The Bhoja Champu (11 Century CE) alludes to the Nandi-Hanuman identity

[V Subrahmanian]

In the extremely famous Champu Ramayana of King Bhoja, in the Sundara Kanda, verse 47, we have the allusion to the Nandi-Hanuman identity, as stated in the Valmiki Ramayana.  

The commentary cites the Valmiki verse on this. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhoja

Bhoja (reigned c. 1010–1055 CE) was an Indian king from the Paramara dynasty. His kingdom was centered around the Malwa region in central India, where his capital Dhara-nagara (modern Dhar) was located.

It is popular belief that Bhoja composed only the first five kanda-s, the Sundara Kanda being the 5th.  The Yuddha kanda was composed by others later:

https://tinyurl.com/vxfc5c2b

In the fourth verse of the Balakanda, Bhoja says that he follows Valmiki in this condensation that is the Champu Kavya: 

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.347687/page/n7/mode/2up

I think this is perhaps one of the oldest condensations of VR.  If there was a commentary of the VR by that time, which is extant now, is not known. 

[Kalyan]

>I think this is perhaps one of the oldest condensations of VR.

Kshemendra has written a Ramayana-manjari around  10th or 11th century CE.

Best Regards

[V Subrahmanian]

Yes, I have perused that too. That's why I said 'perhaps..' 

Regards 

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[Kalyan]

My guess is - Kshemendra's work will not contain any allusions to identities in the Sundara-Kanda. Of course, its just a guess.

Best Regards

[V Subrahmanian]

On Mon, Sep 11, 2023 at 4:57 PM Kalyan <kalyanchakr...@gmail.com> wrote:

My guess is - Kshemendra's work will not contain any allusions to identities in the Sundara-Kanda. Of course, its just a guess.

Here is a searchable Ramayana manjari of Kshemendra:  

रामायणमञ्जरी

https://sa.wikisource.org/s/2hud

Here we have the story of Ravana being cursed by Nandi in Kailasa that the former's death will be by a monkey-faced one. Later Ravana, during the havoc caused by Hanuman, recalls that old incident:

नन्दिरुद्रं ददर्शाने स्थितं देवस्य धूर्जटेः ॥ २८२ ॥
तं शूलहस्तमालोक्य भासुरं वानराननम् ।

उद्यम्य तर्जनीमग्रे नन्दी भैरवविग्रहः ॥ २८४ ॥
वानराननमालोक्य सोन्मादं हसितं त्वया ।
त्वत्कुले वानरकुलान्मृत्युरेव भविष्यति ॥ २८५ ॥
इति ब्रुवाणं दर्पान्धस्तमनादृत्य राक्षसः ।    This is in Kailasa

अयं स नन्दिनिर्दिष्टः कष्टं कपिपराभवः ।। ७२९ ।।  This is during the Hanuman-havoc in Lanka

Please check if the latter indeed is the recollection of Ravana.  

regards

subbu

    

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[Kalyan]

Dear Sri Subrahmanian Sir

First reference is from uttarakanda, second from yuddhakanda.

None of these are references from Sundarakanda showing identity between Hanuman and Nandi.

I could not find any reference to Ravana recollecting Nandi's curse on first seeing Hanuman.

In Valmiki Ramayana, Hanuman is son of Vayu. He is not an incarnation of Nandi or Rudra, to the best of my knowledge.

Best Regards

[V Subrahmanian]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2024 at 11:58 PM Kalyan <kalyanchakr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Sri Subrahmanian Sir

First reference is from uttarakanda, second from yuddhakanda.

None of these are references from Sundarakanda showing identity between Hanuman and Nandi.

I could not find any reference to Ravana recollecting Nandi's curse on first seeing Hanuman.

In Valmiki Ramayana, Hanuman is son of Vayu. He is not an incarnation of Nandi or Rudra, to the best of my knowledge.

The Ramayana Manjari is alluding to that old event at Kailasa when Ravana was cursed.  And the second mention is Ravana thinking 'all this that we are undergoing is the making of Nandi.'  He is not directly saying that Hanuman is actually Nandi nor is Valmiki doing that.  They both are referring to the story in the Skanda Purana where Narayana himself says: Nandi will come as Hanuman (when Rama incarnates).

Also we must know that Hanuman being the son of Vayu and also being Rudra/Nandi amsha are not contradictory.  For example Ashwatthama was the biological son of Drona but also was endowed with Shiva-amsha. In fact the Puranas that speak about Hanuman-Rudra identity also speak of Hanuman being Vayuputra.  The Kamba Ramayana also says: Shiva says I shall come as the Vayuputra Hanuman.  

regards

subbu

   

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[Kalyan]

My message got accidentally deleted.

That Ashwatthama is endowed with Shiva-amsha is mentioned in Mahabharata. There is no similar mention for Hanuman either in Valmiki Ramaysna or Mahabharata (Ramopakhyana). It would be highly unusual for Valmiki to skip this if it were the prevailing view.

Best Regards

[V Subrahmanian]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2024, 12:27 pm Kalyan, <kalyanchakr...@gmail.com> wrote:

My message got accidentally deleted.

That Ashwatthama is endowed with Shiva-amsha is mentioned in Mahabharata. There is no similar mention for Hanuman either in Valmiki Ramaysna or Mahabharata (Ramopakhyana). It would be highly unusual for Valmiki to skip this if it were the prevailing view.

But the specific mention of that is there in other Puranas. Valmiki need not have mentioned about Ravana's recollection of the past Nandi curse. That it has an exact corresponding story in the Skanda Purana is not to be missed. Some commentators to the Valmiki Ramayana refer to that past incident. 

Also that there can be multiple amshas in a person is not  impossible.

That Kamban, who is literally owned by Ramanujas, has said that is also pertinent. Kamban too is not denying Hanuman's Vayu source.

Regards 

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[Kalyan]

In this context, I think the following comments made by Sri Bibek Debroy, translator of Valmiki Ramayana critical edition, are relevant -

"The present translation is about the Ramayana text. But what is the Ramayana text? After a famous essay written by A.K. Ramanujan in 1987 (published in 1991), people often mention 300 Ramayanas. It is impossible to fix the number, 300 or otherwise, since it is not possible to count satisfactorily—or even define—what is a new rendering of the Ramayana story, as opposed to a simple retelling, with or without reinterpretation. Contemporary versions, not always in written form, are continuously being rendered. There are versions of the Ramayana story in East Asia (China, Japan), South-East Asia (many countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia), South Asia (Nepal, Sri Lanka) and West Asia (Iran). As mentioned earlier, there are Buddhist and Jain versions. Every state and every language in India seems to have some version of the Rama story. Our impressions about the Rama story are often based on such regional versions, such as, the sixteenth-century Ramcharitmanas by Goswami Tulsidas. (Many of these were written between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries CE.) Those depictions can, and will, vary with what is in this translation. This translation is about the Sanskrit Ramayana. But even there, more than one text of the Sanskrit Ramayana exists—Valmiki Ramayana, Yoga Vasishtha Ramayana, Ananda Ramayana and Adbhuta Ramayana. In addition, there are versions of the Ramayana story in the Mahabharata and in the Puranas. With the exception of the Ramayana story in the Mahabharata, the Valmiki Ramayana is clearly the oldest among these. This is a translation of the Valmiki Ramayana and yes, there are differences between depictions in the Valmiki Ramayana and other Sanskrit renderings of the Rama story.".......

...."This translation is of the Valmiki Ramayana. It is necessary to stress this point. Both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are so popular that one is familiar with people, stories and incidents. That doesn’t necessarily mean those people, stories and incidents occur in the Valmiki Ramayana in the way we are familiar with them. Just as the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute produced a Critical Edition of the Mahabharata, between 1951 and 1975, the Oriental Institute, Baroda, produced a Critical Edition of the Valmiki Ramayana. This translation is based on that Critical Edition, published sequentially between 1958 and 1975. Producing a Critical Edition meant sifting through a large number of manuscripts of the Valmiki Ramayana.".....

Best Regards

[V Subrahmanian]

Thanks for the excerpt from Debroy's writings.  In fact there are critics of the 'Critical Edition' of BORI.  There were discussions in the BVP forum on this topic.

regards

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