
Would by the people be descried
To the king! Politic suicide
Would sadly be prevented.

For if the king was seen as god,
More of the people�s hard-worked sod
Would be put under tyrant�s rod
In worship perverted.

But if with hints subtle with pow�r
Vlakimi hid in poetic flow�r
Links twixt king and Ravana, devourer
Goodness could return upboard!

Canto 5

After the poet had racked his brain
Every Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain
Into the night-aired town-square came
To hear the epic be proclaimed.

And on that moistly summer night
When carn�val torches mixed their light
With mithril moon and stars so bright
Vlakimi began his lay.

He told of Rama ruddy-brown
Who, on a quest to holy ground
Learned of the soul, of earth flat-round,
And where his heart would stay.

Past tale of jungle fierce and green;
And rite heart-stealing (A Catholic�s dream);
And piquant god-fight, where magic screamed
Its wrenching war-cries; Rama traveled.

And then, enchanted, Rama sees,
Fair Sita among her fair lovelies.
Like a gazelle among the trees,
He saw her; and his heart unraveled.

Simple, sweet solitude they chose
A forest life near woodland rose
(The tale seems done, but on it goes)
Distributist in form.

One tingling day, when He was out,
And She was wringing laundry out,
A Brahimin came, with begging pout
Seeking a dry dorm.

When she acceded gen�rously,
However, it was not to be!
The Brahmin�s form changed swiftly
Into Ravana�s shape!

His powers carried her away
The god-fouled wind, not fair airway,
Proved dec�dent bed, nightmare of day
And she, unwilling freight.

With aid of beasts both smart and strange
Rama a war on the god arranged.
With monkey-king and bird free-range
He crossed the water to Ceylon.

From sapphire water, fertile-deep
He raised the sand-bars from their sleep
Their swirling forms above waves peeked
Summoned by spell long-gone.

And crossing forth, to Rav�na�s isle
Where Sita languished in ill style,
Rama, filled with male warrior-bile,
Began the epic charge.

First came arrows by Euclid tamed
Next, flung siege-stones of burning flame
Third, the chief part of the war-game
The clash of armies large.

The bright sway-clash of steel on steel
Where fear and courage dart and wheel
Is where Lady Vict�ry does conceal
Her two-edged draught of blood.

A Eucharistic cup that makes
Two things of those whose thirst it slakes
For some, their honor bends, then breaks
Others find their perfect good.

Rama, in the last part of fight
Was one of these, the second type.
With aid of magic good and bright
He brought Ravana down.

(In the fair world of fantasy
Magic need not occultic be.
Rather, it reveals nature�s glee
In �laws� within it sown.)

Bright stars of every color fair
Came hurtling down from sky. Beware
Ravana! In that land there
Space-sparkles shall explode thee!

And when one hit him�Pouf! He went!
In blinding spark and smoke�s ascent
He vanished, never more to fret
The world and you and me.

From that day on, the dark-fair twain
Kept their love through sun and rain.
As king and queen with endless train
Of children, so they lived.

And so they died, and then, and then,
Eastern Beren and Luthien
Spent their days in thrice-high heaven
Every sin full-shrived.

The tale then ended, the crowd then sat
In lesser ecstasy thereat.
Still lost in lit�ry �rolls of fat�
Only the wind then stirred.

Then came applaudic rain of sound
Swift as wind over the ground
Into the poet�s ears they found
Their way, and they were heard.

And then, in terr�ble surge undue,
Another noise wormed its way through
The sound of Brahmins grew and grew
In evil, vile word.

�Blasphemy!� their mouths proclaimed
�Incorrectly the story�s framed!
Against our dogmas you have claimed
More than is your pay!�

A plot it was (of course); the crowd
Was silenced from their applause loud
No praise for blasphemy would be mouthed
This night of yester�s day.

Up to the podium Brahmins brought
A potent dose of opium-draught
Up to his place to seal the plot
Why must the Brahmins win?

As they came, the poet pondered
How he could escape. He wondered
What to say his fate to sunder
From their coming sin.

�Friends!� the poet cried �Have a care
Fall not into pantheism�s snare
Come breathe the fresher, purer air
Of paganism, rich and rare!�

�Against the king you thought you rose�
They said, raising drug to his nose,
�You did so well. May we impose?
Sing the song again!�