Reading the Ramayana for the first time: a short guide

Most people in India know the Ramayana long before they read it. They have seen it acted at Ram Lila, watched effigies of Ravana burn at Dussehra, heard it from grandparents or seen it on television. Sitting down with the poem itself is a different experience, and a rewarding one. This guide explains what you are about to read, who the main characters are and how the epic is built, so that the first pages make sense.

The basics

The Ramayana, “Rama’s journey”, is a Sanskrit epic traditionally credited to the sage Valmiki. Indian tradition calls it the Adi Kavya, the first poem, and Valmiki the Adi Kavi, the first poet. It runs to about 24,000 verses, divided into seven books called kandas. Scholars generally think it took shape over several centuries, and many regard the first and last books as later additions to an older core. Whatever its date, it has been retold in almost every language of South and Southeast Asia.

The story in brief

Dasharatha, king of Ayodhya, has four sons by three queens. The eldest, Rama, is the son of Queen Kausalya, and he is loved by everyone. Just as Rama is about to be named heir, Queen Kaikeyi reminds the king of two boons he once promised her. She asks that her own son, Bharata, be crowned, and that Rama be sent into the forest for fourteen years. Dasharatha is bound by his word. Rama accepts without complaint and leaves, followed by his wife Sita and his brother Lakshmana.

In the forest, the demon king Ravana of Lanka carries Sita off. The rest of the epic is Rama’s search for her: his alliance with the monkey king Sugriva, Hanuman’s leap across the sea to Lanka, the building of a bridge to the island, and the war in which Ravana is killed. Rama then returns to Ayodhya and is crowned.

Who is who

• Rama, prince of Ayodhya, held up as the ideal son, husband and king. Hindus revere him as an avatar of Vishnu.
• Sita, daughter of King Janaka of Mithila, who becomes Rama’s wife when he alone can lift and string the great bow of Shiva.
• Lakshmana, Rama’s younger brother, who follows him into exile and never leaves his side.
• Bharata, Kaikeyi’s son, who refuses the throne his mother won for him and rules only as Rama’s deputy, with Rama’s sandals placed on the throne.
• Dasharatha and Kaikeyi, the king and the queen whose promise sets the story moving.
• Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka, a great scholar and devotee of Shiva, undone by his pride and desire.
• Hanuman, the devoted monkey warrior, minister to Sugriva, who finds Sita in Lanka.
• Sugriva and Vali, rival monkey brothers of Kishkindha, and Vibhishana, Ravana’s brother, who leaves him to join Rama.

The seven books

1. Bala Kanda, the book of childhood: Rama’s birth, his training with the sage Vishvamitra, and his marriage to Sita.
2. Ayodhya Kanda: the palace crisis, Kaikeyi’s demand, the exile and Dasharatha’s death from grief.
3. Aranya Kanda, the forest book: life in exile, the golden deer and Sita’s abduction.
4. Kishkindha Kanda: the alliance with Sugriva and the search parties sent across India.
5. Sundara Kanda, the “beautiful” book: Hanuman crosses the sea and finds Sita in a grove in Lanka. Many people recite this book on its own.
6. Yuddha Kanda, the book of war: the bridge, the battle and the return to Ayodhya.
7. Uttara Kanda, the last book: what happens after the coronation, including Sita’s later life and the birth of her sons, Lava and Kusha.

How the poem begins

The opening is unusual and worth knowing about. The poem does not start with Rama. It starts with Valmiki asking the wandering sage Narada whether there is anyone alive who is truly virtuous, brave, truthful and kind. Narada answers by telling Rama’s whole story in brief. Later, Valmiki sees a hunter kill one of a pair of mating birds, and his grief comes out as a new kind of verse, the shloka. Then he composes the full epic. So the Ramayana opens with a poem about how it came to be written, and you meet the whole plot before the story properly begins.

Which version to read

There is no single Ramayana. Valmiki’s Sanskrit poem is the oldest full version, but the one most widely read in North India is the Ramcharitmanas, written in Awadhi by Tulsidas in the sixteenth century. In the south, Kamban’s Tamil Ramayana is a classic in its own right, and Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos each have their own tellings. Details differ, sometimes a great deal, and comparing them is half the pleasure.

For English readers who want Valmiki himself, Ralph T. H. Griffith’s verse translation, published between 1870 and 1874, is free and in the public domain. Its rhymed couplets and Victorian spellings (Rámá, Nárad, Válmíki) take a page or two to get used to, but it moves quickly once you settle into it. Modern prose translations are easier, and an abridged retelling is a good choice for children.

What to notice

• Dharma. Almost every turn of the plot is a question of duty: a king’s promise, a son’s obedience, a brother’s loyalty, a ruler’s obligation to his people. The epic rarely makes these choices easy, and readers have argued about some of them for centuries.
• Bharata. He is easy to overlook, but his refusal to take what his mother won for him is one of the most moving parts of the poem.
• Ravana. He is the villain, but he is also learned, powerful and devout. The poem takes him seriously.
• Its reach. Festivals, place names, proverbs, paintings and dance all draw on the Ramayana. Once you have read it you will notice it everywhere.

Start here

The Ramayana preview on 360book opens with the first canto, in Griffith’s translation, where Valmiki asks his question and Narada begins the story. It takes about ten minutes to read. If you want more of India’s great texts afterwards, the Bhagavad Gita comes from the other great epic, the Mahabharata, and Tagore’s Gitanjali is a good place to start with modern Indian poetry. For more first chapters to sample, see where to start with the classics.