Indian Epics

Two thing stood out to me most in this last part. First, the devotion of Sita to Rama, as well as everyone's devotion to Rama. She had the chance to stay behind in splendor and wait for him to come back, and Lakshmana had the chance to stay behind and be treated as a royal, but they both followed Rama into the woods to face whatever was coming at his side. I was a little surprised by how ready a few people were to kill themselves when Rama didn't get to be king or when they found out that Dasaratha was dead (see the giant eagle), but that's just ancient devotion I guess. The second thing was the trickery of Soorpanaka, and the fact that all of her tricks in this story came because she, as the embodiment of evil, fell hopelessly in love for Rama, the embodiment of good. It was funny to read when she was talking to Ravana and trying to cover up her feelings - everything I've encountered so far has made me want to read the poem itself rather than just the prose version. ...

This is a depiction of Rama and Sita's wedding, the result of many years of preparation as hundreds of thousands of people had to migrate to the city for the wedding, and the stars had to align to the perfect position. I have just begun reading Narayan's The Ramayana  and am enjoying it immensely. The descriptions of the characters and the great tales of evil and heroism are fantastic, and Narayan does such a wonderful job of conveying the intense emotions in the original poetry through prose. My favorite part of the story so far has been the background for Rama not becoming king when we was meant to towards the end of Part A. The ultimate importance of keeping one's word that trumps even the love of the entire world, sending Rama into the forest, is something that I think we've certainly lost today, and something that Narayan conveys very well. I also like all of his descriptions of the relationships between the characters - there are some that are so closely ti...