#akramanujan

Let me rapidly suggest a few differences between the twortellings, In Valmiki, Indra seduces a willing Ahalya. In Kampan, Ahalya realises she is doing wrong but cannot let go of the forbidden joy; the poem has also suggested earlier that her sage-husband is all spirit, details which together add a certain psychological subtlety to the seduction. Indra tries tosteal away in the shape of a cat, clearly a folklore motif. He is cursed with a thousand vaginas which are later changed into eyes, and Ahalya is changed into frigidstone. The poetic justice wreaked on both offenders is fitted to their wrongdoing. Indra bears the mark of what he lusted for, while Ahlaya is rendered incapable of responding to anything. These motifs, not found in Valmiki, are attested in South Indian folklore and other southern Rama stories, inscription and earlier Tamil poems, as well as in non-Tamil sources. Kampan, here and elsewhere, not only makes full use of his predecessor Valmik's material but folds in many regional flk traditions. It is iften through him that they then becoe part of other Ranayanas.