Ramayana, Mahabarata, and Their Importance in Hindu Culture and Myths

In this paper I am aiming to explain what I have gotten out of the readings in this class. But more importantly, I'll be examining the "Ramayana" and the "Mahabarata", two of the most significant pieces of literary work for the Hindu culture. They create a mythic and folklore type of atmosphere but more importantly demonstrate the means of how to live, act and pray in the Hindu lifestyle. One part adventure, one part history, one part excitement but mostly great morals told through the means of constantly repetitive hymns passed down through the ages. I'd like to start the paper off by speaking in detail of what happens in the "Ramayana" and then briefly discuss the "Mahabarata" and then mostly focus on how they are integrated in teaching the lessons of Hinduism along with some comparing and contrasting on how they were done.

The tale of the "Ramayana" mostly focuses on the main character of Rama, who is the son of the great Dasharatha, the King of Aydohya. Altogether Dasharatha has three wives and four sons- Rama, Bharata and the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna. A special ceremony is soon held after the introduction of Rama's family to his lovely wife Sita. As time passes by, the King must give up his throne and Rama being the oldest is next in line. Everyone is joyous, I mean this is Rama after all; but the archetype of his wicked step-mother steps in and interferes with Dasharatha's plans. Kaikeyi plans on using an oath the King made to her years ago. The Queen is jealous and wants her son Bharata to rule, so the King heavily begs against it but he eventually gives in. He is even put to his oath to banish Rama from Aydohya for fourteen years. Rama abides to his father's wishes and along with his wife Sita and his best friend/brother Lakshman they head out to the forest.

Bharata is very upset finding out how he won the throne and that his brother must leave. He finds Rama in seclusion in his forest abode and begs him to return to fair Aydohya. But Rama still must follow his father's wishes and so Bharata returns to watch over in his brothers place temporarily. Rama, Sita and Lakshman are very happy in the forest. One day a Rakshasa princess Surpanakha tries to seduce Rama and win him over. Rama refuses constantly and it only infuriates her more. Lakshmana wounds her and sends her running back home to her brother Ravana, the Demon King of Lanka. On a side note to go deeper into the character of Ravana- he is a wicked demon. A quick summary of him is telling of his tales of how he beat the Gods and conquered Heaven, how he got the wonderful Pushpaka chariot and the beautiful city of Lanka and all it's riches. And also how he made a vow and sacrifice between Brahma and himself. Which for the most part sets up Ravana and the downfall of his weakness for women.

The princess speaks of Sita to him and from here on in, he MUST have her and the lust for another man's possession slowly starts to kill him. A plan is made about how a demon will disguise themselves as a golden deer to distract the men while Ravana will turn into a hermit begging for food and abduct Sita. And so the demons plan works perfectly and he escapes with Sita.

A new adventure begins finding the princess and thus ends the first quarter of the book. The second quarter I won't get into too much only because I enjoyed the last half of the book more and don't intend on boring you with lucrative details. But basically in a nut shell this happens: The boys search everywhere through India encountering hermits, strange old men, Gods and animals; which all the furry fiends are the best friends of Rama and a strong relationship begins. With the introduction of the great magical Hanuman the Monkey and many other animal warriors that will help find Sita.

An army of all animals is created and they help to go out in search of Sita.

Here, in the beginning the story mainly focuses on Hanuman when he leaps across the entire ocean to reach Lanka. He spies on all the demons and their plans and sees Sita under a tree in the back of the palace guarded by demons. Hanuman approaches her and secretly gives her Rama's ring inscribed with it his name "Rama Rama Rama". Hanuman flies back and across the ocean again and tells Rama the news.

War is declared- a humongous bridge of trees and stones built by the animals connect one shore to the other so that they may cross to Lanka. His fellow Rakshashas, including his brother Vibishna, gives a council to Ravana. Vibishna says that his brother is lost in lust and should return fair Sita to her husband and not to go to war. Ravana becomes enraged and disowns and casts out his brother from Lanka. Vibishna and four of his guards join Rama's side in the war.

Ravana hears that Rama is approaching so he has two wizards come up with a trick to get rid of Rama coming to save his woman. They conjure up a false Sita and cut off her head. Ravana has one of his wizards go and deliver the head to Rama and prove that she is gone, but Vibishna is able to look past the magic and proves the wizard false.

Rama's army marches on and a great tide of battle constantly changes. From Ravana deploying his brother the huge giant Kumbhakarna and his son Indrajit to nearly kill off Rama's entire army. Then Hanuman becomes a giant and carries an entire mountain of life rejuvenating flowers that brings Rama's whole army back to life. Then Ravana loses his brother and son and becomes more determined and enraged on what Rama stole from him and goes out onto the battlefield in the night.

The two warriors battle a gruesome fight but only Rama stands over the chopped up body of Ravana. The two lovers of Sita and Rama get re-united and everyone rejoices. All the demons have escaped to hell and the already dead bodies have withered away or stained the ocean red with blood. Vibishna becomes the new king of Lanka. All of the animals and humans hop on the Pushpaka chariot and are ready to head back home. They re-encounter nearly everyone and thing that they visited from the beginning of the tale. Including spending a night for a feast at Guha's in the Dandakha's Forest. Then from there it's off to Aydohya where all the Brahmans are dressed like hermits and sit around worshipping the sandals of Rama he left fourteen years ago.

A year long celebration is held and the whole world gets invited. All the animals and warriors speak of adventures they had. Time passes after the festival of about 10,000 years of Rama's long reign of king. Rama makes Lakshmana promise that he will abandon Sita (who is now pregnant) near the river. Against his king's wishes, Lakshmana does so. Sita is abandoned but is then found by the hermit Valmiki (the poet of the epic poem). He takes her in and eventually Sita bares two twin sons Kusa and Lava. Valmiki teaches them the entire poem of the Ramayana and has them recite it and sing it over and over.

Soon after a celebration is held for the 10,000-year reign of Rama as king. Again nearly the whole world rejoices and all of his friends from the great battle of Lanka have returned to speak of old times. Even Sita, her parents, Valmiki and the twins are there. Valmiki comes with the two twins and they recite the Ramayana to Rama as a present. The king is very happy to hear their singing and realizes that they are his sons. He asks for his wife Sita to come to him. Sita's mother the Earth comes and takes her daughter with her down into the ground. Rama is alone and eventually the party is over.

More time passes; we learn that members of Rama's family have passed away and Time visits Rama. Lakshmana accidentally butts into their conversation and must die for it. Lakshmana leaves and heads off to a river and "stops his breathing" and plummets into the water. Time and Rama have many discussions about life and things and eventually Rama passes away to the heavens with his loved ones. And the final moral of the tale is to know Rama and his actions and by reading this tale we are close to him and will reach good, purity and love just by knowing of his name. They even mention just by muttering his name we are closer to heaven, for Rama is the perfect soul. In fact even the immortal Hanuman knows well and is sad that his friend must leave, but knows of Rama in his heart and has his name on each of his bones.

Now, onto another extremely long and powerful tale, "Mahabarata", the "Ramayana" took up too much of my page space so I'm going to have to give some quick examples in it to give you the jest of the tale. First off, it's another tale of good versus evil when a family has been ripped apart by jealousy and power and a huge war erupts. In one corner you have the basic protagonists of The Pandavas versus the evil Kauravas. The Pandavas ( Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna and Karna) are all the sons of Gods: (Dharma, Vayu, Indra and the Sun God {respectively}).

Their uncle the blind King Dhritarashtra marries Gandhari and she bears a ball of cold metallic flesh that is cut into a hundred pieces. From those one hundred come her sons, the first being Duryodhana- who comes to destroy. As time passes, the Pandavas' mother, Kunti makes them all share one wife named Draupadi. The blind king gives his sons' land and they abuse it along with their power. They stir up a match in a game of dice, the gambling fool Yudhisthira loses terribly and the Pandavas are set in exile for twelve years out of their kingdom. They have to then hide for their entire thirteenth year, and if they're found they must live in exile for another twelve years.

So they pretend to be ascetics and hide, on the thirteenth year they all go through great changes. Yudhisthira wins at dice, Arjuna acts feminine and Bhima has a son with a demon. Arjuna and his unknown brother Karna (who is living with the Kauravas) learn about Weapons of mass destruction from the Gods. A war begins and warriors and generals are called to arms as family and friends are torn apart by the warring factions.

Before the battle, Arjuna and Krishna have a lengthy discussion about war and life in general. Arjuna doesn't want to kill his family, but Krishna tells him he must follow his Dharma of being a warrior and to fight evil. This whole conversation and a further in depth look into Hinduism can be found in the "Bhagavad Gita".

The children of the main characters start to die, along with the strong generals of the war. Eventually the whole entire Kauravas have been extinguished and the war ends in blood shed. Yudhisthira goes out on his own thirty-six years later trying to find happiness in Heaven. In Heaven, all of the Kauravas are in peace and happy. Then Yudhisthira goes to Hell and finds his family. I guess in the end there is no such thing as good or bad. What you choose in life and follow your Dharma is all that matters.

Now for the final piece of this paper, I'd like to point out the similarities I found in these two pieces and what aspects of Hinduism they taught. They both deal with a great battle between good and evil infusing history with mythology. The number one key aspect I picked up from these two pieces was the Law of Dharma and Kharma, how well you perform your Dharma. Dharma is The Way, the Law of Nature that whatever you put into life you're going to get back. Rama should have fulfilled his Dharma by taking over his father's throne and was why all the people of Aydohya were so pleased. And how Bharata refused breaking that rule of taking his brother's place at the throne and Rama wouldn't go against his father's wishes of banishment were also great Dharma examples.

The other aspect I picked up heavily was the solemn oath, or curse that you could put on somebody. Words seemed so much stronger back then- when you meant something; you better damn well truly mean it. When King Dasharatha making an oath to Queen Kaikeyi or when Brahma made a promise to Ravana that he couldn't be slain by God, Demon or Man. A word was the most solid pact ever, in terms of cursing you truly got cursed- like when Arjuna turns an Aspara when she can't seduce him. She claims "live amongst women as a woman", and he loses his virility but plays as the perfect disguise when his cousins come.

Or all the times Bhima swore he would rip out and eat the guts of Duhsasana and drink his blood and Draupadi will bathe her hair in his blood. Or Drona will only die when a man of truth lies. All of these phrases are set up in the stories to teach truth and to show off foreshadowing and meaning to words, something I think society has lost today.

That in a nutshell tells the "Ramayana" the "Mahabarata" their relations and what I got out of it. It's all about the Dharma baby.