A Comparative study on the Raghuvaṁśam and the Sābin Ālun
Abstract
The great epic Rāmāyaṇam is one of the ancient and prominent treatises of the world literature, which flows the origin of Indian culture and civilization. The main objective of this composition is to spread out the human ethics through the incidences of social life. The central character of the Rāmāyaṇam is Rāmacandra, the supreme-being or incarnation of the lord Viṣṇu, who is the son of king Daśaratha of Ayodhyā. Although, by virtue he is authoritative, but all the human feelings and behaviours are clearly expressed through the heroic character Rāmacandra. The heart-touched character Rāma and life story of Rāma flourished to the common society from the origin text of the Rāmāyaṇam composed by Ṛṣi Vālmīki. For the reason, the admiration of the whole story and dynamic characters of the Rāmāyaṇam have a great impact in the midst of common ethnic groups of India as well as South-East Asia. The Raghuvaṁśam was composed by Mahākavi Kālidāsa, which is originally based on Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇam. The story of the Raghuvaṁśam is so renowned in Sanskrit literature, as it is borrowed from the great epic Rāmāyaṇam. The Rāmayanī literature is conventionally transformed into various Oral-traditions and Folk-literatures. Simultaneously in the first part of 14th century, Mādhava Kaṇḍalī had composed the Kathārāmayaṇa in Assamese language. With the influence of the Kathārāmāyaṇa, the Kārbi, one of the prominent tribes of Assam, had initiated a great living Oral tradition in Kārbi language on Rāmakathā, known as the Sābin Ālun, i.e., The Broken Song. Significantly, in the Sābin Ālun, Rāmacandra is characterized as a very common person of Kārbi society. There royalism of Rāma, who belongs to the Raghu dynasty, is not found here. Therefore, it signifies the socio-cultural transformation of the Rāmakathā from Indian Classical literature to Ethnic literature. An elaborate study of the diverse manifestations of the Rāmakathā tradition is essential to identify its significance as well as influences in a society. This research paper is a humble attempt to know about the depiction and integration of the origin story from the main stem of Indian classics to the ethnicity, which inspire for the depth study to identify the interpretation of the traditional folk tales.
