EPILOGUE

Does a plant spring from the seed or does seed issue from the plant? Was the bird or the egg the first cause? Did clouds rise from the sea or was the sea filled by the waters from the sky? All such inquiries take us to the feet of God transcending speech and thought.

One other point. In describing how Raavana carried off Seeta, Kamban differs from Vaalmeeki. In Kamban's Raamaayana, Raavana does not seize and carry Seeta as Vaalmeeki describes; with out touching her he lifts her with the earth on which she stands. Kamban's version is followed by most popular expositors because this version is less painful to our feelings.

It is no sin or shame to an innocent woman if a villain behaves like a brute. Yet, mistakenly, we in this country look on the violence of a brute as causing a blemish to the woman's purity. It is in deference to this wrong feeling that Kamban departed from Vaalmeeki here.

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