The
Sītācarit was completed, according to the text itself, in 1657 (VS1713),
18 and it was composed by a Rāmcand Bālak, about whom we know nothing beyond the fact that he was a Digambara. The work is an inventive take on the Jain
Rāmāyaṇa narrative, heavily emphasizing Sītā as a paragon of Jain virtue. It seems to have been popular in its day. In my visits to research archives and temple libraries in Agra, Bharatpur, Jaipur, and Delhi I was able to view eighteen manuscripts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, twelve of which were complete. Only four of the manuscripts provide information linking them to specific sites; these are all minor towns outside of today’s Jaipur and Agra. Many more manuscripts are listed in catalogues, and even more must have been in circulation. I will here first describe some of the main features of the
Sītācarit’s language, arguing that it is indeed Brajbhāṣā, albeit with features from Maru-Gurjar. This language is similar to that of Banārsīdās’s, even in the names of concepts describing various aspects of religious experience. However, the
Sītācarit diverges from Banārsīdās in its heavy emphasis on
bhakti devotionalism, using the unique effects of the narrative format to present a model of practice and reflection, where
bhakti towards Sītā becomes as potent as the insights and devotion she is seen to embody.
3.1. Language
A major challenge when describing the language of the
Sītācarit is that of manuscript variations. I am here indebted to
Cerquiglini’s (
1999) emphasis on the mutability inherent in the early vernacular French manuscript traditions, stemming from the very mutability of the emerging French vernacular itself. While the philological instinct may be to delineate and organise these variations, eventually producing a categorial Urtext, Cerquiglini’s insight is that when dealing with highly fluid early modern vernaculars, embracing variation serves us better than abolishing it. The same holds true for the
Sītācarit. For instance, nasalisations and postpositions routinely vary greatly across the manuscripts. An illustrative example is the frequent alteration between Brajbhāṣā
kau and Rājasthānī
ṇai for the dative postposition, which both occurs between manuscripts and seems interchangeable within others.
There are two major factors for this, besides the fundamentally fluid character of early modern North Indian vernaculars. Firstly, the
Sītācarit was composed at the juncture where Jains shifted from various iterations of Maru-Gurjar to Brajbhāṣā. As I show in the following, there are lingering traces of especially Rājasthānī influence and these are handled differently in different manuscripts. The second factor is the time span of the manuscripts themselves, ranging from the early eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth. Over time, scribes seem to have developed different ideas, of which forms needed correcting, and how. For instance, the eighteenth-century manuscripts generally show a greater proliferation of
tadbhava variations than those of the nineteenth century, where consistent tendencies towards
tatsamas take their place.
19 Moreover, there is a gap of over sixty years between the
Sītācarit’s composition and the earliest manuscript available to me. Yet some linguistic patterns do appear, and while we may not be able to order the many variations under hard and fast grammatical rules, it is possible to point to general tendencies that are consistent across the manuscripts. As I show, the language of the
Sītācarit can be described as a Brajbāṣā that wears its Maru-Gurjar influences lightly.
My aim here is not to provide a full grammar of Brajbhāṣā as it appears in the
Sītācarit, with every single grammatical feature described—that would be a work beyond the scope of this study. It is, instead, an attempt to identify and describe some of the more salient features of the language of the
Sītācarit, and to do so with sufficient precision to enable us to say where it sits on the spectrum between Maru-Gurjar and its offshoots, as described by
Tessitori (
1914), and Brajbhāṣā as used by the canonical poets that form the reference point for
Snell’s (
1991) Brajbhāṣā grammar. That is not to say that I am unaware of the limitations of grammatical analysis when it comes to the fluid nature of early modern vernacular languages. Yet I would again argue that we may use linguistic categories, also in the form of grammatical rules that cumulatively define a given language and give it boundaries that distinguish it from other languages, even while acknowledging that the borders can be more porous than the grammarsgrammar sometimes allowallows. In the case of Maru-Gurjar, the problem becomes more acute in that its exact linguistic status as separated from entities such as Old Western Rājasthānī or Old Gujarātī is not entirely clear. In fact, in the following, as above, I follow Tessitori’s grammar of “Old Western Rājasthānī” when talking of Maru-Gurjar.
The majority of the language of the
Sītācarit conforms to the typical forms of Brajbhāṣā grammar. A case in point is the pronouns. For the first person pronouns, the
Sītācarit features
maiṃ20 for the singular and
hama21 for the plural. In the oblique, the singular is
mujha,
mujhai/
ṃ22, or less frequently,
mohi/
ṃ23 and
mo/
ṃ.
24 The oblique plural first person is
hamai/
ṃ.
25 We note the complete absence of the Old Western Rājasthānī, Gujarātī, and Mārwāḍī forms given by Tessitori, such as
amhe/
amhi/
ame/
me for the plural.
In the second person, the
Sītācarit features the singular
tū, though rarely, and
tuma26 and
āpa27 interchangeably in both singular and plural. The oblique
tujha and
tumha28 are frequent, but the usage of the latter varies greatly across the manuscripts. A (1729), and especially B (1727), at times, use
tumha, even in contexts where a direct sense is intended, such as ‘
laḍau tumha hamārai sāthi’ (SC.893).
29 The inconsistency is striking, and neither of the two manuscripts seem to operate a full separation between the direct
tuma and the oblique
tumha. There is instead a free mixture of both forms.
Greater variation is seen in the possessive pronouns, where we have the first person singulars
merau,
30 the second person
tumhārau31 and both
hamārau32 and
mhārau33 in the first person plural.
34 Tessitori attests
mhārau as Mārvāḍī, but
hamārau is far more frequent in the
Sītācarit.
We find a similar situation in the interrogative pronouns, where the
Sītācarit frequently uses Old Rājasthānī forms, such as
kuṇa,
35 kavaṇa,
36 and oblique
kina,
37 though Brajbhāṣā’s direct
kauna38 and inanimate
kahā39 are equally, if not more, frequent.
Kisa/
kiha40 also appear.
For the third person pronouns, Brajbhāṣā singular direct yaha and singular and plural direct e are common, and so is singular oblique ihi/iha, also attested as Old Rājasthānī singular ablative, though this appears just as frequently in direct positions and has apparently lost its ablative aspect. Most striking is the high frequency of Old Rājasthānī direct eha, but this is anyhow a common feature of Brajbhāṣā, too.
The overall impression is one of Brajbhāṣā usage that sometimes alternates with scattered specimens of Maru-Gurjar derived forms. We might postulate that over times the scribes could have ironed out archaic forms and that the relative paucity of Maru-Gurjar inflected pronouns in the Sītācarit is a reflection of such tendencies. A case in point is the still high frequency of eha, which is often used as one half of a rhyming couplet and so would be more problematic to change. This would also explain the infrequent separation between categories such as direct, oblique, instrumental, and dative postpositions. The pattern is fluid and individual scribes shape it in individual ways.
The same holds true for the postpositions. For the dative, we find varations of the Brajbhāṣā
kau/ṃ,
41 but the Rājasthānī
nai42 is very frequent. Similarly, the Brajbhāṣā ablative and instrumental
taiṃ43 alternates with the Rājasthānī
thaiṃ.
44 The manuscript B (1727) almost always chooses the latter, while A (1729) chooses the former. Maru- Gurjar and later Rājasthānī
taṇau45 is also common, but so is Brajbhāṣā
kau.
46 The high frequency of these two postpositions emerges as one of the clearest marker of influences from the Maru-Gurjar sphere in the
Sītācarit.
The verbal forms are on the whole in line with the Brajbhāṣā verbal inventory outlined by Snell, though plural nasalisation is highly irregular in the manuscripts. The Maru-Gurjar 3rd person present tense –
i ending, familiar from Apabhraṃśa, does not appear at all. Rather than comparing the full array of forms, it is instructive to consider
Drocco’s (
2017) comparative work on ergative functions in Old Western Rājasthānī, as Tessitori described it, and in Brajbhāṣā prose texts. Drocco finds that the latter material does show verbal agreement even with postposition-marked objects in perfective constructions, which is not expected to appear in what he terms “classical Braj”, but is indeed a defining characteristic of “Mārvāṛī (i.e., Rājasthānī)” (2017, p. 207). This feature, however, never appears in the
Sītācarit.
47 If anything, the
Sītācarit frequently uses the ergative
nai/
ṃ or the objective marker
kau in perfective constructions, though marked and unmarked constructions are freely mixed, and the perfective verb never agrees with a marked object. This situation enforces the impression of a Brajbhāṣā that draws on individual words from Maru-Gurjar derived languages, but uses them according to the grammatical structures, not of those languages, but of Brajbhāṣā. When they do appear with any degree of consistency, such as the pronoun
eha, they seem to do so not out of grammatical necessity, but for reasons of metre and rhyme.
As for the vocabulary, the
Sītācarit primarily draws on the Sanskrit register of Raviṣeṇa’s
Padma Purāṇa, its self-attested main source. See, for example, the following verse, which is quite typical in its Sanskritic register:
eka divasa subha karma prakāsa Sītā geha calyau jinadāsa anauvṛtī chullika paravīna tapa kari vapu kīnau ati ṣīna SC.99 | One day joyful karma arose Sītā went to the house of a servant of the Jina; Skillful, vow-holding Kṣullaka. He performed asceticism long and hard. |
We notice how the first line could with only minor moderations have been been reshaped into a Sanskrit locus absolutive compound phrase. Elsewhere, the
Sītācarit uses a range of both
tatsamas and
tadbhavas, more frequently the latter. For instance, variations of
hīyā (“heart”) are plentiful, whereas the
hṛdaya approximation
hridai appears only once (SC.95). Manuscript variations also attest to significant levels of confusion and creativity in handling Sanskrit terminology. In the above example,
anauvṛtī appears in C (
Bālak 1711) and D (
Bālak 1761), while A (
Bālak 1729) gives
aṇodharī, B (
Bālak 1727)
aṇovarī, and E (
Bālak 1751)
aṇovartī. Similarly, the name of the sage Kṣullaka (Chullika) also appears as
ṣulika (1729, 1727) and
chulaka (1761). In other cases, the manuscripts broadly agree on
tadbhavas, such as in
chohanī for
akṣauhiṇī (SC.1385). The overall impression is one of
tatsamas being treated with varying degrees of awkwardness. It is, of course, impossible to say whether this is entirely caused by manuscript copyists or was present already at the time of composition, but the at times close relationship between the
Sītācarit and the Sanskrit
Padma Purāṇa does indicate that Rāmcand Bālak was comfortable with using Sanskrit. The question is then whether he employed
tadbhavas current in his day, leaving later scribes to modify them into
tatsama-approximations, or employed a highly
tatsama-oriented vocabulary that the manuscript tradition struggled to come fully to terms with. In light of the otherwise quite unassuming aesthetics of the
Sītācarit, discussed in more detail later, my assumption is that the former guess is more correct, but we may probably never know.
Alongside the Sanskrit-derived words in various stages of mutation is also a range of words of Perso-Arabic origin. Examples include
tahakīka (SC.8),
48 khalq (SC.12),
khabar (SC.124),
sāhab (SC.92),
qarār (SC.350),
fauja (SC.1440), and
qaulah (SC.1072). Some of these, such as
khabar, appear frequently, especially when used as fixed adverbial phrases, such “
sitāva de” (SC.592). Intriguingly, the manuscript scribes have on the whole had far less difficulty with the Perso-Arabic forms than the
tatsama-leaning Sanskritic forms. Whereas the latter vary widely across manuscripts, the Perso-Arabic are strikingly consistent with variations appearing to only be down to minor spelling preferences.
In sum, the
Sītācarit presents a Brajbhāṣā that wears its at times plentiful Maru-Gurjar elements lightly and that draws on and mixes Sanskritic and Perso-Arabic registers. In
Bakhtin’s (
1981) terms, the
Sītācarit’s range of registers sits closer to the heteroglossic. This indicates that the
Sītācarit is a reflection of a multilingual context, where effective vernacular works drew on a variety of impulses. At the same time, there is no doubt that this variety of registers is embedded within a grammatical framework that is fully Brajbhāṣā.
3.2. Outlook—Bālak and Banārsīdās
Banārsīdās’s (
2009, v. 174) autobiographical
Ardhakathānaka features a reference to a “Rāmcand Bālak”.
49 This Bālak is one of two disciples of a monk of the Śvetāmbar Kharatara Gaccha sect, Abhaydharm, with whom Banārsīdās studied for a while in Jaunpur.
Banārsīdās (
2009 vs. 168) states that this meeting happened in 1600, and that he himself was 14 years at the time. If the epithet
bālak (“young”) referred to this Rāmcand Bālak’s age at the time, indicating that he was of the same age as Banārsīdās or younger, he would have been in his late 60s or early 70s in 1657, when the
Sītācarit was completed. It is difficult however to connect the allegedly Digambara poet Bālak with the Śvetāmbara monk of the
Ardhakathānaka. Even so, the possibility remains that the Digambara elements on view in the
Sītācarit may be comparable with the form of Digambara
adhyātma mysticism that Banārsīdās himself embraced in his later life. The
Ardhakathānaka itself can be read as Banārsīdās’s spiritual journey towards this goal. While the
adhyātma movement’s main site was in Agra, and included Dyānatrāy,
Cort (
2002a) has shown that Jain
adhyātma milieus also arose in Delhi and Multan, and that the latter primarily was composed of former Śvetāmbara monks of the Kharatara Gaccha. This does open the possibility that the poet Rāmcand Bālak might have been the person referred to by Banārsīdās, but we may probably never establish this with any degree of certainty. However, Banārsīdās remains an essential reference point for studies of Jain Brajbhāṣā literature, due to both his relative popularity in modern-day research and to his influence in the
adhyātma-movement.
The very word
adhyātma has a long and complex history. It is composed of the prefix
adhi (“above, over”) and the noun
ātman, which with its range of meanings (“self, soul, essence, etc.”) is in itself a central term in the history of South Asian religions.
Adhyātma, then, can be understood as a “supreme self”, but also in the general adjectival sense of “spiritual”. An early example of
adhyātma being used in such terms is
Bhāgavadgītā (
Radhakrishnan 1949, v. 8.3) where it is described as “the true nature of the indestructible, highest
brahman”.
50 Earlier still is its appearance as a member of the classical triad of the physical (“
adhibhautika”), the divine (“
adhidaivika”), and the spiritual (“
adhyātmika”), which appears already in the Upaniṣads and customarily in later philosophical and medical treatises.
51 An influential appearance of the concept is in the title of the
Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, a
Rāmāyaṇa telling in Sanskrit of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century that sees Rāma not only as an incarnation of Viṣṇu, but of supreme reality itself (
brahman) itself. This
Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa is generally acknowledged to have had a defining influence on Tulsīdās and his
Rāmcaritmānas.
52In the Jain context, the concept is closely linked with the
adhyātma movement of the seventeenth century, which, as we have seen, centered around Banārsīdās and was a mystically inclined movement among Digambara Jain laymen of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Today it is more widely recognized as a historical catalyst for the development of the Terah and Bīsa Panths, the main traditions of contemporary Digambara Jainism. However,
Flügel (
2006) notes that Digambara mysticism in no way was the invention of the
adhyātma movement. Indeed, one of the movement’s central documents, Banārsīdās’s
Samaysār Nāṭak, is in the main a commentary on the (at latest) eighth century Digambara philosopher Kundakunda’s
Samayasāra, indicating the longevity of the teachings that underpinned the movement in the seventeenth century. But the word
adhyātma itself does not seem to have been current in Jain circles prior to Banārsīdās, and remains linked with the movement.
53 Even so, the movement’s place in the history of Digambara Jainism, and especially in view of the more formally defined positions that followed in its wake, does mean that it can be difficult to view its seventeenth century iteration on its own terms.
Flügel (
2006, p. 340) argues that the
adhyātma-group, primarily centered around Agra, and the beginnings of the Terah Panth-movement, focused in Jaipur, were initially distinct but related lay groups that became close to indistinguishable to later history. So while Banārsīdās was a strong and vocal proponent of
adhyātma, and a definite group did emerge on the basis of his teachings; it is also true that the exact span of activities and practices of these groups remain difficult to precisely delineate. The same holds true for the reach of its influence into the realms of popular Jain practices and meetings, for which I think the
Sītācarit primarily would have been intended.
Because of these very difficulties, I believe it is most helpful to approach the
adhyātma-movement of Rāmcand Bālak’s day not as a consistent set of doctrines, but rather as an influential
mood or
perspective, not unlike how
Hawley (
2015) has argued we may understand the contemporary
bhakti “movement”. Through this approach we may recognize
adhyātma-tendencies without necessarily having to peg them onto a formal, traceable organization, but rather acknowledge them as affinities within a wider current. This
adhyātma mood involves a general turning away from outward ritual, considered artifice, and towards inner meditation. Here it is useful to turn to Banārsīdās’s compositions, especially where he touches on the
Rāmāyaṇa, and see how he himself presents
adhyātma there, and in turn attempt to square Banārsīdās’s position with that of the
Sītācarit. This will allow us to compare more directly the
adhyātma mood and perspective with that of the
Sītācarit, so as to see whether we find direct echoes.
Banārsīvilāsa is a collection of Banārsīdās’s shorter and medium-length works on doctrine, compiled by one Jagjivan, a fellow poet and
adhyātma devotee, in 1644, shortly after Banārsīdās’s death.
54 It is an important source of knowledge about seventeenth century Digambara Jainism in general, but especially important here in light of the potential linkages between Banārsīdās and Rāmcand Bālak. The references to the Rāmāyaṇa story in the
Banārsīvilās allow us to directly compare the two poets’ vocabularies and perspectives on mutual subjects in more detail. The main appearance of the Rāmāyaṇa story in the
Banārsīvilās is part of the
Adhyātamapadapaṃkti, a cycle of songs with affixed
rāgas that illuminates parts of the
adhyātma world-view. Its sixteenth song encompasses a refrain and seven couplets in the
vṛṇdāvanī rāga and deals explicitly with the Rāmāyaṇa story. It may well be quoted in full:
(ṭeka) virājai rāmāyaṇa ghaṭa māhiṃ; maramī hoya marama so jānai, mūrakha mānai nāhiṃ, virājai rāmāyaṇa
ātama rāma gyāna guna lachamana sītā sumati sameta; śubhapayoga vānaradala maṃdita, vara viveka raṇakheta virājai…
dhyāna dhanuṣa ṭaṃkāra śora suni, gaī viṣayditi māga; bhaī bhasma mithyāmata laṃkā uṭhī dhāraṇā āga virājai…
jare agyāna bhāva rākṣasakula, lare nikāṃchita sūra; jūjhai rāgadveṣa senāpati saṃsai gaḍha cakacūra virājai…
vilakhata kuṃbhakaraṇa bhavavibhrama, pulakita mana darayāva; thakita udāra vīra mahirāvaṇ setubaṃdha samabhāva, virājai…
mūrchita maṃdodarī durāśā, sujaga carana hanumāna; ghaṭī caturgati paraṇati senā, chuṭe chapakaguṇa bāna, virājai…
nirakhi sakti guna cakrasudarśana udaya vibhīṣaṇa dīna; phirai kavaṃdha mahī rāvaṇkī, prāṇabhāva śirahīna, virājai...
iha vidhi sakala sādhughaṭa aṃtara, hoya sahaja saṃgrāma; yaha vivahāradṛṣṭi rāmāyaṇa kevala niścaya rāma virājai…
The Rāmāyaṇa shines in the mortal body. Insightful is he who knows the inner truth; fools do not know it.
Rām of the
ātmā55 is knowledge, Lakṣmaṇ is qualities, Sītā the great mind. Auspiciousness is found amongst the band of
vānaras, the greatest insight on the field of battle.
Hearing the twang of the bow of dhyāna, worldly pleasures flee. As the flame of concentration arises, the deluded mind of Laṃkā turns to ash.
The rākṣasas’ bhāv of ignorance burns as the heroes of passionless minds fight. The general fights the rāg of enmity and the fortress of doubt shatters like glass.
The sobbing Kumbhakaraṇa is the illusion of existence; delighting in this illusion causes the mind to fall. The glorious hero, the great Rāvaṇ, is the stopping of actions; equanimity the bridge to Laṃkā.
The unconscious Maṃdodarī is faithlessness, the feet of Hanumān the world itself. The multitude of four legged ones are the humble army, they release the arrows of the chapakaguṇa.
Seeing the power and quality of the cakrasudarśana Vibhīṣana’s faith arose. How could he return to the earth of Rāvaṇ, that jewel-less world of beings?
In this way, in every sādhu’s mortal body, rages the battle for sahaja. From the perspective of everyday life it is the Rāmāyaṇa—from that of absolute insight it is Rām himself.
Banārsīdās presents a vision of the
Rāmāyaṇa as an inner drama that plays out within the body of the devotee. For those who possess
kevalgyān, the absolute omniscience achieved by only the most successful Jains, the Rāmāyaṇa story is Rām itself. As indicated by the song’s second line, this Rām is the
Ātmarām—the true, inner Rām, which I here believe is closely akin to the radical self-insight at the core of the
adhyātma perspective itself. Similar references to the liberating power of
ātma appear in Bālak’s
Sītācarit:
jina āgyā hiradai dharī jāgyau ātama bhāva
āpa jāṃni vauṃ gyāna hai krīyā āpa ṭharāya
SC.1541
By holding the commands of the Jina in the heart, the mood of the ātma awakened,
You will know by that knowledge to restrain your actions.
This call to “restrain” actions is in keeping with the general adhyātma outlook of valuing the attainment of supreme religious insight (kevalgyān) over worldly deeds, which only serve to accrue hurtful karma. The motif frequently appears in Bālak’s Sītācarit.
Another important concept in the
Adhyātamapadapaṃkti is
sahaja, a term with its own complex history in South Asian religions. While its basic etymology suggests meanings akin to “natural” and “original”, it took on elaborate semantic possibilities, especially amongst the Nāth movements, in Tantrism, and the
nirguṇa mood of
bhakti. Without going into too much detail,
sahaja can be said to describe a transcendent or mystic state, often accompanied by or facilitating a perfect union or success in attaining the ultimate goals of the tradition in question.
56 As we can see from the above quotations from the
Banārsīvilās,
sahaja has a similar meaning in the
adhyātma context. It frequently appears in Bālak’s
Sītācarit, such as in the following example:
yakaṭaka dhyāna dharau bhagavāna hvai niḥścala sāmāyāka gyāna cita maiṃ ora nahī ko bhāva jānyauṃ ātama sahaija subhāva SC.2250 | Steadily focusing on the lord, that undoubtedly leads to perfect knowledge, when there is no other state in the mind and the ātma knows the blissful state of sahaja. |
Note how this passage exemplifies the link between the concepts of
ātma and
sahaja, and there are several similar examples in the
Sītācarit. Finally, the reference to the “inner truth” of the
Rāmāyaṇa in the very first line of Banārsīdās’s verse—“
marman”—is echoed in similar phrases in the
Sītācarit; just as Banārsīdās exclaims that “fools do not know” these secret interconnections, Rāmcand Bālak states that “the blind do not see the
marman”.
57May we then conclude that the
Sītācarit represents a full-scale narrative representation of essentially the same religious stance that Banārsīdās reveals in the
Adhyātamapadapaṃkti? Not quite. For the
Sītācarit weds its
adhyātma outlook with an equally strong emphasis on
bhakti, and as we shall see, even goes far in establishing
bhakti as an equally efficient way to the beatific
kevalgyān as knowledge of
adhyātma. While Banārsīdās is no stranger to
bhakti either, he is primarily occupied with the mystic self-knowledge of
adhyātma. Moreover, the
Sītācarit places a strong emphasis on the importance of authority and those who embody it, including the
munis,
58 Jinas, and especially, the
satīs, to the extent that it suggests that worship of these authoritites brings an equal benefit to that of attaining the insights these authorities embody. Rāmcand Bālak himself says as much, in one of the few examples of his own direct words in the
Sītācarit:
kahai caṃda aisā guru sevau bhavasāgara sīghara ṣevau ativīraja muni paravāṇa pragaṭyau mahiyala jima bhāṇa SC.766 | Rāmcand Bālak says, Serve such a guru and you will quickly cross the ocean of existence. Great and heroic are the commands of the muni, their words manifest on the earth. |
It is indeed striking that throughout the
Sītācarit, we hear more about the benefits of the guru’s words than the words themselves. This is in line with a general trope of the ideal guru in vernacular Digambara poetry, which
Cort (
2019) has described as being informed by both the ancient Jain tradition of venerating the Jina and the emphasis on the guru’s powers in the energised non-Jain religious traditions of early modern North India. That is not to say that its path diverges from that of Banārsīdās; as we have seen, Rāmcand Bālak frequently uses the same vocabulary as Banārsīdās to speak of mystical experiences akin to that of the
adhyātma, and Sītā’s ultimate ascension to divine status is framed as an experience infused by
sahaja. Yet, the very concept of
adhyātma itself never appears in the
Sītācarit, and we may hypothesise that Bālak, while familiar with and possibly adhering to
adhyātma tenets, was not a full-blood member of the movement. He did, however, clearly compose the
Sītācarit within a religious and literary landscape, where Banārsīdās was a looming figure, and he must have been familiar with
adhyātma sentiments. Another difficulty arises when we consider that the mystical language used by Banārsīdās and Bālak alike might not be particular to them. As Bangha has pointed out to me in personal communication, Bālak’s and Banārsīdās’s mystic terminology has many overlaps with
sant-bhāṣā, the vernacular used amongst non-Jain yogic and tantric practitioners, such as Gorakhnāth, and their followers.
Cort (
2015) has indeed pointed to a piece in the
Banārsīvilāsa that explicitly and positively discusses Gorakhnāth’s teachings. This indicates that the flow of influence amongst Jain Brajbhāṣā authors may not only have gone from Jain to Jain, but across a wider swathe of their social and religious context. However, we cannot fully understand Bālak’s religious stance if we do not consider the peculiar functions of the
Sītācarit as a narrative.
3.3. Satī and Bhakti in Narrative
I have written elsewhere about the
Sītācarit’s status as a
satī-
kathā, and can only briefly restate my argument here.
59 While the defining works of the Jain
Rāmāyaṇa tradition, such as Raviṣeṇa’s
Padma Purāṇa and Vimalasūri’s
Paüma Cariya, all tell the story of Rām, Lakṣman, and Rāvaṇ with special reference to their status as Great Men (
śalākāpuruṣa) of Jain universal history; the
Sītācarit is one of several, lesser known Jain
Rāmāyaṇas that twist the tale to focus on Sītā and her status as a singularly devout and accomplished Jain woman—a
satī.
60 The final act of the
Rāmāyaṇa, covering Rām and Sītā’s return to Ayodhya, Sītā’s banishment to forest exile, and eventual triumph in a public test of her fidelity, is crucial to Sītā’s
satī stature. While the narrative of her enlightened approach to supremely challenging circumstances is present already in the earliest layers of the
Rāmāyaṇa tradition, the Jain
satī-kathās typically shift the balance of the story to primarily be that of Sītā, sidelining Rām and Lakṣman. The
Sītācarit accomplishes this shift by beginning at the very end, with Sītā and Rām’s return to court after the battle of Laṅkā, taking great relish in portraying Sītā’s heroic composure in the face of her banishment. The recounting of the preceding events of the
Rāmāyaṇa narrative only appears later as the wandering sage Nārada tells the story to Sītā’s twin sons. The final, defining section of the
Sītācarit—covering about one sixth of the roughly 2500 verse total—details Sītā’s return to Ayodhya and the great set piece of test by fire of her fidelity. The fire pit is divinely transformed to a royal throne and the renunciate Sītā emerges as the embodiment of a devotional ideal, while Rām appears confused and unwilling to let go of his desires. It is also on this note that the narrative of the
Sītācarit ends. Rām and Lakṣman venerate Sītā, their story ending without the closure of the
śalākāpuruṣa-narrative, while Sītā’s insight, asceticism, and
satī-stature are praised in the hymnal tones of a
chappay verse.
The
Sītācarit’s portrayal of Sītā as an embodiment of an ideal worthy of worship encapsulates the composition’s emphasis on the power and efficacy of bhakti in religious and literary practice. Its opening verses feature an argument, often found in bhakti-leaning vernacular works, where Bālak explicitly states how it is the practice of bhakti towards the teachers and learnings of Jainism that miraculously endows him with the imaginative power needed to compose “a glorious
Sītācarit”.
61 This model of religious practice, which we may label “attainment through devotion”, runs throughout the
Sītācarit as a constant theme, and is most clearly illustrated in the central figure of Sītā herself. As the pit of fire becomes a royal throne and Sītā announces her decision to renunciate, she is praised by munis and gods alike:
ava haraṣa bhayau sava saṃta pragaṭyau sata sīla mahaṃta jaga maiṃ aha moṭī nārī tina kai nahī kāma vikārī SC.2483 | Now all the sants were thrilled
The true skills of the great beings were manifest This great woman was in the world
She could not act harmfully |
In her radical embrace of the Jain teachings, in this instance encapsulated by her vows of asceticism, Sītā not only aspires to the qualities of enlightened beings but comes to—crucially—“manifest” them in the mundane world. And by embodying these qualities as a satī, Sītā also becomes an object of veneration. The satī is an ideal in the Sītācarit because she recognises the cause and effect of auspicious and inauspicious karma in life, the stopping of these processes by applying skilful practice, and the essence of equanimity and mystic sahaja-quality within the ātman that characterises the jīva’s achievement of this goal. Yet, as the Sītācarit repeatedly underlines, perfect devotion for those who achieve the goal has the power to bestow the same gifts on the devotee. Rāmcand Bālak presents a stance that balances between placing ultimate authority in the hands of the enlightened few and offering a path where each devotee may reach the same religious pinnacle through the supremely potent vehicle of bhakti.
The implications of Sītā’s success are then that we too, as listeners or readers, may gain a similar insight not only by emulating Sītā’s example, but by expressing bhakti for her too, and it is the Sītācarit’s quality as narrative that bears this element out. The very emphasis on Sītā over Rām is achieved not simply by stating that this is so, but through Bālak’s ingenious reordering of the familiar story’s narrative structure, embedding the story of Rām and Lakṣmaṇ’s heroics within the context of Sītā’s exile. Ultimately, Sītā’s clearheaded insight into the workings of karma becomes the nexus through which we are invited to view the rest of the story.
The technique is used throughout the Sītācarit. Bālak typically does not draw out the religious implications of other events of the Jain Rāmāyaṇa story simply by stating these, but rather by rearranging the events of the familiar narrative to highlight interrelations, themes, and insights. In his recounting of the life of Bhāmaṇḍala, Sītā’s brother, Bālak, again completely reorganizes the sequence of events in his alleged source, Raviṣeṇa’s Sanskrit Padma Purāṇa. In the traditional telling of the story, Bhāmaṇḍala was, in a former life, a prince who kidnapped a woman from her lover and committed violence by invading other countries. In the next life, Bhāmaṇḍala is reborn as Sītā’s twin brother while the woman’s lover is born as a vengeful asura, a form of deity, who steals Bhāmaṇḍala the baby boy from the cradle and leaves him to grow up in the forest. As a young man, Bhāmaṇḍala finds an image of Sītā and promptly falls in love. When Rām defeats him in an archery contest for Sītā’s hands, an infuriated Bhāmaṇḍala decides to wage war. On his way to the battlefield, however, Bhāmaṇḍala catches a glimpse of the territory he ruled in his previous life, instantly remembers and understands everything, and is reunited with his parents and sister as a brother. The Sītācarit follows this outline, but with several chronological twists. Instead of introducing Bhāmaṇḍala’s story by recounting his previous birth, Bālak reserves this information to the story’s climax, when the enraged Bhāmaṇḍala, about to act harmfully, suddenly remembers his previous lives and is enlightened. As Bhāmaṇḍala’s realization dawns, Bālak recounts the preceding the story that explains not only what has happened before, but coming as the climax of Bhāmaṇḍala’s narrative, highlights why and how previous karma affects the present. The understanding of the purely causal events echo a deeper insight into the workings of karma, and it is an effect that is achieved through playful rearrangement of narrative structure.
This playful element of the
Sītācarit is borne out in its distinctive literary form. Here too, Bālak both correlates with and partially departs from Banārsīdās.
Snell (
2005) has noted how the relative lack of traditional poetic devices (
alaṅkāras) in Banārsīdās’
Ardhakathānaka in no way indicates that the work is lacking in literary merit or artfulness. Banārsīdās’ language is frequently oral in tone, but highly alert to the possibilities of metrical rhythm, using one to underline the other. We see a very similar dynamic in play in the
Sītācarit, where Bālak hardly ever indulges in any kind of imagery but rather emphasises dialogue and bare-bones storytelling, frequently with a tone of informality and directness that approximates contemporary, everyday Hindī. Examples include Sītā’s twin sons’ parting words as they are about to leave for war—"
mātā jī hama calata hai”
62—and Sītā’s reaction when she is brought into the forest for her exile:
sītā kahai sunau senāpati isa vaṇa maiṃ kiha kāma
ihā kahū jinamaṃdira nāhī kahyau kahāṃ tuma rāma
SC.60
Sītā said, “Listen commander, what are we doing in this forest?
There is no Jain temple here. What have you said, Rāma?”
The Sītācarit here lets Sītā speak directly, using unadorned and colloquial language. At the same time, Sītā’s phrases are divided across three of the dohā verse’s four metrical subunits (padas), giving the statements something of the clipped quality of confused speech. It is a striking example of how the Sītācarit frequently juxtaposes straightforward language with metrical sensitivity, similar to Banārsīdās’s style in the Ardhakathānaka.
However, the
Sītācarit also features an array of poetical meters that are used in a completely free-flowing manner. The typical delineation of a narrative work into shorter segments consisting of
caupāī-
dohā is familiar from early, influential vernacular romances such as Maulana Daud’s
Cāndāyan (1379), Qutban’s
Mṛgāvati (1503/1504), and Malik Muhammad Jāysī’s
Padmāvat (1540/1541). Tulsīdās too makes use of the
caupāī-
dohā pattern in his
Rāmcaritmānas, though the
dohā is sometimes exchanged with a
sorṭhā, and further forms are occasionally used to highlight moments of increased emotional intensity.
63 In contrast, the
Sītācarit is not in any manuscript divided into fixed units, but is instead a single, long composition that alternates between a range of meters, including
dohā,
caupaī,
kavitta (allegedly
savaiyā),
64 sorṭhā,
arilla,
chappay,
chanda-cāl, and
karkhā, as well as several kinds of musical notations in the form of
rāgas.
65 This range of meters was in line with those used by Banārsīdās and other Jain poets, such as Ānandghan, as well as with the usages of non-Jain Brajbhāṣā poets of the same period. Bālak, however, alternates between these meters completely freely, using the very texture of variation as a building block in his narrative structure. At times, the
dohā is used to pass comment on narrative events; at others, it is used for long series of sustained narrative action; and at yet others, it is used in alternation with the
sorṭhā, which is the exact inversion of the
dohā meter, in dialogues to emulate the ebb and flow of conversation. In this, the
Sītācarit is closer in form to the metrical pyrotechnics of a poet such as Keśavdās, who is emblematic of the period’s elaborate
rīti style of poetry and who similarly used free metrical variation for effect, for instance in his own
Rāmāyaṇa treatment, the
Rāmcandrikā (1600). Yet it is more helpful to think of the aesthetics of the
Sītācarit not in terms of degrees of courtly
rīti influence, but rather as an expression that shares tendencies but is still distinctive on its own terms. As I have noted, Bālak hardly ever uses any of the elaborate poetical effects (
alaṅkāras) that permeate Keśavdās’s works. We do better in thinking of the
Sītācarit as representing a distinctive artfulness that draws on a variety of aesthetic tendencies while not fully adopting any of them. This artfulness blends a strikingly informal, unadorned tone, advanced metrical usages, and inventive narrative techniques to create a literary texture that is distinctive, yet clearly informed by multiple aesthetic and religious currents in its day.
Considering the many different aspects of the Sītācarit as a whole, it strikes me that it is, more than anything, a text that wants to entertain and be understood. Only rarely and incidentally discussing the finer points of doctrinal matters, it is primarily engaged with the possibilities and insights inherent in storytelling.