The Ramayana -- An Overview of Valmiki's Epic

The Ramayana opens not with Rama but with a question. The sage Valmiki asks the wandering sage Narada whether there is anyone in the world who is wholly virtuous -- brave, truthful, grateful, steady, kind to all. Narada answers that there is such a man, born in the line of Ikshvaku, named Rama, and tells his story in brief.

What follows is told in the second chapter, and it is one of the best-known scenes in Indian literature. Walking by the river Tamasa, Valmiki sees a pair of krauncha birds; a hunter shoots the male, and the female cries over him. Overcome with grief, Valmiki curses the hunter -- and the curse leaves his mouth as a perfectly measured verse. Brahma tells him that this new form, born of shoka (grief), is shloka, and that he must use it to tell Rama's story. That is why Valmiki is called the adi-kavi, the first poet, and the Ramayana the adi-kavya, the first poem.

Valmiki's Ramayana is divided into seven books, called kandas. Tradition counts about twenty-four thousand verses. The story they tell is simple to state and endlessly rich in detail: the eldest son of King Dasharatha of Ayodhya is exiled to the forest for fourteen years on the eve of his coronation; his wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, king of Lanka; Rama, with his brother Lakshmana and an army of vanaras led by Sugriva and Hanuman, crosses the sea, defeats Ravana and returns to rule.

The Ramayana is classed as itihasa, "so indeed it was" -- a history told for its meaning. Its centre is not a battle but a set of choices. Rama accepts exile rather than let his father break his word. Bharata rules for fourteen years from a hermitage, with Rama's sandals on the throne. Lakshmana leaves everything to follow his brother; Sita insists on going too. Hanuman serves without wanting anything in return. Even the villains are drawn with care: Ravana is learned, devout and brave, undone by pride and desire. This is why the epic became a mirror for conduct -- for how a son, a brother, a wife, a friend and a king should act -- and why Rama is called maryada purushottama, the best of men within the bounds of dharma.

It is also why the Ramayana raises hard questions that readers have argued over for centuries: the killing of Vali from hiding, Sita's ordeal by fire, her later banishment. The tradition has never been silent about these; commentators, poets and devotees have answered them in different ways, and the debate is part of how the epic is read.

The Ramayana is still performed as much as it is read. The Ramlila stages it across north India every autumn, ending on Dussehra with Ravana's effigy set alight; Diwali marks Rama's return to Ayodhya; Hanuman's leap in the Sundara Kanda is read on its own for courage and protection. For a first reading, the Ayodhya and Sundara Kandas show the epic at its most human and its most joyful.