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14. THE CONCEPT OF AVATARS
Sheldon Pollock (Ramayana and Political Imagination in India The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 52, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 261-297 ) considers that Ramayana first took on a political character by the 12th century AD. "answer is that until the twelfth century, the hero of the epic, Rama, had little political significance. Instead, Rama's cult blossomed only when Hindu kings found in the Ramayana's story of the contest between Rama and the demonized figure of evil, Ravana, a parallel for their own struggle against Turkic political power. Pollock believes the Rama cult grew during the twelfth century in direct response to the equation of Rama and Hindu kings as the protectors of the purity of the Hindu polity against foreigners. He also suggests that Karl Marx's insight that revolutionaries often "anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battles cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history" can help us understand the potential for violence that lies within present-day Hindu invocation of the primacy of Rama."
Rama killing Vali brother of Sugreeva in the battle between Vali and Sugrreva by stealth
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