The Ramayana is a collection of Sanskrit epic poems of Indian mythology. This epic is one of the most important books of the Hindu religion. The Ramayana is one of the two important legends of Hinduism, the other being Mahabharata.
Ramayana narrates the life of the legendary king of Ayodhya, Rama. The story narrates how Rama got exiled to the forest with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana. Also, it describes Ravana kidnapping Sita and the resulting war between Rama and Ravana in Lanka.
Maharishi Valmiki wrote the epic, and Hindus believe that Valmiki transcribed what had already happened earlier. According to Hindu belief, Valmiki was visited by Lord Brahma and given a boon that he would know the entire life of Ram and write the epic Ramayana, which would last forever!
However, you don’t have to believe in Hindu gods to appreciate the cultural beauty and presence of the Ramayana. The epic shaped the later history of Vedic religion, Indian society, and, to be fair, the entire Indian subcontinent!
Now I will narrate some of the short stories from Ramayana that influenced me the most. These stories share the importance of virtue in life and may show you the right path in life even if you don’t believe in any of the mysticism!
5 Stories To Learn from in Ramayana
Below I narrated my favorite stories from the Ramayana. All these stories share with us knowledge from the ancient world, their morality, beliefs, and myths.
Although you may feel that we have nothing to learn from ancient texts, in my opinion, the Epic Ramayana teaches us many life lessons. So hold tight to your seats!
The Sleeping Kumbhakarna!
Apart from the fact that Kumbhakarna was a Rakshasa or evil demi god, you would’ve liked his life a lot, I think! Kumbhakarna was the brother of the main antagonist of Ramayana, Ravana.
The story of Kumbhakarna starts long before the epic. He was asked by the creator God, Brahma, what boon he wanted. But the king of the Gods, Indra, feared that Kumbhakarna would ask for his throne!
So, Indra asked Goddess Saraswati to tie the tongue of Kumbhakarna so that he couldn’t ask for his boon of eternal Indrasan (meaning the throne of Indra). Instead, Kumbhakarna was forced to ask for eternal Nindrasan (eternal sleep)!
The creator God, Brahma, gave Kumbhakarna the boon of eternal sleep. Ravana, however, didn’t approve of this and requested Brahma to take back the boon. So, Brahma took back the boon with the condition that Kumbhakarna would sleep half of the year and be awake the other half!
During the epic battle of Rama and Ravana, Kumbhakarna was sleeping, and Ravana needed him to wake up. So, Ravana arranged for a thousand elephants to walk over Kumbhakarna, and only then he woke up!
The Dangerous Love of Shurpanakha
Shurpanakha was the sister of Ravana. Usually, she is blamed for being the reason behind the great battle between Lord Rama and Ravana.
It is said in Hindu myths that Shurpanakha met prince Rama in his exile in the Panchavati forest. She became instantly obsessed with his beauty, vigor, and youth. So, she approached him to marry her.
However, Rama politely denied her advances and told Shurpanakha that he was loyal to his wife and wouldn’t marry anyone else. Then, Shurpanakha approached Lakshmana, who, too, rejected her.
Feeling humiliated, Shurpanakha turned into her Rakshasa form and threatened to attack Rama’s wife, Sita. Then, Lakshman cut off Shurpanakha’s nose to stop her and send her away.
At first, Shurpanakha visited her rakshasa brother Khara for revenge. Khara sent seven demon soldiers to Rama to kill them. However, the soldiers were defeated easily by Rama and Lakshmana. Then, Khara himself attacked Rama with 14,000 soldiers.
All of the soldiers were killed off by Rama and Lakshmana except Akampana. Then, Shurpanakha went to Ravana to gaslight him about the disgrace she had suffered! That was the main reason behind the Ramayana war.
Valmiki described Shurpanakha as beautiful in appearance but ugly in character! Some suggest that the moral of her story was that physical beauty does not guarantee the beauty of character! So, one should not only be mesmerized by someone’s appearance.
The Ram Setu Bridge
Rama was the prince of Ayodhya and the avatar of lord Vishnu. His wife Sita was kidnapped by the rakshasa king Ravana and kept hostage in Lanka. So, Rama needed to go to Lanka to free Sita.
Once he reached the end of land with his vanara (monkey) army, he prayed to Varuna, the god of the oceans, to make way for him. However, Varuna didn’t appear before him. Then, Rama started shooting different weapons at his arsenal to the sea.
After this, Varuna becoming frightened appeared before Rama. But, he refused to give way to Rama. Rather he advises Rama that the son of Vishwakarma, the divine craftsman was in the vanara army. The son was named Nala, and he was a divine craftsman as well.
So, Varuna suggests Rama build a bridge from present-day Tamil Nadu to Lanka, taking help from Nala’s engineering. Then, Nala volunteered for the job, and with the help of the animal army, they constructed an 80-mile bridge in only five days!
The Dedication of A Squirrel
According to myths and legends, during the making of the Ram Setu, all the animals from the nearby forests helped Rama. Prince Rama was delighted to see his army’s zeal toward building the bridge.
Even the Gods were helping Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu. During construction, a small squirrel carried pebbles and placed them near the large boulders. She was doing her job tirelessly.
However, a large monkey spotted this and joked about her by asking her to stay away from the boulders, or else she might get crushed by the large stones! Everyone started laughing at the squirrel, and she was in tears.
Then, Lord Rama came to her aid and showed everyone how the small pebbles held the large boulders together in place. So, even if her contribution was smaller in size, it was invaluable for the bridge. So, no contribution should be mocked or ignored.
To acknowledge the squirrel’s efforts, Rama then stroked her back. It is said in myths and legends that this is where squirrels get the white stripes on their bodies!
The Curse of Sita
This story is not included in the original Valmiki’s Ramayana. But, it is a part of Uttara Kanda which describes the golden age of Ayodhya, after Rama and Sita came back from Lanka and Rama was crowned king of Ayodhya.
When Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana came back to Ayodhya, the citizens accepted them wholeheartedly. However, after a while, everyone started gossiping that Sita wasn’t pure anymore because she had lived in the house of Ravana for some time.
Although Rama believed in Sita’s purity, he was extremely disappointed by the gossip. He then decided that the purity of the queen of Ayodhya had to be above any gossip or rumors. So, he ordered Lakshmana as a king to exile Sita to a forest outside Ayodhya!
Because of this, Sita was exiled a second time from Ayodhya while she was pregnant with Rama’s children! Sita took refuge in the hermitage or ashram of Valmiki. There she gave birth to two sons named Lava and Kusha.
Sita raised the two sons alone as a single mother, and the sons grew up to be very strong, brave, and intelligent. The sons were later reunited with their father, Rama.
When Sita saw that Rama accepted her sons, she asked her mother, Bhumi, the goddess of the earth, to release her from this unjust and unhappy world. Hearing her plea, the earth split open, and Bhumi took Sita away.
Although you may not like the ill-fate of Sita, the female character had to suffer to portray the dark age properly! Many feminist retellings tend to change how this story is told in the Uttara Kanda to represent their moral belief, which is wrong, in my opinion.
Conclusion
I tried to tell some stories from my knowledge of mythology, Indian culture, and the human race! You should note that in the epic, even the evil character Ravana was blessed by Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma because of his perseverance!
Hindu mythology is always intriguing because it portrays the Dharma or way of life through stories. Although India may seem like a mystical place with dancing girl statues, golden egg stories, or gods with the elephant head, we have much to learn from myths like the Ramayana or Kurukshetra war, or other Indian mythology.
So, keep an open mind and interpret the stories however you can relate to them!
