The Ramayana Read Online Free

areas of military, political, or economic power do we see the Ravanas—the evil antagonists—of today; but also at less conspicuous levels and in varying degrees, even in the humblest social unit or family, we can detect a Rama striving to establish peace and justice in conflict with a Ravana.
    The impact of the Ramayana on a poet, however, goes beyond mere personal edification; it inspires him to compose the epic again in his own language, with the stamp of his own personality on it. The Ramayana has thus been the largest source of inspiration for the poets of India throughout the centuries. India is a land of many languages, each predominant in a particular area, and in each one of them a version of the Ramayana is available, original and brilliant, and appealing to millions of readers who know the language. Thus we have centuries-old Ramayana in Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Kashmiri, Telugu, Malayalam, to mention a few.
    The following pages are based on a Tamil version of the epic written by a poet called Kamban of the eleventh century A.D. Tamil is a Dravidian language of great antiquity, with its own literature and cultural values, spoken by over forty millions who live in south India. 2
    Kamban is said to have spent every night in studying the original in Sanskrit by Valmiki, analytically, with the help of scholars, and every day in writing several thousand lines of his own poetry. Of his task in assimilating Valmiki in the original and reinterpreting him in Tamil verse, Kamban says, “I am verily like the cat sitting on the edge of an ocean of milk, hoping to lap it all up.”

    Etched on palm leaves, Kamban’s work, running to ten thousand five hundred stanzas, must have mounted into an enormous pile, as my own copy in a modern edition is in six parts, each of a thousand pages (with annotation and commentaries).
    I have taken for my narration several contiguous sections of Kamban’s work. Mine is by no means a translation nor a scholarly study, but may be called a resultant literary product out of the impact of Kamban on my mind as a writer. As a fiction writer, I have enjoyed reading Kamban, felt the stimulation of his poetry and the felicity of his language, admired the profundity of his thought, outlook, characterization, and sense of drama; above all the love and reverence he invokes in the reader for his main figure, Rama—who is presented to us as a youth, disciple, brother, lover, ascetic, and warrior; and in every role we watch him with awe and wonder. I have tried to convey in the following pages the delight I have experienced in Kamban.
     
R. K. NARAYAN
Mysore, 1971

List of Characters
    (If not otherwise indicated, the “a” is broad, as in “ah”; the “th” is a soft “t” as in “thyme”; the “u” is “oo” as in “cool”; the “i” is “ee” as in “seen”.)
     
DASARATHA (da sa ra’ ta): Emperor of the Kosala country with Ayodhya as its capital.

    SUMANTHRA (soo man’ tra): Dasaratha’s chief minister.
    VASISHTHA (va see’ shta): royal priest to Dasaratha.
    VISWAMITHRA (vee swa’ mee tra): mentor to Rama and Lakshmana; in his early years a warrior and conqueror, he transformed himself by sheer will power and austerities into an adept, teacher, and saint. 3
    KOONI (koo’ nee): Kaikeyi’s handmaid, whose mischief created mighty consequences.
     
JANAKA (ja’ na ka): King of Janaka.
    SITA (see’ ta): his foster-daughter, also called JANAKI, heroine of the Ramayana (ra ma’ ya na).
     
SOORPANAKA (soor’ pa na ka): a demoness, sister to RAVANA (below), KARA: commander of her army of demons.
    JATAYU (ja ta’ yoo): a great eagle pledged to guard the lives of Dasaratha’s children.
    SAMPATHI (sam’ pa ti): Jatayu’s elder brother, deformed for challenging the sun, restored on hearing Rama’s name.
    VALI (va’ lee): ruler of Kiskinda, peopled by a giant monkey race.
    SUGREEVA (soo gree’ va): his brother, who engineers his death with Rama’s