Author Sumedha Verma Ojha talks about her love for ancient India, Ramayana and the need to aware the young generation about mythology. Ankita Jain reports
Many versions of the Ramayana, the story of Ram, have been written over time. The original story, told by sage Valmiki in Sanskrit, has been recast in numerous forms and languages. While many of those versions have been lost, one of them, The Mewar Ramayana, which is not only the finest surviving illustrated manuscript of the Ramayana but also one of the most beautiful manuscripts in the world, had been digitalised two years back. And now it has been penned down by author Sumedha Verma Ojha along with JP losty who curated the paintings and helped with the introduction part.
Dating back to the 17th century, the manuscript contains over 400 paintings and was commissioned by Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar in 1649 and produced in his court studio at Udaipur. It was eventually completed during the reign of his successor, Raj Singh in 1653. Out of these 400 paintings, 370 have been digitalised and around 125 of them have been published in the book.
Clad like she always is in a silk sari, Sumedha personified understated elegance with her minimal make-up-and-accessories look. She talked about her journey, resigning from the Indian revenue service to penning down her passion for ancient India. “Ancient India writing is rooted to my childhood. I started reading Ramayana and Mahabharata very early, probably at the age of 10. Then I was fascinated with the arthashastra followed by the Sanskrit literature. The influence of past can be vividly seen in all my work,” she said.
The beauty of Mewar Ramayana lies in its intricacy, style, size; it is small, intricate and exquisite. One could see his imagination of the Ram-Sita story on the canvas. Elaborating on The Mewar Ramayana, she said, “The original manuscript represents the pinnacle of Jagat Singh’s patronage of painting and is the grandest project ever undertaken by his court studio. The text that formed part of the manuscript was copied in the Nagari script by a Jain scribe, Mahatma Hirananda. Several accomplished artists of that era contributed their talent to the making of the manuscript, visible in the intricate paintings of Gods, battles and landscapes. Over 800 pages of text in Sanskrit, copied by a single scribe, complete the work.” She further added, “This book is the recreation of The Mewar Ramayana. It has abridged text translated in English and the paintings accompany the text.” Also, the paintings are part of Rajput school of miniature paintings. “He did the artistic part and I did the text part. We gelled really well and it came out beautifully,” smiled Sumedha sharing about JP losty, who curated paintings for the book which took one and a half year to complete entirely.
The Ramayana is divided into seven kanda, starting from the Bala Kanda which talks about Ram as a child, grown up man and it ends with his marriage, the book takes its readers from all seven divisions illustrated with the help of paintings. Describing one of the paintings from the seventh division, Uttara Kanda, she said, “As Ram and the procession reach the banks of the river Sarayu, Brahma and the gods appear to witness Ram’s ascent and light the sky with an effulgent glow. Accompanied by chants of Hail Vishnu, Ram enters the waters and ascends to heaven. He is accompanied by Sugriva, his brothers, monkeys, bears and other humans. They willingly sacrifice their lives in order to ascend to heaven with him. The entire populace of Ayodhya witnesses the heavenly event, some plunging into the waters in order to attain moksha (release from rebirth). They are shown ascending to the celestial realm with Ram.”
She also threw light on the digitalised version of Mewar Ramayana paintings, “The paintings are posted online for anyone to see by the British library. The difference between that collection and this book is that we went some extra mile to get undisclosed paintings illustrating the Aranya Kanda. There are 11 extra paintings which we fetched from Oriental Research Institute, Rajasthan.”
Highlighting the research element, she added, “The main thing to be done was to read the Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit which is quite a big task. I had read it before the publishing house had approached me for this project. But then I read it again and translated it. Since, I was always reading many different versions and I have always been reading about the history of Ramayana all my life, I didn’t have to do anything special. Moreover, there is no interpretation, what the book talks about is just the Valmiki Ramayana.”
Talking further about creating interest among the youths for Indian mythology, she chuckled, “We really need to introduce mythology to the young generation being as creative as we can. During our days, it used to make good bed time stories narrated by our grandmothers. But that old world charm has passed; no one has time to tell stories now. Considering this, I believe, illustrated epics will surely break the ice."
Sumedha also has two other books in the pipeline to be published next year. One of them is about women of ancient India. The issue of gender in scriptures, in Prakrit and Sanskrit literature and women from the Rigveda, Ramayana and Mahabharata will be talked about. The other book is the sequel of Urnabhih which was set in Patiliputra of Chandragupta Maurya. Through Urnabhih she brought together devoted scholarship and rich imagination to weave a riveting narrative about the adventures of a fiery Ganika-Misrakesi. When asked about her view on the position of women in Ramayana, she said, “Women then were very strong, powerful, learned, intelligent and explored a lot of field, they were warriors, doctors, scholars and also householders. Moreover, they performed a spectrum of roles. Comparing with today’s time, women’s positions were better then.” Besides, she is also giving a thought to explore writing in Hindi.