NEW DELHI: Ram was not the king of Ayodhya but a Pathan prince who lived in the Afghanistan area 1800 B.C. This is the view of Dr. S.B Roy an astrophysicist as well as Vedic scholar.
The theory that Ram lived in Horayu in Afghanistan has also been suggested by the astrophysicist Dr. Rajesh Kochhar Dr. Roy’s theory is that first there was Ram I, a Pathan hero who existed in history. Then there was Ram II, a mythological figure It was Ram II who lived in Ayodhya.
The present dispute over the Ram temple according to Dr. Roy is “pointless and futile” because the real RamRama Ihas nothing to do with the structure in eastern UP.
The link between the imaginary Ram of Balmiki Ram II and the real Pathan Ram of the Rigveda and the Zarathustrian ganthas is Sita wife of the Ram of Ayodhya. A reference to Sita as a furrow mark on a ploughed field is found in the hymns of the early Rigveda Dr. Roy concludes from this that Ram I of Irano Afghanistan was a “hero god of peace and agriculture.” The story of Dr. Roy’s historical Ram is linked with events which began in 1800 B.C when the Nordic Neo Aryans who lived in northeast India began to move cast wards. Ram came down to the Indus delta and conquered Mohenjodaro He never went further south. The conquest of Ceylon which happened much later in 450 B.C. was achieved by Vijaya Sen an exiled prince of Bengal.
Ram as a Pathan hero has already figured in Dr. Roy’s earlier book” Mohenjodaro the Lanka of Ravana.” The book has been criticized by historians including H.D. Sankalia who wrote that the application of an exact science like astronomy to the chronology of Puranic dynasties was dubious.
The evidence about Rams link with Ayodhya provided by former director general of the Archaeological Survey of India B.B.Lal is refuted by Dr. Roy. After excavating 14 sites in what he called Ayodhya Lal concluded that the city was built around the second century A.D. By that time Balmiki had completed his epic the Ram cult was popular and there was a spurt of construction activity although the fact that the Ramayana contains references to Buddhism is taken as proof that the epic is a post Buddha one Dr. Roy says the incidents of Rams life go back to 60 generations before Buddha.
“Lals work is inconclusive” Roy asserts “because he has altogether ignored the problems arising from Rams going south and (the so called) conquest of Ceylon which is the crux of the whole matter.
The fights of poetic imagination in the Ramayana by Balmiki such as the Lanka Kanda the monkey built bridge and Puspaka Ratha the airborne machine that travelled 1500 miles without fuel shows that the poem is basically a fairy tale for children.
“By seeking to read history in Balmikis Ramayana which is Kavya one not only distorts the history of India but also the poetry of the Ramayana” says Dr. Roy.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 13, 1992
