From: raman@cs.utexas.edu (Raman Rajagopalan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Re: The evil in Ravana is Arrogance .. not race or sex!
Date: 5 Nov 1992 17:55:06 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: cascade.cs.utexas.edu
Keywords: Ramayana, Dravidian, Aryan philosophies, metaphysics..

In article <Bx93zy.850@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> selvakum@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (C.R.Selvakumar - Electrical Engineering) writes:
>
>       The Saiva saints of great repute ( the core aacharyas ) mention
>       that Ravana attained LIBERATION and he CAN NOT do any evil.
>       The story of Sita -Rama - Ravana is bring down the fame achieved
>       by Ravana. Ravana can do evil like abducting Sita is to say like
>       Sri Ramana bhagavan can do evil !! 
>          It is FUNDEMENTALLY wrong to say that Ravana
>          attained powers from Siva and Ravana used these powers
>          in evil way and then Rama came and destroyed Ravana . This
>          shows the well known religious superiority games played by
>          our purana authors. 
>       Ravana is an Immortal and incapable of doing evil. 
>
>      Regards,
>      Selva

1) About religious superiority games.... sure, many of the stories are
   a game, with the villian gaining boons which appear to make them
   invisible, and the gods have to come up with some trick to defeat
   them anyway.  The stories teach one that good will prevail.  What
   is wrong with this?

   About "superiority"... this choice of words on your part seems
   to imply that the puranic stories support one form of religion/group
   over another.  What is the basis for this?  If you are connecting
   asura with dravidian here, that is an interpretation at best.
   The stories themselves do not talk about a specific people -
   only the characteristics that are considered evil.  

   Others religions, like christianity, have stereotyped villians as
   well, such as the red color of the devil.  like the hindu puranas,
   christianity also associates darkness with evil, and goodness with
   light.  People in general have feared darkness.  This characteristic of 
   darkness is given to the asuras with this metaphor in mind.  If that led 
   to prejudice against any race of people, I would consider that an 
   unfortunate side effect.  

   The simplest solution to that would be
   to redefine the "evil" prototype with a different set of 
   non-controversial characteristics (blue? green?).  would you have
   a problem with the ramayana if the reference to lanka was changed
   to moscow, and if ravana was green instead of dark???  anyway, i
   keep my sanity to accepting the puranas as more entertaining versions
   of aesop's fables or panchatantra, and I try not to get too attached
   to any geographical references.

2) about Ravana being incapable of evil.  This is simply not true.
   By simply using the powers one gains with self realization, one
   can become attached to material things again.  Ravana used his
   abilities to further his own status in the material world - this
   led to the development of desire/ego, etc., and brought about his
   downfall.  Since we are dealing with stories and philosophy, I can only
   argue about this by showing examples of the fall of persons in
   a similar position in other puranic stories.

   Here, the story of vishwamitra comes to mind.  I believe it was
   he who attains the status of rishi, only to wrongly use his powers and
   lose that status.  By exerting stronger self control, he attains the status
   of brahmarishi again and keeps that status.  

   Similarly, even today, sadhus (like ramana maharishi) will not
   openly flaunt their abilities since that will make them very much
   a part of the world (ordinary) rather than personages who
   have the self/mind control to be apart from it.
   

- raman rajagopalan
Xref: sparky soc.culture.indian:36810 soc.culture.tamil:3548