Valmiki: Ramayana

The Ramayana, the story of Rama, is the most popular literature in India. Versions exist in every language and every art form in India. It is commonly known throughout India, at every level of society, and many villages dramatize the “Ram Lila” as an annual holiday pageant. An epic televised version mesmerized India for seventy-eight Sunday mornings in the 1980s.

Rama is an avatar (incarnation) of the god Vishnu, one of ten. He takes human form as the son of King Dasaratha of Ayodhya. He is the perfect prince, wise and virtuous, as well as an invincible warrior. Similarly, his wife, Sita, is the perfect loyal wife, and his adversary, Ravana, king of the demons, is the perfect villain. The core of the epic tale’s plot is that Rama and Sita are consigned to a jungle exile, where Sita is kidnapped by the evil Ravana. Rama and his allies search all India to find and rescue her.

In the section of the Ramayana presented here, King Dasaratha is preparing to name Rama as his successor. As the perfect prince he is the undoubted choice, and the neighboring kings assemble and commend Dasaratha for his proposal. (The only objector, it develops, is one of Dasaratha’s wives, who wants her own son to be king, and she messes up the plans.)