Did you know? The man who abducted Sita was a legendary doctor

The highlight of our childhood calendar was the annual torching of the Ravana effigy in the colony maidan on Dussehra. Back when buildings stopped growing at three stories, a 20-foot effigy with 10 heads, which would be gloriously set ablaze was a thrill unmatched. The fiery pyrotechnics were usually accompanied by adult conditioning: “He abducted Sita; he was pure evil”.

This persona was reinforced by Ramanand Sagar's Sunday broadcast of the epic on Doordarshan, in which actor Arvind Trivedi's portrayal of Ravana was an antithesis to demi god Ram, played by Arun Gohil: the former was boisterous and nefarious while the latter was serenity and goodness personified. And that's really where things start to go awry.

“If Ram needs to be glorified, Ravana has to be painted as the bad guy and of course Sita is made to undergo the agnipariksha,” says Fulbright scholar Dr Bhaswati Bhattacharya. “This is a problem in a chauvinistic culture.” Years of interpreting and reinterpreting Valmiki's Ramayana for popular consumption has led to such over simplification that creative license overshadows the nuance of characters. Ravana, predictably, falls head on into this trap.

Dashaanan, the one with ten heads, a multi-faceted character - the progeny of Brahma, the greatest of Shiva bhakts credited for the tandav, a virtuoso veena player and a master astrologer - is reduced to Ravana, the evil ruler of Lanka who kidnapped Sita. “Valmiki and Ved Vyas did not mean for their characters to be interpreted in black and white. They were master storytellers, who brought out many more shades of grey than Erika Mitchell does, in each of their characters,” says Dr Gopalakrishnan, a sixth-generation Ayurveda practitioner at Kattanam in Aleppey, Kerala. Ravana, he adds, had mastered the four vedas, the six shastras and had knowledge of the 64 arts, including Ayurveda and sutra-krida - the art of playing with thread, or simply embroidery.

Maker of cures Dr Bhattacharya discovered the many talents of Ravana from friends in south India, upon studying Ayurveda and from her guru, Professor Chandra Bhushan Jha. “Sri Lanka is a great place for biodiversity. Ravana, known as the man who knows the forest, was a glutton for knowledge,” says Dr Bhattacharya, who divides her time as a clinical assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York and as a PhD candidate at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). “He knew how to make medicines and lived for thousands and thousands of years.” BHU's Prof Jha echoes that Ravana was an expert at making Ayurvedic medicines, including from metals such as mercury - which can otherwise be fatal. “In his treatise, Ravana has mentioned each and every material, not just aromatic plants or arsenic, but the full spectrum of materials for their therapeutic purpose,” says the professor.

“Among Ayurvedic texts, the Rakshasa Raja is credited with the composition of books on Arka - medicines prepared by the technique of distillation - as well as Nadi Pariksha (the art of pulse diagnosis). Ravana's book on the latter is much more accurate and followed than Kanada Muni's Nadi pariksha,” adds Dr Gopalakrishnan, who associates with Ayurveda hospital Santhigiri's Research Foundation. “More than Ayurveda, it is the Siddha system of medicine that holds Ravana in high esteem. Many marma masters speak of him reverentially as a master of the system.” Doctoral legacy In Dr Bhattacharya's opinion, Ravana was a great clinician. He not only made medicine, but was a scholar of poison, albeit one who could also antidote the poison - a rare trait indeed. “He did practise Ayurveda, but there were thousands of other Ayurveda practitioners. Ravana was outstanding because he lived for so long... although he used his thirst for knowledge in a selfish manner,” says Dr Bhattacharya.

Dr Gopalakrishnan says, “It is said that the ideal physician would be an optimum combination of many qualities. Many of these were found in Ravana. He could have been one of the brightest stars in the firmament of Ayurveda, but he was too preoccupied writing veena sonatas and spiriting away Sita. The best physician would be one who has overcome greed and ego and other such affections of the mind. Ravana, sadly, had not.”