Tevodas, Rakshasas, and Other Cambodian Lore

By Supriya Savkoor

A couple of months ago, my book club chose to read a novel that I hadn’t yet heard of—In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Cambodian-American author Vaddey Ratner. I must have been living under a rock not to have heard of this critically acclaimed first novel, but I’ll admit, I was ambivalent about this choice as I knew it would require some fortitude to read. It's set against the backdrop of Cambodia’s darkest hour—the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge systematically decimated about half of its own people, through torture, starvation, and, most of all, outright murder. And yet I soon discovered this semi-autographical book is extraordinary, as uplifting and hopeful as it is heartbreaking.

As I’ve told nearly everyone I know, this important book has so many complex facets and layers to it that schools and universities should be adding it to their required reading lists. Which subject? Take your pick—history, psychology, sociology, ethics, religion, spirituality, politics, cultural studies, philosophy, literature, even poetry.

And add one more to that list: mythology, which also happens to be the topic of the week here at Novel Adventurers. (Oh, but how I would really love to expound on all those other topics!)

Ratner’s story led me to a startling discovery—that many aspects of Cambodian civilization were influenced by Hindu myths, legends, and folklore. It’s startling because, while the faith of nearly all Cambodians is Buddhism—a faith that also hails from India, but has morphed into the local cultures and more or less lost its “Indianness”—I could not have conceived of a Southeast Asian culture that's seemingly so different from Indian culture, yet so closely aligned to it. Especially when it comes to ancient Hindu mythology, which is still very much alive in present-day in India and, it seems, in Cambodia as well.

Ratner seamlessly weaves in mythical characters that are often as real as her human ones. She also infuses her story with poetic metaphors such as my favorite, the one about the Reamker. 

A mural that shows a scene from the Reamker at the
Royal Palace in Phnom Pen, Cambodia. (Photo by hanay)

Hopefully, it’s no spoiler to tell you about the beginning of In the Shadow of the Banyan. We enter the privileged world of our protagonist, seven-year-old Raami, a Cambodian blue blood. Surrounded by her loving family, Raami enjoys all the joy and magic of an innocent childhood. While sitting under a banyan tree (an image evoking the Buddha) in the courtyard of her family’s palatial home, Raami begins rereading her favorite book, the Reamker.

“In time immemorial there existed a kingdom called Ayuthiya. It was as perfect a place as one could find in the Middle Realm. But such a paradise was not without envy. In the Underworld, there existed a parallel kingdom called Langka, a flip-mirror image of Ayuthiya. There, darkness prevailed. Its inhabitants, known as the rakshasas, fed on violence and destruction, grew ever more powerful by the evil and suffering they inflicted.”

I include that passage because, on several levels, it fills me with awe.

The story of the Reamker is surprisingly familiar to me, one that I too had read many times as a child of about Raami's age. It’s the Cambodian version of one of India’s best-known epics, the Ramayana, one of Hinduism’s most sacred texts and one of India's most popular mythological legends, comparable to Greek and Roman mythology. Hailing from ancient times, the Ramayana, is filled with a pantheon of gods and goddesses who have inexplicably human desires and weaknesses. It's part of the traditional Hinduism belief system, while for some (even in India), it's a colorful story steeped in philosophical themes combined with the magic of mythology.

A view of Angkor Wat, the world's largest
Vishnu temple, in Angkor, Cambodia.

The story of the Ramayana/Reamker is also a brilliant metaphor for Ratner’s novel. As the title(s) of the former imply, it's the story of Rama (aka Preah Ream), whom Hindus believe to be a human avatar of the Lord Vishnu. As the story goes, Rama led a happy, privileged life as a prince in the benevolent kingdom of Ayodhya (Ayuthiya). As a young man, he’s banished for reasons out of his control. He spends years in exile, far from home and separated from most everyone he loves. Soon, his wife is abducted by a jealous king from Lanka (modern-day Sri Lanka, called Langka in the Cambodian version). Ram eventually returns home but not before a long, bloody war pits all the forces of good and evil against each other and ends in devastating losses for both sides.

Sound familiar? Yes, it sums up Ratner's telling of the Cambodian genocide, with young Raami as a sort of avatar of the noble Ram. Raami is exiled into a world filled with rakshasas, in the form of Pol Pot’s vast army of soldiers, and tevodas, angels who are perhaps counterparts to the mythical devas that fend off the devil’s rakshasa minions. Raami’s father is frequently compared to Indra, the powerful god of thunder and lightning, who also happens to be the king of the devas (the good guys). And, of course, even after it was all over, there
                                                                                 were no winners.

For thousands of years, the story of the Ramayana has been performed in
plays and dance all over Southeast Asia. This photo, a postcard scan, 
shows the Royal Ballet of Cambodia performing the Reamker in the
courtyard of the Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh sometime between the
1900s and 1920s. This particular postcard depicts a scene from a battle
between Rama and Ravana. Starting in 1900, F. Fleury published
a series of postcards featuring such scenes from the Reamker in China.
The publication year of this postcard is unknown, but it is suspected to

be taken during either King Norodom's reign in Phnom Penh or during
the early years of King Sisowath's reign. Author Vaddey Ratner herself

is a direct descendent of Sisowath royalty.

The rest of Ratner's novel is likewise steeped in the Hindu mythology I grew up on, albeit with a Cambodian flavor.

One other surprise entailed references to the old animal fables known as Jataka Tales, filled with morality lessons. These short stories, which some historians say inspired Aesop’s Fables, had titles such as The Monkey King’s Sacrifice, The Mouse Merchant, and The Demon Outwitted. I'd always presumed the Jataka Tales to be purely Indian, so I was surprised to learn through In the Shadow of the Banyan that the Jataka Tales are equally well-known all over Southeast Asia. Considered to be a recounting of the Buddha’s previous births, in both human and animal form, the stories impart the virtue and wisdom of the Buddha as he appears to us in all his worldy forms (and, of course, teaches that god is within all of us).

 Po Romem, Hindu temple from the Cham era
near present-day Phan Rang, Vietnam.

(photo by Irdyb)

All of this cross-cultural exchange, it turns out, occurred because, for a few thousand years starting in the first century, Hinduism dominated as both a religion and a culture in Cambodia—and to varying degrees, in modern-day Laos, Burma, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia (see my related post here), Java, Bali, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. Hindu kingdoms across this region were later described as “Indianized” kingdoms or states, part of a “Greater India” or “Farther India.” India’s influence, however, was entirely cultural, not connected in any way to politics or government. (Historians have called this India's "cultural expansion" and even "cultural imperialism.")

Much of Southeast Asia's oldest sacred texts, literature, and philosophy were written in the ancient Indian languages of Sanskrit and Pali. Though these languages are now archaic (used only in sacred Hindu and Buddhist texts), modern-day Southeast Asian languages still retain vestiges of them. Southeast Asian names in general also sound a lot like Indian ones. And it's said that the name of the country Singapore, known as the Lion City, is based on the Sanskrit words simhah for lion and puram for city. (Simhah puram sounds a bit like "Singapore," right?)

For thousands of years, Southeast Asian kings stylized themselves after Indian devarajas, or god-kings, a bit like Prince Rama from the Ramayana. These kings took on royal, Indian-sounding names, such as Jayavarman VII (Cambodia) and Wikramawardhana (Java), and consulted Brahmin priests from India before making big decisions, such as going to war or relocating a capital. They performed the Hindu ritual ceremony known as a puja. Some even adopted the infamous caste system.

These kings also erected numerous temples and statues—many of which survive today—in honor of Hindu gods and goddesses. Cambodia has preserved one of the world’s only two temples dedicated to Brahma as well as the world’s largest Vishnu temple, Angkor Wat, located in Angkor.

The Hindu kingdoms of Southeast Asia flourished for about a thousand years, before, bit by bit, they began infusing more Buddhist beliefs in with their Hindu ones until, eventually, Buddhism prevailed. As I learned from Ratner’s amazing novel, remnants of the region’s Hindu past still linger and inspire. And the title of In the Shadow of the Banyan suggests that despite all that young Raami, and Ratner herself, experienced, a higher force had protected them all along.

(A post-script: I'll be writing a follow-up to this post in 2 weeks, when we cover book reviews. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit Vaddey Ratner's web site, www.vaddeyratner.com, or connect with her on FaceBook. Most importantly, read her book! I'd love to hear your impressions.)

An Epoch of Epic Remakes

In Bali, male dancers perform the Kecak traditional dance
and intonate a "monkey" chant, all without background music,
as they reenact a famous battle scene from the Ramayana.

Growing up, I’d been exposed to more than a few film and TV versions of India’s two greatest epics, the 2,000-year-old Sanskrit poems, Ramayana and Mahabharata. I have to admit, I largely ignored them. They were poorly acted, melodramatic, much too focused on the glitz and glamour of the royal kingdoms they featured than on the values or true essence of these legendary stories. They were also really long – India’s version of soap operas. Oh, and they were usually in Hindi, a language I only understand in bits and pieces.

Then in the 1980s, I saw the most breathtaking and unique adaptation of the Mahabharata on PBS, both artistic and literary in scope and vision. That it was a French-British production was part of that broad scope, that the cast was comprised of such diverse multicultural and multiracial actors (Italian, French, Japanese, black, Jewish, and many others) was utterly refreshing and intriguing, and that it was in English and on American public television was, well, just plain accessible. I watched the nine-part series closely, riveted by this very modern take on one of India’s oldest stories.

Here, for example, is the pivotal scene from the Mahabharata, the portion that forms the Bhavagad Gita, quite possibly Hinduism’s most important text.

British director Peter Brooks says he intentionally chose an international cast to show the universality of the Indian epic, how it represents the story of all mankind. But remarkably, this beautiful serial inspired much controversy, and for all kinds of odd reasons: because it focused more on the philosophy and literary essence of the story than on the divine aspects, that it featured few Indian actors, that the costumes and set design were too spare, too stripped down, for this era’s Bollywood-inspired palates.

Another popular and critically acclaimed but also controversial retelling of an Indian epic is Sita Sings the Blues, from American filmmaker Nina Paley. Okay, I haven’t seen this film in its entirety, but it’s based on a supremely interesting aspect of another famous epic.

The Ramayana tells the story of King Rama, or Ram, who spends 14 years finding and rescuing his wife Sita from Ravana, the demon king of Lanka (Sri Lanka). The story is usually told from Ram’s point of view; he’s the hero, the good guy, and the one you’re rooting for. Last year, Bollywood released a big-budget, blockbuster movie, Raavan, told from the point of view of the villain. And three years ago, Nina Paley came out with her extremely offbeat, animated, docu-comic film that explores both the fate of Rama’s wife after her exile (Ram ultimately rejects her because she'd lived in the home of another man during her capture, albeit against her will) and Paley’s own real-life divorce. Dubbing it “the greatest break-up story ever told,” Paley used the recordings of Annette Hanshaw, a 1920s' American jazz singer, to give voice to Sita in the film, which happened to bring about renewed popularity in Hanshaw’s music. Here’s a snippet: 

Paley’s retelling of the story won dozens of international awards but also earned major backlash from pockets of Hindu extremists who say the film is offensive and derogatory against all Hindus. 

What’s curious to me about these controversies is that, one, Hinduism has deep literary and philosophical traditions that most people who observe and practice the religion would agree go way beyond just the divine aspects of their texts. It’s a belief system that isn’t about absolutes but that invites discussion, interpretation, and meditation about the 

complexity of truth, morality, and other large issues.

And two, while the Ramayana, in particular, is an important tome, it was rewritten many times over the ages before seeping into the traditions of so many other cultures, where it evolved further. 

·         The Cambodian version, known as Reamker, adapts the Hindu ideas to Buddhist themes, considers the main characters more as mortals than as gods, and is a mainstay of the national royal ballet’s repertoire.

·         In Indonesia, the first half of the Old Javanese Kakawin Ramayana more or less corresponds to the most accepted Indian (Sanskrit) version by poet-sage Valmiki, but the second half is completely different, including, among other things, the Javanese indigenous deity dhayana and his misshapen sons, known as “clown servants.” The epic is also often depicted in Indonesia through all kinds of media, including wayang, or shadow puppetry.

·         In Laos, the Phra Lak Phra Lam, and in Malaysia, the Hikayat Seri Rama, have lost their association with Hinduism altogether and tell the story of Rama as a previous lifetime of the Buddha.

·         Thailand’s national epic, the Ramakian (or “Glory of Rama”), more or less retains the same story as the Indian one but within a Thai context (names, clothes, weapons, and so on).

·         Other cultures—from Japan, Burma, and the Philippines, to the Muslims of Kashmir and Kerala—tell their own unique versions.

Maybe there is something to the idea that these ancient epics are relevant to all mankind?