Comparative study of literature between Homer and Valmiki

1. A comparative study of literature is likely to give us a
new angle of vision, a new aid to evaluation or revaluation if not
a new insight or a new perception. Maybe a new outlook,
sometimes.A new way of looking at something old and familiar.
But, why do we have to compare Valmiki and Homer? They do
not belong to the same geographical region, linguistice group, or
cultural tradition.
Were Homer and Valmiki contemporaries, by any
chance, without knowing it? Not likely, it seems. We do not
know their ages for certain. There has however, been a lot of
study, historical and archaeological, as well as literary and
linguistic, on the age of Homer and the time of the Trojan War.
Recent research has confirmed that the great Homeric
poems are the outcome of a long poetic tradition covering
roughly five hundred years, which developed in the hands of
gifted professional or semi--professional singers, who originally
accompanied their recitations with music. It is probable that in
the course of the ninth or the eighth century B. C., the long
monumental epic, such as we know it from the Iliad and the
Odyssey, was composed by the Ionian Greeks, and that the two
Homeric poems were later committed to writing, sometime
between the seventh and the sixth centuries B.C., when their
texts became more or less static.
It is not until the history of Herodotus (after 450 B.C.)
according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “that there are
references to poems called by the new familiar names, Iliad and
Odyssey, and the verbatim quotations from „Homer‟ in the text
of authors from Herdotus to Aristotle do not warrant the
assertion that any of them had access to a version of either of
these poems..
Historical or other evidence, on the date of the
Ramayana may be even less reliable, clouded in the mists of
cosmology and astrology. Only the most erudite and daring can

2. venture into the difficult terrain of dating the different yugas,
„Krita‟, „Treta‟, „Dwapara‟ and „Kali‟, with any degree of
certainty, at least at a safe distance from endless and infructuous
controversy. There is found in evidence, a too frequent
overlapping of the poetic and the realistic, the legendary and the
historical.
Though the Ramayana, story obviously refers to earlier
happenings, it is not clear, beyond any doubt, that its text was
written earlier than that of Mahabharata. “The date of the
Ramayana cannot be regarded as a closed book even now,”
wrote Krishna Chaitanya, in his book, “A New History of
Sanskrit Literature” (published in 1962). He says: “The ancient
Buddhist texts of the Tripitaka show no knowledge of the
Ramayana, but do contain certain traces of ballads in which the
Rama legend was sung. It is possible that the original Ramayana
was composed by Valmiki in the third century B.C., on the basis
of ancient ballads. It is conjectural, however, that the work
reached its present extent and contents only towards the close of
the second century A.D.”
The eminent archaeologist and indologist, the late Prof.
H. D. Sanka-lia, would seem to be broadly in agreement with
this view, on archaelogi-cal and sociological grounds. He had
particularly in mind the references to metals like iron, which
cannot be traced book much farther than the first few centuries
before Christ.
Irrespective of their precedence in terms of antiquity,
both Homer and Valmiki are admittedly epic poets. Valmiki is
revered all over India as the „Adikavi’ and the „Ramayana’
cherished, in the translations as well as in the original, as the
„AdiKavya‟. It is India‟s national epic, with the Mahabharata
coming alongside. Likewise, Homer has been accepted as the
first epic poet in the European tradition whose two major works
continue to be the sources of inspiration all over Europe and the
English -speaking world.

3. But then, what are the main characteristics of an epic?
According to Stephens (in „Elements of English Verse‟), quoted
by Prof. K. R. SrinivasaIyengar in (“The Adventure of
Criticism), an epic” is a monumental relation of events grouped
round a central theme of racial interest in particular, of human
interest in general.”
The story of an epic seems somehow to be implicated in
our very lives; so far off in point of time, it seems to be
perturbingly near SriRamachandra and Sita and Yudhistra and
the rest are, as it were, the crystallisations of the racial
achievements of the Hindus. At the same time, they are
recognizably men and women, and hence appeal to all
humanity. That is why the great epics have become, in fact, the
common heritage of the world.”
“The great epics aim at such a full synthesis of the
cherished values of the race, that once the miracle has been
performed, it is difficult, almost impossible, to repeat it. No
country has more than two epics of the first class – it is as if the
race, having gone through the travail of a great artistic birth, is
incapaciated for further creation.”
The events are the interactions of the simple tendencies
and passions of our nature, obscured but little, if at all by the
splendours of the palace or the price, pomp and circumstance of
glorious war
Likewise, Brahma‟s eulogy of the Ramayana may be
apply applied to all the other great national epics as well :
As long as the hills abide and the streams flow on earth‟s
surface, so long shall the story of the Ramayana, be on men‟s
lips in the world.

4. In the Iliad of Homer the blind poet of Chios, which embodies,
transmutes and enlarges the poetical material of the Achaean
ministrels, the facts of history are obscured in a haze of legend.
The actors take an heroic form, the gods participate, in the
struggle and the issue is portrayed as contest between the
gathered strength of Hellas and an asiatic power.
To the modem antiquary, the Iliad, which depicts in
vivid colours the Aegean civilization of the bronze age, is full of
instruction. In the ruins of Tiryns, the port of Mycenae, he
discovers the regal halls of Homer; but to ancient Greece, this
splendid body of epical verse, was much more than a repertory
of curious details; it was the Bible of a vanished and more
heroic world, the book of books, containing the traditions and
beliefs of a race, the testament of that great age of conflict,
migration and discovery, out of which a triumphant civilization
was destined to emerge
There are quite certain obvious similarities between the
epics of Homer and Valmiki. Both were sung, not written, in the
flood-tide of inspiration, and with wealth of emotion,
presumably recollected in tran-quility. Neither was a scholar, in
the sense in which we understand that expression nowadays, i.e.,
one who is academically equipped, laden with a lot of book
knowledge. Such knowledge as they had and evinced in their
work was acquired in other ways - observation and experience,
along with inspiration. There is no evidence of Homer‟s literary
scholarship; nor that of any literacy among his characters, their
knowledge of life and acquain-tance with the world and natural
heroism not withstanding. The art of literacy must have come
later, after the arts of adventure and warfare.
It is well how Valmiki broke into song (or sloka touched
to the quick by the sudden sorrow of the Krowncha bird that lost
its mate which fell to the arrow of the hunter. So, there was
something spontaneous, simple, direct and melligluous about
Valmiki‟s verse, all in the anushtupmetre, so familiar to students

5. of Sanskrit poetry. To the result, that some of the translations (or
transcreations) of the Ramayana, in the various Indian
languages are justly described as variations of “Valmiki made
difficult”. This, of course, is apart from the ecstasies into which
regional scholars tend to go over the versions in their own
languages, with no way of comparing them to the original, in
their smug self-satisfaction, based on a naive sense of self-
sufficiency.
As for Homer, he was familiar to the world as a blind
ministrel singing from one city to another. He was believed to
be „an untutored genius‟, the glory of whose achievement was
not equalled, let alone surpassed, by his successors in Greece or
Rome. Small wonder that Sri Aurobindo in his rating of the
masters of world literature, put him in class one, along with
Valmiki and one or two others.
The berad structure of the Homeric epic, is also not
difficult to understand or master. It possesses a certain
simplicity which facilitates oral composition as well as oral
recitation. The metre too, the Greek Hexametre, which became a
model for epic poets, who followed in the different languages,
Latin, English etc., is uncomplicated enough to be compa-rable
to Valmiki‟sAnushtup.
Though the starting point of the whole story of the
Trojan War can be identified with the elopment of Paris with
Heln, that may not be the clux of the epic, when we think of the
spirit that subsumes it. According to some scholars, the whole
poem hangs on the wrath of Archilles, and though many other
episodes are introduced, this gives unity to the whole. The
Odyssey, which is praised for the economy of its structure - the
despair of all its imitators - tells of Odysseus, who after many
years of wandering comes home to find his wife encircled by
contemtible suitors and kills them.
The story of Ramayana would seem to hang on the

6. abduction of Sita for its development, climax and donoument.
But it seems to be the character of Sita, which lends structural
unity and moral grandeur to the whole epic. Not for nothing it is
said: „SitayahCharitammahat‟ - („Great is the story of Sita‟) - let
us also remember Prof. Iyengar‟stour de force entitled
„Sitayana’, told from Sita‟s point of view). There are a few
modern critics of the Ramayana, agnostics included, who think
better of the character of Sita than of Rama. (SeetaJosyam, by
the late V. R. Narla, who declined the SahityaAkademi‟s prize
awarded for it). It is said of Shakespeare that he has “only
heroines, no heroines” - in the sense of strength of character.
Almost the same could be said of Valmiki, in a modified way,
but not of Homer.
There is one serious difference between the two poets,
which can by no means be ignored or slurred over. Valmiki
speaks as a witness, partly a participant, certainly as a devotee
committed to clear-cut moral values. No doubt is left in the
reader‟s mind, about the problem of good and evil, though
enough room for controversy remains on the „rights and wrongs‟
of certain actions in certain situations. Valmiki is no intellectual
poet on moral disengagement. We know his sympathies from
beginning to end.
The ancient Greeks are known to be rather different from
ancient Indians, even modern Indians, in this respect. They have
this feeling for proportion - going deeper than a sense of
regularity - which involves the ability of seeing not merely, as
itwere, both sides of a work of art, but both sides of a question.
The Greek mind is described as being antithetical. It is a
common place of Greek philosophy that to every proposition it
is possible to state a counter-proposition. This might often lead
to an avoidable ambivalence where moral values are involved.
But one has to reckon with it even in the epics.
Though himself a Greek, the poet of the Iliad cannot be
seen to be on the side of the Greeks any more than that of the

7. Trojans. It is not easy to say whether Achilles or Hector is
treated with the greater sympathy. The redeeming feature about
Achilles is the depth of his love, for his friend and comrade
Petroclus, whose death at the hands of Hector he avenges by
killing Hector. Briam, the aged father of Hector, goes alone and
unarmed to the hut of the aggressive, youthful here, Achilles,
and asks for the body of his son. And as Achilles listens, he
softens. It is not chivalry that moves him or sentimentality. It is
an intellectual recognition of the strength of the old man‟s case -
mixed no doubt with a philosophical attitude that both their
cases were equally insignificant, in face of the harversal tragedy.
„The proper study of manking is man‟ - is a very Greek
concept, which underlies the all-pervasive concern with man in
classical Greek literature, no excluding the epic poetry of
Homer. Though it is true that there are frequent appearances of
and intervention by Gods and Goddesses, (like Apollo, Arcs,
Aphrodite, Eris, Doris, Hades, Hera, Hermes, Nercus, Occanus,
Proteus, Thetis, Zeus etc.), as also some monsters and miracles,
in the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is felt that they are adequately
humanized. They not only inter-marry with the humans
butsympathise with them and participate in their joys and
sorrows. To the result that we are made to feel that the Gods are
men and men are Gods.
In deciding the day-to-day fortunes of the combatants in
the Trojan War, the Father of the Gods weighs their chances in
his golden scales, leading to a sea-saw movement in the fight
between Hector and Achilles, Paris and Ajax, Agamomnon and
others. One day, the Trojans are up, the other day, the Greeks
are up. Every now and then, the Gods and Goddesses come
down from Mount Olumpus to throw their weight on the side of
one hero or another. Pallasathene decides to support Achilles
(son of the sea-goddess Thetis and Poleus, King of Phythia) in
the single combat, scaling the fate of Hector. More of caprice
than of compassion, where it is not an odd mixture of both
seems to be the motivation of their preference. The Gods of

8. Valmiki seem to be quite circumspect in comparison, with the
possible except of Indra, known for his endless indiscretions,
where attractive women are concerned. They generally keep
their distance; limiting their interventions to situations of crisis,
when S.O.S. is sent.
(It is well-known that both the works, the Ramayana and
the Iliad culminate in a great war, caused by the abduction of a
beautiful woman, already married. While Sita, who is carried
away against her will by Ravana, treats her powerful abductor
with contempt and contumely, Helen, the wife of Menelaus,
King of Sparta, the most beautiful woman of the world, yields to
the temptation, held out to her by Paris and goes voluntarily
with him to Troy.)
However, Homer makes it clear that she is not to blame
for this, because Aprodite (the Goddess of Love and Beauty)
had decreed that this would happen, as a reward to Paris for
having given her the apple meant for the most beautiful
Goddess, and not either to Hera (Juno) or Pallas Athene
(Minerva), in the contest, held at Mount Ida. It is not clear that
Helen is noted for any extraordinary traits of human character,
(apart from her physical beauty), like patience, forgiveness,
wisdom and nobility, associated with Sita. Ideas of virtue
obviously differ from one civilization to another. Helen lives
happily not only with Paris, but later with one of his brothers.
She is treated not only with courtesy, but with the warmth of
affection by Priam and other members of his family. The stress
on feminine chastity which receives a special emphasis in the
Indian (particularly Hindu) tradition, is not so much in evidence
in the Greek.
Not all the characters are seen to correspond in their
archetypal roles in the Ramayana and the Iliad. While the hero
of the former is Rama (hailed as a model of all the masculine
virtues), whose wife (Sita) is abducted by the villain (Ravana),
the hero of the latter is not Manelaus, the husband of Helen, who

9. is the aggrieved party, but Achilles, one of the younger Greek
heroes. He is noted as much for his great anger and high
dudgeon as for his loyalty and valour. None of the Homeric
heroes is presumably a paragon of virtue, pure and unsullied,
unlike those of Valmiki, who seems to be the idealised
personifications of certain human qualities – like nobility and
magnimity brotherly love, loyalty, service chastity etc. When we
remember that human personality is usually a mixture of many
traits, good, bad and indifferent, it would be fair to recognize the
essentially realistic element in Homer‟s art of characterization.
To take only one character, Rama for example, he has
obviously no parallel, in Home (the Iliad or the Odyssey) for
magnanimity. His readiness to forgive (and forget) strikes one as
more divine than human. When Vibhishana seeks refuge, and
his own advisors, like Lakshmana, Sugriva and even Hanuman
are a little suspicious, he tells them in his famous words:
“No man shall seek my protection in vain. He may be
wicked, he may be undeserving, he may even by my bitterest
enemy, Ravana himself. But if he comes to me in a friendly and
submissive spirit, I will not turn him back.”
Again, when he is looked in a mortal battle with Ravana
himself, and gains some advantage, with the latter driven to
come down from his chariot, Rama refrains from pressing that
advantage and tells the enemy:
“Now, Ravan, you are at a great disadvantage. Today, I
have seen you at your best.... Yet you are tired. I give time, Go
home now. Come tomorrow, refreshed and strong in your
chariot and with a new bow and new armour.”
At this distance of time, this kind of behaviour might
strike us as an example of chivalry in excelsis and the cynic as a
nobility of gesture too good to be true. Very different from what
Arjuna would have done, had in fact done to Karna, with

10. Krishna‟s prompting though. Certainly, very different from what
Schilles had actually done to Hector in the violent encounter.
Grievously wounded, his end approaching, the once-
proud Hector appeals to Achilles:
“I beg you by your life, your knees and your parent, do
not leave to be torn by the dogs near the ships of the Achacans,
accept the bronze and much gold, which my father and my
honoured mother will give you, and send my body back home,
so that the Trojans and their wives may put me on a funeral
pyre.”
To which the angry and unsatisfied victor replies:
“Dog, do not entreat me by my knees or by my parents,
foil (I wish my angry heart could urge me to cut up your flesh
and devour it raw myself, such things have you done to me; so
there is nobody who can drive away the dogs from your head,
not even if they bring gifts, ten and twenty times as great and set
them here before me and even promise more; not even if Priam,
the son of Dardanus, would wish to pay your weight in gold, not
even then shall your honoured mother lay you on a bed and
weep for you; but the dogs and the birds shall tear you up
completely.”
Any comment on this would be needless. Except to
remind ourselves that such happenings are not incredible;
having heard of them and read about them in our neighbouring
countries and continents, not long ago.
As for literary conventions and stylistic devices, all the
great epics are seen to follow a recognisable and comparable
pattern. Homer‟s poetic diction is characterised by a constant
dependence upon stere-otyped phrases or formulae, including
the regular qualification of a particular substantive by a standard
epither, e.g. swift-footed Achilles, house-breaking Hector,

11. bright-eyed Pallasathene, Deciphobus of the While Shield, the
old man God-like Priam, as also „swift‟ and „sea-faring‟ ships
(even when they are beached) „blameless‟ Aegisthus (a
murderous adulterer) and „haze-born‟ and „rose-fingered‟ dawn
etc.
Valmiki has stereotyped phraseology – Purusharshabha,
PurushaVyaghra, Munisreshta, Vanarapungaya, Danavottama
(may be Dana-vaadhama too) and so on and so forth. As for the
epic similies, too familiar (and conventional), unlike those of
Kalidasa, those of Homer are called „long-tailed‟, while
Valmiki‟s are at times shorter and more effec­tive. e.g. - „Rama
RavanayarYuddham Rama Ravanayoriva‟) („The battle between
Rama and Ravana is comparable only to Rama and Ravana‟).
Both the Iliad (as also the Odyssey) and the Ramayana,
unlike the Mahabharata (partly because of its unwieldysize and
uneven develop-ment), have a certain unity of theme, action and
treatment, as also style and technique. The interpolations, if any
are minimal and do not militate against the spirit or structure of
the work as a whole. The first and second cantoes (the Bala
Kanda and the Uttara Kanda) of the Ramayana, or parts of
them atleast are thought by some to be interpolations. Similarly,
some portions of the Iliad, may be at the beginning and in the
end. There are scholars, who consider the famous sloka of
Lakshmana on the jewels of Sita („NaahamJaanaamiKeyure,
NaahamJaanaamlMouktike ... etc.) an interpolation, in view of
its excessively puritanical piety, not going well with the spirit of
an age, comparatively free from latter-day inhibitions.
As for the totality of artistic appeal, there can be no
finality in matters of literary judgement. Critical assessments
could change from time to time as also from clime to clime.
Indians, Hindus in particular, are taught to look upon their
national epics with unqualified veneration, totally worshipful
and absolutely uncritical. The Ramayana, for instance, can be
discussed as a work of literary art, away from the personal needs

12. and spiritual demands of „parayana‟.
Small wonder therefore that linguistic scholars and
literary critics, not from the same socio-cultural milieu or
spiritual tradition are not always found to echo our own lyrical
ecstasies. Even an Indian scholar--statesman, like the Rt. Hon.
V.S. SrinivasaSastri, in his „lectures on the Ramayana‟
(comparable in breadth of vision, critical insight and literary
scholarship to A.C. Bradley‟s “Lectures on Shakespear can
Tragedy”) had to face a lot of hostility from the orthodox, the
sentimental and the superstitious.
A German scholar of the last century, Prof. A. Weber,
had made a study of the Ramayana, in its different aspects
translated into English by the Rev. D. Boyd, for the Indian
Antiquary, 1872. The main conclusions of that paper or essay
were challenged and sought to be rebutted by
KashinathTrimbakTelan (scholar, publicist and jurist) in his
paper, read before the Student‟s Literary and Scientific Society,
Bombay, on 2 September, 1872. Prof. Weber‟s conclusions,
summarised by Telang, were as follows: -
(1)The entire narrative of the exile (of Rama) itself to a
large extent, been developed out of germs
furnished by Buddhist legends;
(2) In the existing condition of the text, however, we
find unmistakable indications that the influence
Greece upon India was already firmly
established.
(3)It is possible that in the addition of these two
elements (namely the abduction of Sita and the
siege of Lanka) by Valmiki, we should recognize
the influence of an acquaintance with the
Homeric saga cycle;
(4) The work of Valmiki can hardly date earlier than

13. about the, beginning of the Christian era.
Anyway, how many of us can claim to know both the
classical languages equally well, and have a critical objectivity
to judge of them with no fear of prejudices and predilections,
based on ethnic-linguistic loyalties and religious sentiments?
Prof. GaspareGorressio of Turin, Italy (1908-1891) was
one of few such. In his introduction of „Adikanda’ and „Ayodhya
Kanda‟ he has this to say: “Except for the differences that the
dissimilar nature and tenden-cies of the people necessarily
imprint more forcefully on these works than on the others, the
Ramayana is to India What Homer‟s poems are to Greece. They
depict not only the age in which they were born, but they also
interpret the traditions of former times. Valmiki‟s and Homer‟s
poems are both historical monuments which faithfully reflect the
glory ancient times. They constitute the first great compendium
portraying ancient Greece and ancient India. They are both
memorable national undertakings that have much in common.”
With this difference, however, that Homer‟s Greece is no longer
alive in today‟s Greece or elsewhere in modern Europe. The
Iliad and the Odyssey were the arche types for much for epic
literature in Europe. In India, it was not only that. The world of
Valmiki might have gone beyond recall. But the value system of
the Ramayana is a living presence, a cherished ideal, though not
the actual guideline in our day-to-day life. As we have an
admirable knack for keeping the ideal and the actual apart, we
can admire something that we do not hope to practise. Idols
remain always in tact, but critical assessments become hazy and
clouded.