Love and sorrow: On the sentience of ‘common’ animals in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa

Authors

  • Cinzia Pieruccini University of Milan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/12162

Abstract

From the very beginning with the episode of the krauñcavadha, the Rāmāyaṇa shows in many passages the awareness that animals, or rather some of their species, love and suffer both mentally and physically, and that many animals can feel emotions. This paper is intended above all to be a review of passages in which these attitudes of the poem appear to be expressed. Of course, we are not dealing here in any way with the vānaras, the monkeys, or the great anthropomorphized vultures, but with some of the common animals mentioned by the poem. The identification of the sentience of animals we wish to highlight clearly derives from observation and empathy, and not from processes of anthropomorphization. This sentience is often expressed by similes, upamās, some of which are consolidated into recurring images, and in some cases are on the verge of becoming, or have already become, conventional expressions, without necessarily losing their strength. These similes directly relate human beings to the animals that form the second terms of comparison. In this way, the sensations, emotions and feelings of the animals involved are placed on the same level as those of humans. More generally, the greater or lesser elaboration of these associations reflects the different level of relationships and closeness, which may also be affective, for certain animals compared to others.

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Author Biography

Cinzia Pieruccini, University of Milan

Cinzia Pieruccini is Full Professor of Indology in the University of Milan, where she currently holds the courses of Indology and History of Indian and Central Asian Art. She has translated some important works from Sanskrit and Maharashtri to Italian (the Daśakumāracarita of Daṇḍin, 1986; the Sattasaī of Hāla, with G. Boccali and D. Sagramoso Rossella, 1990; the Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana, 1990, new edition 2020). She is also the author of a monographic essay on the origins of vegetarianism in India (2019). Her main areas of research, on which she has published several academic articles, are kāvya, Sanskrit erotics, the literary depiction of nature in ancient India, and Indian visual arts. The latter is the subject of a monograph in two volumes (new edition, 2020).

Cinzia can be contacted at: cinzia.pieruccini@unimi.it

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Published

2025-07-21