 A Living Portrait of India |
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| Ramayana |
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Sanskrit
The core story is about succession to the throne of Ayodhya where the
Surya Vamsha (Solar Dynasty) ruled. King Dasharatha had, through
the favour of gods, had four sons (Rama, Bharata, Shatrughna and Lakshmana)
born of his three queens (Kaushalya, Kaikeyi and Sumitra). Rama was
acknowledged as the superior as well as the eldest, and won, through
his prowess, Sita, the princess of Mithila as his wife. Dasharatha was
all set to crown him king when, incited by her maid, Queen Kaikeyi made
the old king banish Rama for 14 years. There was no fight over this
issue. For, when Bharata heard of this, he would not touch the crown.
Placing Rama's sandals on the throne, he governed the country for 14
years, waiting for Rama to come back. The battle in this epic occurred
because, Rama, in his exile in the forests, had been accompanied by
brother Lakshman and wife Sita, and the three of them often had to face
rakshasas or vicious demons. One such, King Ravana, said to be
of Sri Lanka, carried Sita away to his walled city overseas. Rama struck
up an alliance with a troop of monkeys, Hanuman being the most prominent
of them, and with their help, built a bridge across the sea to Lanka,
fought hard and long, and finally killed Ravana. A kind of sequel, the
Uttarakanda describes how Sita, though rescued from Lanka and brought
back to Ayodhya, was not found acceptable to the general public because
she had been abducted by Ravana. As King, Rama thought it fit
to banish her from Ayodhya, and much later, offer to take her back only
when she had proven her purity by an ordeal through fire. Though Rama
and Hanuman were not originally in the Hindu pantheon, because of this
epic they have become the two most beloved of Hindu gods. |
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