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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is this age characterized by?

2. What do Guha’s bones say when Bharata shows up looking for Rama?

3. Why does Dasaratha say he wants to step down?

4. Where does Ravana put Sita, when he gets her back to Lanka?

5. What did Bharata see in his dream, when Dasaratha died?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Dasaratha decide that he wants to see Rama made king, and what do his advisors say?

2. What delays Rama in his search for Sita?

3. What gift does Indra make to Sita?

4. Describe Bharata’s meeting with Guha.

5. How does Rama help Hanuman?

6. Why does Agastya replace Rama’s bow?

7. How does the Ramayana explain where it has its origin as a poem?

8. Describe the birth of Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna.

9. Why does Rama insist on going into the Dandaka Forest, against Sita’s wishes?

10. How does Hanuman characterize the story of Rama and Sita to Jambavan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How would you compare the Ramayana to a work of Western myth or religion, such as the Iliad (also about an abducted wife), the Odyssey (about a man’s wanderings) the Aeneid (about great battles) or the Bible (about a culture finding its religion)? Using examples from the text of the Ramayana and the text of a text you are familiar with, describe what kind of culture is encapsulated in the Ramayana.

Essay Topic 2

Who is the audience for the Ramayana? What is the ideal reader for the Ramayana likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 3

How would you rewrite the Ramayana, if you were to adapt it and make it your own? What part of the book would you preserve? What part would you change? Explain your motivation for the changes you would make.

(see the answer keys)

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