ot altogether uninfluenced by this
ideal. This, however, is a detail: the main point to observe is that
Rama was originally a local hero of the Solar dynasty, a legendary
king of Ayodhya, and as the Puranas give him a full pedigree, there is
no good reason to doubt that he really existed "once upon a time." But
the story with which he is associated in the Ramayana is puzzling. Is
it a pure romance? Or is it a glorified version of some real
adventures? Or can it be an old tale, perhaps dating from the early
dawn of human history, readapted and fitted on to the person of an
historical Rama? The first of these hypotheses seems unlikely, though
by no means impossible. The second suggestion has found much favour.
Many have believed that the story of the expedition of Rama and his
army of apes to Lanka represents a movement of the Aryan invaders from
the North towards the South; and this is supported to some extent by
Indian tradition, which has located most of the places mentioned in
the Ramayana, and in particular has identified Lanka with Ceylon. In
support of this one may point to the Iliad of Homer, which has a
somewhat similar theme, the rape and recovery of Helen by the armies
of the Achaeans, the basis of which is the historical fact of an
expedition against Troy and the destruction of that city. But there
are serious difficulties in the way of accepting this analogy, the
most serious of all being the indubitable fact that there is not a
tittle of evidence to show that such an expedition was ever made by
the Aryans. True, there were waves of emigration from Aryan centres
southward in early times; but those that travelled as far as Ceylon
went by sea, either from the coasts of Bengal or Orissa or Bombay.
Besides, the expedition of Rama is obviously fabulous, for his army
was composed not of Aryans but of apes. All things considered, there
seems to be most plausibility in the third hypothesis[30]. Certainly
Rama was a local hero of Ayodhya, and probably he was once a real
king; so it is likely enough that an old saga (or sagas) attached
itself early to his memory. And as his fame spread abroad, principally
on the wings of Valmiki's poem, the honours of semi-divinity began to
be paid to him in many places beyond his native land, and about the
beginning of our era he was recognised as an incarnation of Vishnu
sent to establish a reign of righteousness in the world. In Southern
India this cult of Rama, like that of Krishna,