Christian Gospels, the Hindu Ramayana, and the Similar Problems Faced in Validating Textual Theologies

The development of John against the backdrop of the Synoptics is a fascinating topic. We don’t know for sure if the author of John had a copy of the Synoptics, but given that so much detail is left out, we can safely assume that much of John’s material is derived from oral tradition. Nevertheless, John’s gospel answers the questions that are many times assumed in Synoptic scholarship; namely, that the working out of Jesus’ god-man nature is inchoate and incomplete, and that the tension existing in the narrative tantalizes the reader towards making his/her own assumptions.

John unequivocally provides answers, and there is no doubt that if John were an answer to the Synoptics, the author settles the issue on the question of Jesus’s nature. He is fully God in the flesh, the incarnate one.  On the popular level, Christians do not make such distinguishing discernments. We tend in our liturgy and in our regular practice to mash the documents together. The last words of Christ on the cross, though different in all four gospels, are often read as if they were all said in unison and that it was left to the writers to determine which parts were important to add to their gospels. But nevertheless, they were all seen as faithful witnesses. So be it.

In Hindu scholarship, something of the same problem occurs. When reading the Ramayana, the most popular epic in bhakti Hinduism (next to the Mahabharata), the two versions that come out of the tradition are Valmiki’s Sanskrit version and Tulsida’s Hindi version, both of which create very similar problems between scholarship and community that is reflective of the Christian experience with their own gospels. Here Valmiki’s version adds all the stuff we don’t want to see in our god. He is not entirely righteous nor lovely (think about the tradition of the angry Jesus in the Gospel of Mark). Devout Hindus, like devout Christians, do not like the versions that show chinks in the armor, and so in our worship experiences, we avoid them. The magical circle that surrounds Sati (most likely to protect her virtue) by Lakshmana in Tulsida’s version is not part of the story in Valmiki’s version. There are many examples of this, but one thing remains true. The older sacred documents usually need to be cleaned up by having questions resolved, and validated by the communities in which they are important. Most Hindu’s recognize Tulsida’s Rama (which is also the later version) like most devotional Christians mash together their gospels. As Nick Sutton reminds “one of the principal problems we face in studying the Ramayana lies in defining exactly what we mean by the Ramayana.”  All of this comes down to the lost contribution of the community, something that can only be inferred obliquely in the margins. Because the communities in which our Christian and Hindu writings have been lost, given them sacerdotal qualities is a much easier tasks then admitting ignorance, if the books are to remain a part of what we would like our religious experience to be.