RAMAYANA is the story of RAMA(the ideal of virtuousness).
The story of Rama is full of stories of how an ideal man is supposed to
behave, how an ideal king is supposed to perform etc. The life story of
Rama, which is written in the epic Ramayana is briefly presented below:
Once upon a time in the king called
Dasaratha, who used to rule the province of Ayodhya. Being issueless, he
decided to peform a huge sacrifice for begetting a son. As a result of this,
he was given a fruit to be given to his wives to bear a son. King Dasaratha
divided it equally between Kausalya, the eldest wife, and Kaikeyi, his favourite
queen. But both Kausalya and Kaikeyi were fond of the queen Sumitra. So
they each gave halg of their portions to Sumitra and in turn the queens
gave birth to four princes, Kausalya to the eldest Rama, Kaikeyi to the
second Bharat, and Sumitra having gotten two shares, to younger Laxman and
Shatrugna. All four princes grew up in the tutelage of sages and turned
out into fine warriors. Laxman was very attached to Rama since childhood.
During their travels with sage
Vishwamitra, once they came to Mithila, where king Janaka had pronounced
a swayamvar(groom hunt ceremony) for his daughter Sita. Sita was Laxmi incarnate
into this world, and was destined to marry Rama. The condition at the swayamvar,
was that whoever could lift the heavy bow, which was presented to him by
Shiva, could win the hand of Sita in marriage. One by one, the kings who
came for the swayamvar failed in their attempts. When Rama went and lifted
the bow, it lifted easily. Hence Rama was wed to Sita in Mithila and they
returned to Ayodhya a happy family.
But happiness was not to last
long. From an early incident in life of King Dasaratha, he had once been
given the gift of life by his favourte queen Kaikeyi, who saved his life
from a tiger. Then he had granted her two boons to be granted to her. But
at that time Kaikeyi took a rain check on the boons and was reminded now
by her evil servant maid Manthara, who incited her to use the boons to get
her son Bharat the throne instead of Lord Rama. Her mind poisoned by evil
Manthara, asked King Dasrath of two boons - (1). Bharat to be made the king
and (2). Rama to be banished to the forest for fourteen years. Dasratha
died shortly after Rama left for the forest.
Rama, heeding on the words of
his Dad, left for the forest soon after that with his wife Sita and his
favourite brother Laxman accompanied him too to the forest. Bharat, who
was away at a relatives house, came to learn of this and went to the forest
and requested his brother Rama to come back. But Rama refused to go back
on the promise of his Dad. Then Bharat took the slippers of Rama and placed
them on the throne and ruled virtually at Ayodhya till Lord Rama's return
from the banishment.
There are lots of exciting tales
durng the fourteen years of banishment of Rama. They went through different
forests, different ashrams(hermitages) of various rishis, and lived on the
fruits from the forest. During these years they fought a lot of wars with
asuras (demons) to save the sages, and help the sages in carrying on their
prayer which was being constantly disturbed by the asuras. The high point
of their Vanvaas(banishment) was the long war fought with the king of the
asuras, Ravana.
Ravana's sister, Surpanakha was
enamored by Rama's beauty when she saw him once passing by the forest of
panchavati,near Nasik, and wanted to marry Rama. Rama refused her and asked
her to go to Laxman. Laxman too refused and this angered her. She thought
of Sita as the main reason behind this and tried to harm Sita upon which
Laxman cut off her nose and ears.
Angered, she went back and came
again with her brother Khara to fight Rama. But Rama and Laxmana defeated
and killed Khara too. she then fled and took refuge of Ravana, the mighty
king of asuras, who was given the boon of immunity by Lord Shiva, from the
gods,asuras and all creatures except human beings whom he thought to be
too menial. Hence Lord Vishnu had to incarnate as a human to kill Ravana.
Ravana had his desire for Sita for a long time. And in the rage of the moment,
decided upon a plan to abduct Sita.
With the help of his uncle Maricha,
who was a magician he set out. Maricha disguised himself as a beautiful
deer and wandered near the whereabouts of Rama and Sita and laxman. On seeing
the beautiful deer, Sita was attracted to the deer and asked Rama to go
after it. Rama then left Laxman in gaurd of Sita, and then went after Maricha
in the form of the deer. After a while, Laxman and Sita heard the cries
of Rama for help. It was a ruse by Maricha to distract Laxman and Sita.
Sita was worried and requested Laxman to go and see what the matter was.
But at the same time Laxman did not want to leave Sita alone. On much insistence
by Sita, he then made a line and asked her not to cross the line, popularly
called as "Laxman Rekha", in modern days to represent limits of
decent behavior and moral conduct. He advised that she should not cross
the Laxman Rekha or else she could be in danger.
Soon after he left, Ravana who
was waiting for this opportunity, came disguised as a beggar and asked for
a donation from Sita. Sita went inside to get some grains to donate to the
beggar. As she stepped outside she told the beggar to come and get it as
she could not cross the Laxman Rekha. The beggar acted as if offended and
Sita, thus crossed the line to give him alms, and Ravana, against her wishes
dragged her into a chariot and took her to his home town of Lanka against
her wishes. As she was going along the way she dropped her jewels so that
Rama could trace her route.
Rama and Laxmana, on returning
were very depressed on not finding Sita when they returned. They went miles
and miles in search of Sita. They came ultimately to the kingdom of Kishkindha.
This was then ruled by the monkey king Bali, who had banished his brother
Sugreeva. Rama and Laxmana reached the hill where the banished Sugreeva
and his friend Hanuman were living. Hanuman at once fell at the feet of
Lord Rama and showed him the jewels which Sita had thrown at them when on
the way to Lanka. Rama helped Sugreeva overthrow his brother Bali out of
Kishkindha and become the king. In return, Rama got the entire army of monkeys
of Sugreevas including Hanuman to help him out in the search for Sita.
Hanuman, while searching wide
and afar, happened to cross over to Lanka across the sea and recognised
Sita there. He then passed on the message of having found Sita to Rama.
Rama then declared war on Ravana to get Sita back. Vibhishana, who was the
brother of Rama, came over to Rama's side and became Rama'a devotee. The
monkey army led by Sugreeva and Hanuman, formed a huge bridge across from
mainland to Lanka. Then Rama got along with his army to Lanka and staged
a full fledged war.
Ravana was defeated in the end
and Rama brought back Sita to his home and then in the process their Vanvaas(banishment
period) was over and they came back to rule Ayodhya as a righteous king
and spread Ram-Rajya(ideal rule) in Ayodhya.
There are stories of Sita's banishment
and her giving birth to Lava and Kusa later in life in the ashram of Valmiki.
These form the part called Uttar Ramayana, which is considered a sequel
to the main Ramayana.
So Ramayana is the story of Rama,
which preaches us lot of ideals to live our life by.
