Page:Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists.djvu/32

Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists violence, as by slaying the rākshasas, but must himself for the sake of example conform to the rules of accepted morality, even when these rules have for him no personal significance whatever. It is thus that Rāma repudiates Sītā twice, though all the time perfectly satisfied in his own mind of her complete faithfulness. This repudiation of Sītā forms the most dramatic and remarkable feature of the whole story. Rāma and Sītā are brought together after a year's separation, and at the close of a long and arduous conflict: this moment, where modern sentiment would demand a "happy ending," is made the supreme test of character for both, and the final tragedy is only postponed by the appearance of the gods and justification of Sītā by ordeal. In these tragic episodes, forming the culminating moral crisis in the lives of both Rāma and Sītā, Vālmīki is completely and equally justified as a teacher and as an artist. Vālmīki's ideal society is almost free from sin, whereby he is the better enabled to exhibit the far-reaching effects of the ill-doing of single individuals and of only faults. Even Kaikeyī is not made ignoble: she is only very young and blind and wilful; but the whole tragedy of Rāma's life and the fulfilment of the purposes of the high gods follows on her wrongdoing.

Over against this human world of the silver age is drawn the sinful and inhuman world of the rākshasas, where greed and lust and violence and deceit replace generosity and self-restraint and gentleness and truth. But these evil passions are outwardly directed against men and gods and all those who are, for the rākshasas, aliens: amongst themselves there are filial affection and the uttermost of wifely devotion, there are indomitable courage and the truest loyalty. The city of the rākshasas is pre-eminently fair, built by Vishvakarman himself; they practise all the arts; they worship the gods, 12