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    Ramayana Summary

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    Yoona Jung
    The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics that tells the story of Rama and Sita. It offers models of dharma that many Indians have followed for over 2,000 years. The hero Rama lived his entire life according to dharma, or moral duty, through his roles as a son, husband, ruler, and in banishing injustice. The epic originated as a 24,000 couplet poem by the poet Valmiki and is deeply ingrained in Indian culture through performances and retellings across Asia.

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    Ramayana Summary

    Uploaded by

    Yoona Jung
    820 views2 pages
    The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics that tells the story of Rama and Sita. It offers models of dharma that many Indians have followed for over 2,000 years. The hero Rama lived his entire life according to dharma, or moral duty, through his roles as a son, husband, ruler, and in banishing injustice. The epic originated as a 24,000 couplet poem by the poet Valmiki and is deeply ingrained in Indian culture through performances and retellings across Asia.

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    Ramayana

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    The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics that tells the story of Rama and Sita. It offers models of dharma that many Indians have followed for over 2,000 years. The hero Rama lived his entire life according to dharma, or moral duty, through his roles as a son, husband, ruler, and in banishing injustice. The epic originated as a 24,000 couplet poem by the poet Valmiki and is deeply ingrained in Indian culture through performances and retellings across Asia.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    820 views2 pages

    Ramayana Summary

    Uploaded by

    Yoona Jung
    The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics that tells the story of Rama and Sita. It offers models of dharma that many Indians have followed for over 2,000 years. The hero Rama lived his entire life according to dharma, or moral duty, through his roles as a son, husband, ruler, and in banishing injustice. The epic originated as a 24,000 couplet poem by the poet Valmiki and is deeply ingrained in Indian culture through performances and retellings across Asia.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics,the other being the Mahabharata.

    The Ramayana
    tells about life in India around 1000 BCE and offers models in dharma. The hero, Rama, lived his whole
    life by the rules of dharma; in fact, that was why Indian consider him heroic. When Rama was a young
    boy, he was the perfect son. Later he was an ideal husband to his faithful wife, Sita, and a responsible
    ruler of Aydohya. "Be as Rama," young Indians have been taught for 2,000 years; "Be as Sita."
    The original Ramayana was a 24,000 couplet-long epic poem attributed to the Sanskrit poet Valmiki.
    Oral versions of Rama's story circulated for centuries, and the epic was probably first written down
    sometime around the start of the Common Era. It has since been told, retold, translated and
    transcreated throughout South and Southeast Asia, and the Ramayana continues to be performed in
    dance, drama, puppet shows, songs and movies all across Asia.
    From childhood most Indians learn the characters and incidents of these epics and they furnish the
    ideals and wisdom of common life. The epics help to bind together the many peoples of India,
    transcending caste, distance and language. Two all-Indian holidays celebrate events in the Ramayana.
    Dussehra, a fourteen-day festival in October, commemorates the siege of Lanka and Rama's victory over
    Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. Divali, the October-November festival of Lights, celebrates Rama and
    Sita's return home to their kingdom of Ayodhya
    Prince Rama was the eldest of four sons and was to become king when his father retired from ruling. His
    stepmother, however, wanted to see her son Bharata, Rama's younger brother, become king.
    Remembering that the king had once promised to grant her any two wishes she desired, she demanded
    that Rama be banished and Bharata be crowned. The king had to keep his word to his wife and ordered
    Rama's banishment. Rama accepted the decree unquestioningly. "I gladly obey father's command," he
    said to his stepmother. "Why, I would go even if you ordered it."
    When Sita, Rama's wife, heard Rama was to be banished, she begged to accompany him to his forest
    retreat. "As shadow to substance, so wife to husband," she reminded Rama. "Is not the wife's dharma to
    be at her husband's side? Let me walk ahead of you so that I may smooth the path for your feet," she
    pleaded. Rama agreed, and Rama, Sita and his brother Lakshmana all went to the forest.
    When Bharata learned what his mother had done, he sought Rama in the forest. "The eldest must rule,"
    he reminded Rama. "Please come back and claim your rightful place as king." Rama refused to go against
    his father's command, so Bharata took his brother's sandals and said, "I shall place these sandals on the
    throne as symbols of your authority. I shall rule only as regent in your place, and each day I shall put my
    offerings at the feet of my Lord. When the fourteen years of banishment are over, I shall joyously return
    the kingdom to you." Rama was very impressed with Bharata's selflessness. As Bharata left, Rama said to
    him, "I should have known that you would renounce gladly what most men work lifetimes to learn to
    give up."
    Later in the story, Ravana, the evil King of Lanka, (what is probably present-day Sri Lanka) abducted Sita.
    Rama mustered the aid of a money army, built a causeway across to Lanka, released Sita and brought
    her safely back to Aydohya. In order to set a good example, however, Rama demanded that Sita prove
    her purity before he could take her back as his wife. Rama, Sita and Bharata are all examples of persons
    following their dharma.
    This lesson focuses on how the Ramayana teaches Indians to perform their dharma. Encourage students
    to pick out examples of characters in the epic who were faithful to their dharma and those who violated
    their dharma. Mahatma Gandhi dreamed that one day modern India would become a Ram-rajya.

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