Mahabali, Ramayan, Aryans, and Dravidians
November 18th, 2009 | Published in history, india, religion | Tags: aryan, dravidian, hindu, history, india, mythology, religion | 2 Comments
What if the story of Mahabali and Ramayan were narrating the same episode in ancient Indian history? Remember that the story of Mahabali shows up in Vamana Purana whereas Ramayana is one of the Itihaasas. It is not surprising that the same incident would inspire two different mythological texts during two different periods for two different purposes. However, I claim that they are referring to the same chapter in ancient Indian history, that of the victory of Indo-Aryans over Dravidians.
The story of King Mahabali
Mahabali was the king of asuras (who are a class of deites, and not demons; demons are called rakshasas in Hindu mythology). The asuras ruled in Paatala loka (which is one of the 14 worlds, and is not hell; hell is called Narka in Hindu mythology). Mahabali expanded his empire to all the 7 ‘lower’ worlds and then invaded Bhuloka (or the earthly world): the lowest of the 7 ‘higher’ worlds. Then he set his eyes on the remaining ‘higher’ worlds which were ruled by devas (another class of deities). The king of devas, Indra, was worried by this expansion and realized that he was no match for Mahabali, so he approached lord Vishnu to save his kingdom. Vishnu then took the form of vamana, or a brahmin boy, and approached Mahabali for Daana or donation/alms. Vamana asked for three steps of land for him to live in. Mahabali agreed. Then Vamana grew so large that in one step he covered all of the higher worlds, and in another step he covered the Bhuloka, and asked Mahabali where he should place his third step. Realizing that he has been bested, Mahabali asked the third step to be put on his head and Vishnu placed his third step on Mahabali’s head sending him to Paatala.
The story of Ramayana (hopelessly abridged)
Prince Rama is sent on an exile with his wife and brother. They wander to south of Vindhya mountains and down south, king Ravana of Lanka abducts Rama’s wife. While searching for his wife he comes across a kingdom of monkeys (vanaras) and with their help he defeats Ravana and rescues his wife.
Obvious connections
So how do these stories point to Aryans and Dravidians? The most obvious references here are (a)the notion of Mahabali being from the ‘lower’ world (possibly refering to south India) and the devas and Vishnu being from the ‘higher’ workd (possibly refering to north India, and (b) Rama being an Arya putra from Ayodhya (in north India) and Ravana being from Lanka (in the south) and the Dravidian people being referred to as ‘monkeys’.
But we need more than such annotated instrumentation to make our case.
Mahabali and Onam
First, lets look at the case of Mahabali. King Mahabali is said to been a very just king and all of his subjects were said to have lived properously during his reign. Yet he is cast down back to Paatala. Also, Paatala could well refer to the state of Kerala (again, in the south) because the Hindu festival of Onam celerbrated only in Kerala is a celebration of King Mahabali, their King Mahabali. It is worth noting that Hindus in Kerala celebrate the reign of an asura king who was cast down by Vishnu and interestingly, such a celebration is endemic to Kerala. It is not celebrated anywhere else!
Vijayadashami in north and south India
In north India the Hindu festival of Vijayadashami marks the defeat of Ravana by Rama. However, in south India, the same festival marks the defeat of Mahishaura by Durga. Why such different reasons to mark the same festival? The only bridge between the two is the tale that Rama performed a sacrifice to Durga in the eve of the battle with Ravana. This suggests that these were really two different festivals in two different cultures and religions. They were later joined together by expansion of Hinduism into all of India.
The legend of Vindhya and Agasthya
The legend is that Vindhya mountains (which separates north and south India) started growing to such heights that it challenged the path of sun in the sky. So sage Agastya, in order to stop this growth asked Vindhyas to stoop down so that he may cross to down south. He also extracted a promise that Vindhyas would not grow any higher until he returned back north. But Agastya permanently settled in the south, and so the Vindhyas did not grow anymore.
The story (which is from the puranas, and is said to have occured before the itihaasas) can be interpreted as the northerners’ (Aryans) conquest over the Vindhyas (much like the conquest of Mt. Everest) which paved way for migration to south India, thus triggering contact with the south Indian Dravidians.
Genetic Markers, Caste System, and the North-South Divide
A recently published study of genetic profiles of Indian peoples concludes a distinct divide among Ancestral North Indian (ANI) tribes and Ancestral South Indian (ASI) tribes with very strong evidence of enogamy. The study also revealed that individuals descending from the ANI tribes tend to be in the ‘higher castes’ and are genetically closer to europeans where as individuals descending from the ASI tribes tend to be in the ‘lower castes’. This again points to an Aryan-Dravidian divide that has been there for millenia, and the strong enogamy suggests conflict and competition between the groups, and looks like the Aryans won the struggle and encoded it into their mythology which was then shared with the Dravidians when they all became a single Hindu people, yet isolated from each other by caste barriers.
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December 9th, 2009 at 3:17 am (#)
Dear Sir, I managed to come across this wonderful crap of yours. This is the n-th time I am hearing of this poorly concocted myths. Alright then, if Rama was an Aryan, Ravana a Dravidian, and that the Aryan/Dravidian racial myth is also true (according to you), so do you agree that Rama is a true historical personality? Why then you people say Rama was mythical character? How then the British myth called ‘Aryan Invasion’ holds true? Please clarify!
December 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm (#)
@Balaji Thank you for your comment. It is unfortunate that it did not have any constructive criticism or content for me to respond to or start a meaningful discussion. However, there were a few clarifications requested by you in the form of questions. Let me proceed to do that here:
First, I do not believe that Rama was a historical personality; much like I believe that neither was Mahabali. Note that I refer to both Ramayan and Vamana Purana as mythological texts, implying that they are a work of fiction. However, in my post, I argue that they are fictionalized versions of historical episodes that did occur in the subcontinent. As far as the Aryan/Dravidian racial divide goes, I did present the research conducted by scientists from CCMB in India and Harvard University and MIT in the United States (details here) as evidence of Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI) divide in the subcontinental population.
Second, as far as the Aryan Invasion Theory (AVT) goes, the canonical theory was that the Aryans came from central Asia and settled in India. This theory was proposed by the British to account for how advanced the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was. The canonical AVT assumed that the ruins of the IVC were in fact the ruins of an Aryan race because they could not fathom that a race indigenous to a colony could have had such high levels of advancement predating the colonists (in this case, the British) themselves! So in the canonical sense, the AVT has already been discredited.
Coming back to my claim about Aryan people vs. Dravidian people, I never claimed that the Aryan people were from outside the greater Indian peninsula. I only claimed that there existed two separate groups of people and they were in conflict (more on the nature of the conflict to follow). Why do I claim that? Well, if there is no such thing as Aryan people vs. Dravidian people, then how do you account for the ANI/ASI divide, or the regional celebration of the ascension of Mahabali (and other observations that I will omit in favor of brevity)? Interestingly, while all of India is regarded as being Hindu (at least historically), the ASI/ANI divide indicates that the people did not see each other as having a common group identity. So when you have different groups with different identities occupying the same geographical area, you will see conflict. This conflict may be cultural, social, or military. Coming back to the the story of Mahabali and Ramayan, it is quite possible that social/cultural domination of ANI over ASI people formed the basis of these myths. However, a hero, a villan, and a grand stand/battle makes for much more interesting tale (and a much better tool of propaganda) than an account of socio-cultural domination that was decades (if not centuries) in the making. So perhaps there never really was a military invasion, nor was there a bloody battle. It is all perhaps a myth, based on real events nevertheless.