From: sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian)
Subject: NEWS : Ram was Ram I, a Pathan hero, says Vedic scholar
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 06:20:47 GMT

  Source : "The Times of India"
  Dated  : October 30, 1992.


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        Ram was Ram I, a Pathan hero, says Vedic scholar
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                          By PRANAB BASU

    RAM was not the king of Ayodhya but a Pathan prince who lived
in  the  Afganisthan  area circa 1800 B.C. This is the view of Dr
S.B.Roy, an astrophysicist as well as Vedic scholar.
    The theory that Ram lived in Horayu, in Afganisthan, has also
been suggested by the astrophysicist, Dr Rajesh Kochhar. Dr Roy's
theory is that first there was Ram I, a Pathan hero  who  existed
in  history. Then there was Ram II, a mythological figure. It was
Ram II who lived in Ayodhya.
    The present dispute over the Ram temple, according to Dr Roy,
is  "pointless  and futile" because the real Ram -- Rama I -- has
nothing to do with the structure in eastern U.P.
    The link between the imaginary Ram of Balmiki - Ram II -  and
the  real  Pathan Ram of the Rigveda and the Zarathustrian gathas
is Sita, wife of the Ram of Ayodhya. References to Sita as a fur-
row  mark on a ploughed field are found in the hymns of the early
Rigveda. Dr Roy concludes from this that Ram I of Irano -- Afgan-
isthan was a "hero-god of peace and agriculture." The story of Dr
Roy's historical Ram is linked with events which  began  in  1800
B.C. when the Nordic Neo-Aryans who lived in the north-east India
began to move eastwards.  Rama came down to the Indus  delta  and
conquered  Mohenjodaro. He never went further south. The conquest
of Ceylon, which happened much later in 450 B.C.  was achieved by
Vijaya Sen, an exiled prince of Bengal.
     Ram as a Pathan hero has already figured in Dr Roy's earlier
book, "The Mohenjodaro -- the Lanka of Ravana". The book has been
criticized by the historians, including Mr H.D.Sankalia who wrote
that  the  application  of an exact science like astronomy to the
chronology of Puranic dynasties was dubious.
  RAM CULT: The evidence about Ram's link with  Ayodhya  provided
by the former director-general of the Archeological Survey of In-
dia, Mr B.B.Lal is refuted by Dr Roy. After excavating  14  sites
in  what  he  called  Ayodhya, Mr Lal concluded that the city was
built around the second century. By that time, Balmiki  had  com-
pleted  his  epic, the Ram cult was popular and there was a spurt
of construction activity. Although the  fact  that  the  Ramayana
contains  references  to Buddhism is taken as proof that the epic
is a post-Buddhist one, Dr Roy says that the incidents  of  Ram's
life go back to 60 generations before Buddha.
    "Lal's work is inconclusive", Dr Roy asserts, "because he has
altogether  ignored  the  problems arising from Ram's going south
and (the so-called) conquest of Ceylon which is the crux  of  the
whole matter".
    The flights of poetic imagination in the Ramayana such as the
Lanka  Kanda, the monkey-built bridge and Puspaka Ratha, the air-
borne machine that travelled 1,500 miles without fuel shows  that
the poem is basically a fairy tale for children.
     "By seeking to read history in Balmiki's Ramayana  which  is
Kavya,  one  not  only distorts the history of India but also the
poetry of Ramayana" says Dr Roy.

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