Valmiki’s Ramayana

About the Book

Ramayana is one of the greatest epics and is sacred to the Hindu religion written by Valmiki. This book is illustrated to give a good insight of the stories. Easy and simple language has been the hallmark of this edition. The book also brings out moral values required for present day generation. The stories in this book are the results of efforts of the entire team involved from planning till production of the printed version in book form. It is hoped that the intended, purpose of this book meets the reader s requirements.

Introduction

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the two most important epics of ancient India. The Ramayana is the older of the two and was authored by Maharishi Valmiki at the instance of Sage Narada.

The word-Ramayana-means life-story of Rama. The original work was in Sanskrit, though later on, Saint Tulsi Das wrote it in Hindi poetry under the title Ramcharitmanas.

F or our readers’ convenience, this epic has been divided into eight episodes. These episodes are as under:

1. The Childhood Episode

2. The Ayodhya Episode

3. The Forest Episode

4. The Kishkindha Episode

5. The Fascinating Episode

6. The Lanka Episode

7. The Uttara Episode

8. Lava-Kusha Episode

In South India, Kamban wrote the Ramayana in Tamil, while Kirtivasa wrote it in Bengali.

As remarked by Saint Narada, the Ramayana came to be a sacred book. People study it with deep devotion and reverence, not only in India, but in some countries of, the Far East too.

By virtue of its lofty moral ideals to be followed in day- to-day life, the Ramayana has been serving as a light-house for the people of the whole world. Its ideals of true family-relationships, dutifulness, purity in thinking, tolerance and loyalty are working a wonder even today in the face of polluting western influences which are more concerned with materialism than noble values.

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