The Ramayana [Sanskrit: The Saga of Rama) is one of the greatest epic poems of the world. The bare outline of its story is as follows:
Shri Rama was the eldest son of King Dasaratha of Ayodhya through Kausalya, the first of the emperor's three queens. Laksmana, Bharata, and Satrughna were Rama's three half brothers. Prince Rama won princess Sita in a bridal contest, in which he broke a mighty divine bow with superhuman ease. On the occasion of the wedding of Rama and Sita, his brothers were also married to the sister and cousins of Sita.
When prince Rama was about to be crowned king of the realm, his step mother Kaikeyi, instigated by her maid servant Manthara, intervened. Reminding the king of a promise he had made years ago that he would grant her any too boons of her choice any time she wished, she now demanded that her son Bharata be crowned, and that Rama be exiled to the forest for fourteen years. Dasaratha swooned upon hearing this. But the dutiful Rama willingly obeyed. Devoted wife Sita and loyal brother Laksmana followed Rama to the sylvan seclusion.
Rama and his companions had many experiences in the forest. Once, an ogress named Shurpanakha tried to flirt with the handsome prince, but he ignored her. She persisted, taking on a ferocious form. A skirmish ensued, and Shurpanakha's nose was cut off in the confrontation. The enraged demoness appealed to her wicked and powerful brother Ravana, a demon himself and ruler of Sri Lanka, to avenge the insult, adding that the great Ravana deserved, as one of his queens a woman as beautiful as Sita Ravana's brother Vibhisana and his own wife counseled him against such a move But he, by ruses, kidnapped Sita and brought her to his kingdom
With the assistance of a host of various tribes and animals, of whom the simian king Sugriva and his general Hanuman were the most eminent, Rama waged war on the evil forces of Ravana, annihilated him and his ilk, and rescued Sita. Rama, Sita, and Laksmana returned at last triumphantly to Ayodhya after the fourteen year period to the joy and jubilation of the people. In the end righteousness prevailed.
But all this took place in an epochal framework. Ravana was essentially an evil monarch, wielding enormous superhuman powers and wreaking havoc on the innocent and the helpless. So the good and the godly appealed to the cosmic powers that be to rid the world of the miscreant. To accomplish this, Visnu, the sustainer of life and harmony, took on a human aspect. This was Rama, and he relieved the world of this cancer that was Ravana This is the religio-mythological background for the epic.
The story line sketched above is elaborated in some twenty-fifty thousand verses of majestic Sanskrit, and attributed to the poet Valmiki. The magnificent epic paints the perfect hero Rama and his ideal consort Sita in admirable ways, evoking love and reverence for the noble pair. Beauty and pathos, suspense and rage, love and envy, pity and frustration, indeed every human passion and aesthetic experience is to be found here.
Vedas (1296)
Upanishads (482)
Puranas (613)
Ramayana (839)
Mahabharata (328)
Dharmasastras (162)
Goddess (473)
Bhakti (242)
Saints (1316)
Gods (1268)
Shiva (344)
Journal (144)
Fiction (52)
Vedanta (337)
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