Ramayana

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The great Sanskrit epic poem, the Ramayana, attributed to the legendary poet-sage Valmiki, appears to have been largely composed during the first half of the first millennium BCE. Since that time, it has firmly established itself as one of the most enduring, widely diffused, and popular narratives in all of human history. In innumerable folk, literary, dramatic, painted, sculpted, cinematic, and video representations in virtually all of the regions of South and Southeast Asia, it has made a profound impact on the aesthetic, social, political, and religious lives of many hundreds of millions of people.

The narrative of the tragic and heroic life of Rama, a legendary prince and later king of the ancient north Indian country of Kosala is significantly framed in the Valmiki Ramayana by the tale of the poem's composition. The legendary sage Valmiki—who is said to have created the world's first true poetry in a spontaneous utterance motivated by his compassion for the mate of a bird struck down by a hunter—is commissioned by the creator divinity Brahma to compose the world's first poem about the career of the righteous King Rama. The poet does so, and teaches the poem to Lava and Kusa, disciples of his who, unbeknownst to their father, are the twin sons of Rama by his banished wife Sita who has borne them in the sage's hermitage. Thus, the Ramayana has attained the reputation as the first example of—and, in fact, the inspiration for—poetry in the Indian tradition.

In the opening chapters of the poem, we learn that Rama is no ordinary prince but in fact an earthly manifestation of the supreme divinity Vishnu Narayana. The god, as the story makes clear, has—in response to an appeal by the lesser divinities—agreed to take on human form in order to rid the world of an otherwise invincible and tyrannical demon, the mighty rakshasa (demon) lord Ravana, who is invulnerable to all supernatural beings. The god infuses his divine essence into a food, which is to be shared among the three wives of the great but childless king Dasaratha of Kosala. When this is accomplished, the eldest queen, Kausalya, gives birth to a splendid son, Rama; the king's middle wife, Kaikeyi, bears the prince Bharata; and the youngest wife, Sumitra, delivers the heroic twins Laksmana and Satrughna.

Rama is outstanding among the four brothers for his beauty, courage, intelligence, and righteousness. In his youth, he goes on a journey with a powerful sage in order to protect the latter's sacrifices from the depredations of the demons. During this journey, he participates in a contest of strength for the hand of the beautiful princess Sita of the neighboring kingdom of Mithila, a woman who as an infant had emerged from the bosom of the earth goddess herself. Unique in his power to wield a mighty divine bow, Rama wins Sita and the two fall deeply in love.

The happy couple settles in to life in the Kosalan capital of Ayodhya and the aged king decides to consecrate Rama as prince regent and retire to a life of contemplation. On the eve of his consecration, however, a serving woman of Dasaratha's middle and most deeply beloved queen, Kaikeyi, persuades her mistress that the succession of Rama, which Kaikeyi had at first welcomed, will have disastrous consequences for her and her son Bharata. She also reminds the queen that the king had promised long ago to grant the queen some boons (requests or favors) and tells her that she can now have them granted to her political advantage. Using her boons and exploiting the king's unwavering adherence to his given word, Kaikeyi succeeds in banishing Rama to the wilderness for a period of fourteen years. Bharata is consecrated as prince regent in Rama's place. Rama receives the stunning news of his reversal of fortune with extraordinary equanimity an he sets out uncomplainingly for the forest accompanied only by his beloved wife Sita and his devoted younger brother Laksmana. Bharata, who had been away from the capital during these events, returns to find his brother banished and his father dead from grief. He rejects his mother's scheme and sets out to persuade Rama to return and rule. Rama refuses to violate his father's command and Bharata returns to Ayodhya, governing as a kind of steward in anticipation of his brother's return from exile.

The idyllic life of Rama and Sita in the forest is disastrously interrupted when the former arouses the wrath of the demon king and the latter his desire. Using his shape-shifting power, Ravana manages to abduct Sita in the absence of Rama and Laksmana and carry her off to his island fortress of Lanka. There she is held prisoner and given a year in which to choose either marriage to the demon or death at his hands.

At first despondent over the loss of Sita, Rama recovers his resolve and sets out to recover her. He forms a pact with the banished king of the monkeys, Sugriva, and the monkey armies scour the world for the lost princess. Eventually the heroic monkey Hanuman locates her and reassures her, showing her Rama's signet ring.

Rama and the monkeys build a bridge across the ocean and lay siege to Ravana's citadel. After a protracted war, Rama slays Ravana on the battlefield and recovers Sita. The long-suffering princess must pass through a fire ordeal to publicly prove her chastity before she is reunited with Rama, and the two return to Ayodhya, where Rama is at long last consecrated as king. At length, after hearing of rumors concerning Sita's fidelity when in captivity, Rama resolves to banish her, although she is pregnant. She is sheltered in the hermitage of the sage Valmiki, the author of the poem, where she bears Rama's twins, the epic bards Lava and Kusa. After the twins perform the poem for the king, Valmiki brings Sita back to Rama and attests to her virtue. Rama agrees to take her back, but she calls on her mother the earth to take her if she has been true to her husband. She disappears into the earth, leaving Rama desolate. He continues to rule righteously until he is reminded that the purpose for which he incarnated has been accomplished. Rama then enters the Sarayu River at Ayodhya, followed by all the inhabitants of the city, and ascends to heaven to resume his place in heaven as the great lord Vishnu.

In the nearly three thousand years since its composition, the poem has undergone a truly extraordinary number of reworkings in every major language and every significant indigenous religious tradition of the vast, rich, and diverse cultural domains of South and Southeast Asia. In one form or another, the text has been widely available and continually in use by countless hundreds of millions of people for as long or longer than virtually any non-Indian text still known and read by a mass audience.

Robert P. Goldman

Brockington, J. L. (1984) Righteous Rama. New York: Oxford University Press.

———. (1998) The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. Goldman, Robert P., et al. (1984) The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Richman, Paula. (1991) Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

This complete Ramayana contains 1,223 words. This article contains 1,274 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).