महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

lxi] History of the Rāma-story
the horse-sacrifice (a Jain could not perform a sacrifice involving the death
of any living animal), but merely and simply because people told him
about her forlorn state; and he finally loses her again, not because Sītā
disappears into the earth, but because, after her purity is attested anew by
the fire-ordeal, she is convinced of the vanity of the world and becomes
a Jain nun, tearing out her hair with her own hand. Rāma himself takes
the mendicant vow soon after. We may note in passing that the Jain
accounts tell us that the monkeys and bears and demons who took part
in the battle at Laṅkā were not really monkeys or bears or demons. They
were human beings who carried the images of a monkey or a bear or
a demon on their banners.
26. Later modifications of the Rāma-story : 3. Hindu forms.—A whole
treatise could be written discussing the various forms which the Rāma-
story assumed in the later Hindu tellings of it, either in Sanskrit or in the
different vernaculars of the country. And the special interest of such
a treatise would lie in the attempt to show how the story came to be
modified in accordance with changing beliefs and varying standards of
judgement. We shall content ourselves with indicating merely the several
tendencies that are discernible in the process. .
26, A. Exaggeration.—In these later tellings of the story mere
exaggerations are what we naturally expect. Thus, even in the present
form of the Rāmāyaṇa, the battle at Laṅkā is spun out and made to last
for months, the intervals being filled in with one superhuman deed after
another on both sides. There is a good deal of repetition. The same
applies to some of the later descriptions of the battle of the twins with
the army attending the sacrificial horse of Rāma. The twins are made to
defeat all the great heroes who fought by Rāma’s side at Laṅkā, including
Māruti, Lakshmaṇa, and even Rāma himself. Or, to take another instance
which is significant in connexion with Bhavabhūti’s treatment of the
theme, Rāvaṇa himself is represented as having been present at Sītā’s
svayaṁvara, but unable to bend the bow (see § 18, C), which Rāma
alone did.
26, B. Deification.—The beginnings of this process are already observable
in the later portions of the Rāmāyaṇa, especially books i and vii, where
Rāma is exalted into an Avatar of Vishṇu or the Supreme Spirit. This
tendency was in course of time so much exaggerated that it eventually
defeated its own purpose. Rāvaṇa also came to be considered as a regular
devotee of Rāma; for, works on devotion admit intense enmity as a form
of worship no less efficacious than friendship or service. So Rāvaṇa longs
to be killed by Rāma and thereby to attain salvation (see U.R.C. ii. 11).