Family Values

There's a lot of noise around about "family values," which seem to boil down to positions against abortion, drugs, and homosexuality that supposedly have Biblical foundations. There are explicit prohibitions against homosexuality; abortion is supposed to be covered under "Thou shalt not kill"; I'm not sure where the drugs come in. I am sometimes asked in my Literature of the Bible class whether Isaiah, or Ezekiel--especially Ezekial--were on some kind of mind-altering substance because of their really bizarre imagery.

But aside from all that, I almost always read The Ramayana (Buck translation) in my introduction to literature composition. At some point, I wonder out loud how the "family values" in The Ramayana compare with what we find in the bible. The students virtually always side with the Bible as the repository of values any moral person would want to live by.

But then, we go to specifics. In the Bible, in the first family, one brother murders the other. In The Ramayana, Rama's brother, Lakshamana, vows to accompany him into exile (though it is not necessary) and protect both Rama and his wife Sita, who, though Rama unselfishly tries to advise her against it, also vows to accompany him--on the grounds that she is his wife, and her place is by her husband. Eve is the instrument not only of Adam's ruin, but the ruin of all mankind; Sita is exemplary in her devotion to Rama, in her fidelity, and in every other way. Her only failure seems to be that she foolishly does not heed the good advice of her brother-in-law to leave a golden deer alone. The deer, unfortunately, is a Rakshasa in disguise, who has agreed (against his better judgment) to lure Rama away from Sita so the evil Ravana can kidnap her. Many examples can be brought in--I particularly like the father-son integrity of The Ramayana. One of Rama's father's wives is persuaded to force Rama's father into banishing his son from the kingdom. When Rama is advised to rebel, he refuses on the grounds that a son's duty to his father is absolute; and he cannot be angry with the wife who betrayed him. Compare that, for example, with Jacob's deception of his father, Isaac, who, though suspicious, is too old and blind to see through Jacob's claim to be Esau; Jacob thereby not only cheats his father but his brother as well, and is considered a hero for it.

And we haven't even started talking about the Hebrew Bible insistence that a rebellious son or a wife discovered not to be a virgin be stoned to death. Or the general agreement in the Bible, as in the ancient world generally, that slavery is perfectly acceptable.

The gods of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the two grand Hindu epics--both wonderful, amazing, thrilling works of literature) seem much more like gods I could relate to than the God of the Hebrew/Christian bibles. He is too punitive, too angry, too insistent that he be worshipped. Among the charming things the narrator relates about Rama, a god who has come to earth to save mankind, is that he knows how to take a vacation, and he never has a harsh word for anyone. (I must say, one should read more than the Buck version--Buck has amazing imagery and some comical renditions of what the gods say to each other; there is another translation, I think by Narayana, that is less exuberant. But Buck is fun, and I'm all for that.)

I realized finally that, if religion has much point, I go for the religion that has the most charming stories. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata win hands down on that. They also have so much more--they deserve extended separate blogs.