The Ramayana in Outline

Welcome to a myth “in outline,” one way this course will present book-length myths in ways that preserve the story and reduce the word count. We’ll use bullet points to cover the major parts of the plot following a context section that provides points of interest and background information helpful to follow the story.

Context

• The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic, composed sometime in the 5th century BCE, about the exile and then return of Rama, prince of Ayodhya. It was composed in Sanskrit by the sage Valmiki, who according to legend taught it to Rama’s sons, the twins Lava and Kush.
• At about 24000 verses, it is a rather long poem and, by tradition, is known as the Adi Kavya (adi = original, first; kavya = poem).
• While the basic story is about palace politics and battles with demon tribes, the narrative is interspersed with philosophy, ethics, and notes on duty.
• Particularly important in the Ramayana is the concept of karma, which guides characters throughout the narrative to make decisions based on what will accrue them the most good karma and/or accrue the least bad karma.
• While in the other major Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the characters are presented with all their human follies and failings, the Ramayana leans more towards an ideal state of things: Rama is the ideal son and king, Sita the ideal wife, Hanuman the ideal devotee, Lakshmana and Bharata the ideal brothers, and even Ravana, the demon villain, is not entirely despicable.
• The Ramayana‘s characters have found their way into the common speech and idiom of the land. Public recitations of the Ramayana are common. The epic has been adapted into plays and films; it is also enacted every year by local troupes and neighborhood societies in North India during the Dusshera festivities of the present times. Scenes from the epic can be seen on the walls of some of the oldest temples across Asia.
• Rama is worshipped as an incarnation of god Vishnu, and it is not uncommon to find a Rama temple in almost every other neighborhood in the country in the northern parts of India, especially along the Ganges river. In countries of South-East Asia, such as Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, the story of Rama continues to be told through intricately crafted shadow puppet shows.

Rama is Born

• Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya, was a great king and a fearson warrior who had fought demons on behalf of the gods, and had been wounded such that only his youngest wife Kaikeyi could revive him. As a reward he promised her two boons, gifts that he could not take back, and Kaikeyi wisely saved these boons for when she was ready to request them.
• Dasaratha also had no children, so he arranged the horse-sacrifice that his wives might conceive. At the sacrifice, the god of fire Agni arose from the flames and handed the king a golden vase brimming with nectar. “Give this to your queens”, said the god and disappeared.
• The king had three wives. To the eldest, the king gave half of the nectar; the second queen got a portion that remained when the queen had drunk her half. To Kaikeyi the king gave the remaining half of the nectar and again, the second queen got the portion that remained.
• In time, the queens gave birth to sons: to the eldest was born Rama, to Kaikeyi was born Bharata, and to the second queen were born the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna.

Rama marries Sita

• When the princes had grown up some, the sage Vishwamitra arrived at Dasaratha’s court and asked that Rama and Lakshmana be “lent” to him to help him rid his hermitage of the demons that were plaguing the ashram dwellers by defiling their sacrifices with blood and bones, and by killing them off. After the two princes successfully rid the ashram of the demons, the sage took them to the neighboring kingdom of Mithila to show them the courtship festivities of the Mithila princess, Sita, born of the earth.
• The king of that country had adopted Sita as his daughter and, after Sita had grown up, had declared that he would give her in marriage to anyone who could string the Great Bow of Shiva.
• No one could string the bow. Several kings, princes, and commoners had tried and failed. The courtship ceremony had been in progress for several months now and the bow still remained unstrung. It was to this place that the sage Vishwamitra brought the two princes of Ayodhya.
• Rama and Lakshmana entered the assembly hall where the bow was displayed in all its glory. Rama walked over, picked up the bow, strung it, and plucked the bowstring with such a twang that two things happened simultaneously: the twang was heard for miles around, and the force of it broke the bow into two with so great a sound that the king and his courtiers came running from their chambers to see what the commotion was about.
• When the confusion had settled, Rama was married to Sita. His three brothers were married to a sister and cousins of Sita, and there were many festivities and much rejoicing in the two kingdoms.

Rama is exiled

• Some time later, Dasaratha decided he had grown too old to rule and declared he would abdicate in favor of Rama, the eldest born and the crown prince.
• Kaikeyi, who wished her son to be king, plotted with her maid Manthara and forced Dasaratha to grant her the boons he had promised long ago. Invoking the old promise that Dasaratha had made to her, Kaikeyi demanded that Rama be exiled for 14 years and that her own son, Bharata, be crowned king.
• Dasaratha refused but Rama decided to honor his father’s old promise and left for the forests. He was accompanied by Sita and by Lakshmana, both of whom could not be dissuaded from following him. In grief at the injustice of it all and at Rama’s departure, Dasaratha died within two days.
• Bharata was not in Ayodhya when these events happened; he, and the fourth prince Shatrughna, were away at Bharata’s maternal grandfather’s country. They were summoned to Ayodhya in haste and, when Bharata learned what had happened, he was furious. He shouted at his mother, refused to ascend the throne, and gathered the townsfolk around him to proceed to the forest and bring Rama back as the rightful ruler.
• Rama refused to return, stating his intention to serve his father’s last wish by being an exile for the full 14 years. Bharata returned with Rama’s sandals, placed them on the throne, and proceeded to rule the country in Rama’s name with the sandals symbolically representing Rama’s rule.
• Meanwhile, Rama moved further south even deeper into the forests so that the people of Ayodhya would not find it easy to keep coming to his hut and begging him to return.

Ravana abducts Sita

• One day, a demoness named Surpanakha saw Rama and, being charmed out of her wits by his beauty, walked up to him and begged him to marry her. “I already have a wife”, said Rama and pointed to Sita. “Why don’t you marry my brother Lakshmana instead?” When Surpanakha turned towards Lakshmana, he declared he’d taken a temporary vow of celibacy and sent her back to Rama.
• What followed was that the brothers took turns to thus play ping-pong with her and when Surpanakha, by now angry beyond measure, rushed towards Sita to kill her, Lakshmana cut off Surpanakha’s nose and ears.
• Surpanakha flew towards Lanka (modern Sri Lanka), ruled by her brother Ravana, and complained. Enraged, Ravana vowed vengeance. He persuaded the demon Marich to disguise himself as a golden deer and wander near Rama’s hut. When Sita saw the golden deer, she begged Rama to get it for her. When the brothers were out pursuing the deer, Ravana arrived, abducted Sita, placed her in his flying chariot, and flew through the skies to Lanka. When the princes, after having killed the golden deer and discovered it was a demon in disguise, returned to their hut, they found it empty and started to look for Sita.

Rama meets Hanuman

• During their wanderings, the princes came upon a group of monkeys who showed them some ornaments of Sita’s: the monkeys had seen a beautiful lady crying and dropping her ornaments from a chariot in the sky that was being driven southwards by a demon.
• Among the monkeys was Hanuman, who ultimately located Sita’s whereabouts to be in Ravana’s kingdom in Lanka. Rama gained the help of the monkey chief Sugreeva, gathered a monkey army, marched southwards, built a bridge across the ocean and crossed over to Lanka. Rama, after an epic battle, was then able to kill Ravana and finally free Sita.
• Sita faces a trial by fire
• When Sita walked up to Rama, however, he refused to accept her since she had been a living in a demon’s palace all this while. Hurt, Sita entered into a burning pyre intending to give up her life. However, Agni rose from the flames, carrying an unhurt Sita in his arms and said, “Here, Rama, is your Sita. She has not an iota of sin in her.”
• This event came to be known as the Agni Pareeksha (agni = fire, pareeksha = test).

Rama is crowned at Ayodhya

• Since the 14 years were over by now, Rama then returned to Ayodhya, was crowned king, and ruled the kingdom with great wisdom: no child died before their parents did, no door needed locks against robbers, no farmland lay barren, no tree went fruitless, and there was peace and prosperity all around.
• Sometimes, the Ramayana ends here. Much of the time, there is an alternative ending coming from a section of the poem called the “Uttara Kanda,” from uttar or post and kanda or chapter.

Sita is banished

• After many months of Rama’s rule, rumors began to surface among the populace regarding Sita’s chastity since she had been abducted and imprisoned by a demon. Mindful of the feelings of his subjects, Rama asked Sita to undergo an Agni Pareeskha again.
• Sita refused, whereupon Rama banished her. Lakshmana was deputed to escort her out of the kingdom; he did so unwillingly and left Sita near the hermitage of Valmiki. Sita was pregnant at that time, though Rama appears not to have known yet.
• Valmiki took her in as a resident of his ashram, and she gave birth to her twins there: sons named Lava and Kush whom Valmiki brought up with great love and affection. He taught them princely skills such as archery as well as scholarly skills such as the Vedas and other scriptures.
• Valmiki also taught them to sing the Ramayana, which he had finished composing by this time. The twins, who were unaware of their parentage and, hence, unaware that they were singing about their own family, would recite the poem at gatherings.
• Lava and Kush became so well-loved for their sweet recitation that their fame reached Rama’s ears who summoned them for a performance. Rama was so enamored of their performance he missed Sita. Valmiki, perceiving this, revealed Sita to Rama, who had attended in disguise with her sons. Valmiki proceeded to reveal the true story to the king and to the twins: that they, spitting images of the king, were his sons and that their mother was none other than the Sita whom they sang of. Sita removed her disguise and the family reunites.
• Rama, in remorse, asked Sita to return to the palace if she could prove her chastity again before an assembly. Sita, in anguish, cried out, “O mother earth, just take me away from this place forever!” Whereupon the ground parted, the goddess Prithivi arose on a golden throne, took Sita in her lap, descended, and the rift closed.
• Sita was forever lost. Griefstricken, Rama decided to live no longer. He abdicated the throne in favor of his sons and, along with his brothers, entered the waters of the river Sarayu that skirted Ayodhya; their spirits left their bodies and ascended to the heavens.

To cite this reading, use the following format:

“The Ramayana in Outline.” Colorado Community College System, 2023.