48 SOCIAL SCIENTIST that Ravana had dishonoured many helpless women. Rama came upon the throne rather late in life and he ruled to augment the fame of his ancestors. His subjects adored him, crops were plentiful, rain was abundant, the air was gentle. All castes performed their ordained rule, there was no envy, everyone was happy, pious, honest. Rama ruled for 11,000 years, he defeated many kings, he acquired great fame (6/128/102-7). It seems that his subjects were satisfied with their ruler. When these subjects began to cast aspersion on Sita, Rama demanded that Sita should prove her chastity to disarm their suspicions, as well as his own (7/95/6). So in all these realms, women do not command respect, they have no inviolable dignity. In Rama's realm, Shudras are similarly deprived. They served faithfully, but service was enjoined upon them. It was not spontaneous. Ramachandra's identity as ruler lies in his ability to rule over Shudras and women firmly, to keep them in their place — so that all the anxieties about Kaliyuga may be allayed. He preserved social order, social inequality. He pleased the gods by killing Shambuka. He was an obedient son, he was true to his friend and caring about his subjects, he loved his brothers, he dispensed justice and he performed the sacrificial rites; all this made him the most perfect of kings in his times. The norms commanded that a Shudra who aspires to something beyond his caste-ordained duties, must be killed. They laid down that an abducted woman must go through humiliating ordeal and penance. Rama obeyed these norms. He bequeathed the throne of Ayodhya to Bharata, while his own sons who were born of Sita, were given the kingdom of Koshala and Uttarakoshala. Even after Sita had conclusively established her chastity, the sons of her womb were not allowed to inherit the throne of the Ikshvaku dynasty. Rama is the example for a new conception of kingship, he was no mere epic hero. The epic hero was simply valorous, he was not the exemplary king. Rama was one such warrior — hero upto the killing of Ravana. Then the epic was overhauled and his narrative location was revised in the first half of the Adikanda and in the Uttarakanda. He now emerged as the king who is the guardian of the Varna order. He protects his realm ever-vigilantly from all self-assertion by women and Shudras, he guards his people from the encroachment of Kali. He had to pay a price for his role. Monogamous himself, he lost his only wife, he sacrificed his own conjugal happiness to the emergent values that spelt a new emphasis on female chastity. Did he suffer