The Ramayana of Valmiki, Vol. 6 : Yuddhakanda in 2 parts: An Epic of Ancient India

The sixth book of the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Yuddhakanda, recounts the final dramatic war between the forces of good led by the exiled prince Rama and the forces of evil commanded by the arch demon Ravana. The hero Rama’s primary purpose in the battle is to rescue the abducted princess Sita and destroy the demon king. However, the confrontation also marks the turning point for the divine mission of the Ramavatara, the incarnation of Lord Visnu as a human prince, who will restore righteousness to a world on the brink of chaos. The book ends with the Gods’ revelation to Rama of his true divine nature, his emotional reunion with his beloved wife, his long-delayed consecration as king of Kosala, and his restoration of a utopian age. The Yuddhakanda contains some of the most extraordinary events and larger-than- life characters to be found anywhere in world literature.

This sixth volume in the critical edition and translation of the Valmiki Ramayana, includes an extensive introduction, exhaustive notes, and a comprehensive bibliography.

ROBERT P. GOLDMAN is professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and general editor of the Ramayana Translation Project.

SALLY J. SUTHERLAND GOLDMAN is lecturer in Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley, and associate editor of the Ramayana Translation Project.

BAREND A. VAN NOOTEN is professor emeritus of Sanskrit at the University of California, Berkeley.

THE TRANSLATION and annotation of so massive and complex a TL work as the Yuddhakanda, a work with a profound and intricate web of intertextuality throughout the religious, literary, artistic, and performative traditions of South and Southeast Asia, has required the intellectual and physical energies of many people over a very long périod of time. This work could not have been carried forward without the support and assistance of several scholars and institu- tions whose help must be acknowledged here.

Before doing so, however, it would be appropriate, because of the collaborative nature of the work, to provide a brief history of the project and of how, and through whose efforts, it took its present shape. At the time of the first convening of the Sariskrit scholars who would form the Ramayana Translation Consortium in the late 1970s, the daunting task of tackling the ponderous Yuddhakanda was heroically accepted by Professor Barend van Nooten of the University of California at Berkeley.

Professor van Nooten undertook this work with characteristic seriousness and energy and, working single-handedly, completed a draft translation of the text and a provisional annotation by the early 1990s. At that time the general and associate editors were deeply engrossed in work on the translation, annotation, and introduction of the Sundarakanda, which appeared in print in 1996. Thus the editing, revision, and expansion of Professor van Nooten’s original draft did not begin in earnest until the mid-1990s. This work proceeded slowly as is invariably the case when university scholars areheavily burdened with instructional and administrative duties, which take precious time from their research and writing.

During this period Professors Robert and Sally Goldman reread the text closely, along with Professor van Nooten’s draft translation, and significantly revised it in keeping with the protocols, styles, and conventions of the Consortium. They also significantly revised and expanded the original annotation, drawing on a number of additional translations, editions, and commentaries, as well as secondary sources not consulted by. Professor van Nooten. In addition, they prepared the extensive Introduction to the Yuddhakanda that precedes the translation. The resulting volume is therefore a genuinely collaborative effort to which all three scholars have contributed significantly.

In addition to the principals mentioned above, the work has benefited from the scholarship, generosity, and assistance of a number of experts in Sanskrit and Ramayana studies, and it would be highly remiss of us to fail to acknowledge them here.

First and foremost, we must express our gratitude to our friend, colleague, and guru, Dr. Ram Karan Sharma, the founder and former kulapati of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. During his many protracted visits to Berkeley, Dr. Sharma ungrudgingly spent many hours with us reading over difficult passages in the text and the commentaries, and sharing with us his profound reservoir of knowledge of a vast spectrum of the Sanskrit literary and éastraic corpora. Time and again his knowledge and insight clarified a problem that had left us utterly at a loss. We gratefully acknowledge his learned and unstinting assistance, mindful always of the vedic injunction, "gurudevo bhava."

"We should also like to acknowledge the advice and help of Dr. V. Kutumba Sastry, Vice-Chancellor of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sans- than, who, ona visit to Berkeley and in Delhi, helped us shed light on some problematic issues in the text. Professor Sheldon Pollock of Columbia University, one of the principal contributors to the translation project, was also unstinting in his excellent advice, while Professor Philip Lutgendorf of the University of Iowa, a great Ramayant and Hanumanbhakta, was generous, as always, with his vast store of knowledge of variant versions of the Ramakatha and especially the many tales of the monkey divinity.

Several of our Sanskrit students, past and present, have lent their labors to the production of this volume. Without their efforts the ~ volume would never have seen the light of day. Among these we express our debt of gratitude to our Editorial Assistant, Dr. Kristi Wiley, whose meticulous scholarship, unstinting devotion of her energies, and careful reading of our drafts caught and corrected numerous errors and infelicities. Gratitude is similarly owed to Dr. Deven Patel of the University of Pennsylvania, who, as our research assistant, brought his careful and ‘nformed reading to the translation and annotation.

We also extend our thanks to a number of research assistants whose work has made the project possible. These include Geeta Pal, Siyonn Sophearith, Samir Shah, Dr. Chandan Narayan, Dr. Adheesh Sathaye, Luther Obrock, Elisabeth Andersson Raddock, Lauren Bausch, and Robert Raddock. Special mention must be made of Michael Slouber, who, as our research assistant during the past year, meticulously read through the huge and challenging manuscript, checking for the accuracy and consistency of the textual apparatus and transliterations and making many valuable suggestions.

Support for the work has come, directly and indirectly, from a number ‘of institutional sources. We thank the Ramayana Department of the Oriental Institute of Baroda for generously making available to us copies of the transcripts of the commentaries of Madhava Yogin and Udali Varadaraja. The Committee on Research of the Academic Senate of the University of California at Berkeley has been consistently generous over the years in providing funding for the project, especially in supporting the work of the many research assistants mentioned above.

Special thanks are also due to the University of California’s Dwi- nelle Computer Research Facility and its director, Mark Kaiser, for providing and maintaining a workstation dedicated to the Ramayana Translation Project. The ability of our research assistants to have access to this invaluable facility around the clock has greatly expedited the complex and labor-intensive work they contributed to the project.

We must also express our thanks to Ms. Rita Bernhard, Copy- editor of Princeton University Press, who cheerfully took on the Herculean task of working through a complex manuscript of some twenty-six hundred pages filled with unfamiliar Sanskrit text and terms. Her innumerable suggestions for the improvement of the grammar, syntax, and general readability of the introduction, translation, and, above all, the dense and difficult annotation enabled us to make countless improvements in the finished work.

Finally, and with a profound sense of loss, we note the passing, during the past year, of two friends and scholars who played critical roles in the development of Translation Consortium.