Have a few questions for which will really appreciate if some answers be tossed around
1) Ravana, a rakshasa, post all his boons, basis his penance was equivalent to gods thus for him to get into this act of kidnapping Sita, a human, the species whom he didn't even feel fit to be capable of killing him, leaves me confused?
2) Shroopnakha, a female - her, nose cutting, though very subtly put can also be construed as an equivalent of losing one's dignity then why didn't Ravana avenge this disrespect by rather coming for Lakshman's head instead of planning the entire Sita kidnap? Feel it would have made more sense if he had come looking for Lakshman and when unable to find him, taken Sita captive, leaving a note with an old and incomprehensible Jatayu, located nearby
3) Hanumanji was given a task of just locating Sita thus as soon as this task was done, without anyone noticing him at Ashok Vatika, why didn't he just do the remaining recce of Ravana's lanka and then scurry off in the thick of the night instead of compromising the entire search effort by creating a menace, getting captured etc.
4) While on his way back, a drop of Hanumanji's sweat falls into the ocean and leads to the birth of his child through a fish, as one story goes; was it the first and only drop of sweat that fell of Hanumanji, during his entire lifetime?
5) Ravana, to have a love interest in Sita also loses me as I feel Sitaji being godess Earth, the creator, he, a Rakshasa, was, over time literally enamored by her aura, to the point of worship due to which he, along with others, were unwilling to let go of her, in exchange even willing to sacrifice everything they had, which they eventually even did
6) During the war that then commences, Ravana loses everyone including getting killed himself, while Ramaji's army suffers not even one major reportable loss; for all these Maharathi's who had pinned down the God's at their feet, to die such non-chalantly, makes little sense
I seriously feel that what gets portrayed and what happened actually is far from truth; much more complex in that manner is Mahabharat where every character is interweaved, where Gita finds its residence, where both sides suffer losses and eventually, Dharma triumphs over Adharma.
There are old books called śaṅkāvali that are full of questions like yours with answers from preachers. I haven't read any of them, so adhyātma will be missing from my answers.
Vālmīki's characters are not as idealistic as the ones on TV. Daśaratha pleads with Kaikeyī (maybe joking) that he could slay someone who shouldn't be slain, or release someone who should be slain, if it would make her happy. Bharata's soldiers enjoy partying so much that they don't want to find Rāma in the Daṇḍaka woods or go back to Ayodhyā. The monkeys feel grief and loyalty intensely, and then forget about it when they get drunk and mate, or just misbehave. The Rākṣasas deceive and attack everybody, including their own family members. Characters have moods and impulses, so their behaviour can be unreasonable or inconsistent.
1. Rāvaṇa thought that no human could kill him, but he still liked to challenge human kings to battle: Marutta, Duṣyanta, Suratha, Gādhi, Gaya, Purūravas, and Anaraṇya (Uttarakāṇḍa 18-20), until Nārada pointed out that he was wasting his time killing mortals who would soon die anyway. Being a Rākṣasa, Rāvaṇa also enjoyed humans for sex and meat.
When the Rākṣasī guards ask Sītā why she, a human, wants to be only the wife of a human, she says that a human shouldn't be the wife of a Rākṣasa (Sundarakāṇḍa 22.3-7, 23.3). That's her point of view, and the Rākṣasa point of view is that human females should be grateful if a Rākṣasa wants them for sex rather than meat. Rāvaṇa tells Sītā that she can be either his wife or his breakfast (Araṇyakāṇḍa 54.22, Sundarakāṇḍa 20.8-9).
Rāvaṇa collected females of many species, including the wife of Takṣaka - a poisonous snake (Araṇyakāṇḍa 30.13). Rāvaṇa's home contained Rākṣasī wives as well as princesses that he had carried off by invasion (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.5); among royal humans, sages, celestials, Gandharvas, Pannagas, Yakṣas, humans, Rakṣas, Daityas, and Dānavas, whenever he saw a pretty girl or woman, he killed her family and took her into his airplane (Uttarakāṇḍa 24.1-3), where they wept for their parents, siblings, children, husbands, and parents-in-law and cursed him to die for a woman. Rāvaṇa also tried to grab Vedavatī who was a human (Uttarakāṇḍa 17). These details are narrated to convey how rapacious Rāvaṇa is.
When the focus shifts to how romantic Rāvaṇa is, Rāvaṇa calls himself Sītā's slave and says that he has never bowed to a woman before (Araṇyakāṇḍa 53.32-34). The facts shift too, because Rāmāyaṇa is not a history, it's a poem intended to evoke emotions. The same sarga that begins with a room full of princesses collected by invasion ends by informing us that those women of kings, sages, ancestors, Daityas, and Gandharvas - and Rakṣas-girls - were under the influence of desire for Rāvaṇa, and not even one woman in Rāvaṇa's collection was won by heroic force, nor desired another man, nor had another man previously - except Janaka's daughter (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.65-66). Hanumat reasons that Sītā must be extraordinary, since the grand-natured Rāvaṇa made an ignoble effort for her (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.69).
2. Vālmīki describes Śūrpaṇakhā as mutilated (virūpitā) when she meets Rāvaṇa (Araṇyakāṇḍa 30.22), but he doesn't react to her injuries at all, nor does she mention them. Śūrpaṇakhā begins by saying to Rāvaṇa that he is distracted by vulgar pleasures and, without assigning spies, ignores threats to his territory, whereby he will soon lose control over his people. After she tells him that Rāma alone killed 14,000 Rākṣasas including Khara and Dūṣaṇa, Rāvaṇa asks her to describe Rāma, which she does, saying that somehow he allowed her to live, hesitating to kill a female. She then describes Lakṣmaṇa, and still doesn't mention her mutilation. Next, describing Sītā's beauty, she lies that she went to persuade Sītā to be Rāvaṇa's wife, but doesn't say what response she received. She just says that if Rāvaṇa wants Sītā, he should kill Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa for easy access. Rāvaṇa gets into his donkey-chariot, goes to Mārīca, and tells him that Rāma killed 14,000 Rākṣasas and deprived Śūrpaṇakhā of her ears and nose, so Rāvaṇa wants Mārīca's help to steal Sītā and then he'll kill Rāma at leisure.
From all of this, I infer that Rāvaṇa didn't care about Śūrpaṇakhā or her revenge, and she knew it, so she appealed to his insecurity and lust instead as motivations to kill Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa. It didn't work; Rāvaṇa's priority was sex, not revenge. Only after bringing Sītā to Laṅkā, Rāvaṇa sends eight spies to watch Rāma and try to kill him, telling them that he won't be able to sleep without killing his enemy (Araṇyakāṇḍa 52.17-53.1). Ten months later, Hanumat finds Rāvaṇa fast asleep.
3. You can read Hanumat's reasoning at Sundarakāṇḍa 39.1-12. He decided that out of the four approaches to an enemy (sāma, dāna, bheda, parākrama), only a show of force was appropriate. He would terrify the Rākṣasas so that they would surrender. Without compromising his specific goal, he would achieve the greater goal. The easiest way to provoke a great battle would be to destroy the garden.
4. This incident isn't in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, but ... Whoever imagines a miracle is free to imagine why it only happens once. Raindrops turn into pearls, but only if it rains while the moon is with Svāti nakṣatra, right? Saṃsvedaja babies may happen the same way. Or, you can imagine that Hanumat produced babies throughout his life with all sorts of excretory fluids, the way Vasiṣṭha's kāmadhuk cow Śabalā produced the Kāmbojas from her throat, the Pahlavas from her udder, the Yavanas from her sex-organ, the Śakas from her dung-organ, the Mlecchas and Harītas and Kirātas from her hair-follicles (Bālakāṇḍa 54.2-3).
5. See no. 1 above: wife or breakfast.
6. Plenty of monkeys died on Rāma's side. That's why he asked Indra to bring them all back to life (Yuddhakāṇḍa 108.5-13). The Rākṣasas died fighting a formidable enemy that had invaded their home. If you have a better idea, feel free to write your own version of Rāmāyaṇa. There are Jain versions in which the Rākṣasas only get captured because Rāma fights the war in a spirit of ahiṃsā ...
In mythology, there may not be any objective truth of "what happened actually" because myths by their very nature are invented, shared, and retold with embellishment to suit contemporary tastes. What dharma meant to the characters in Rāmāyaṇa or Mahābhārata may not be palatable to us today.
There is a school of thought that all these genres - rakshashas, vanaras, nagas, gandharvas,... represented different tribes/nations in Aryavarta. In his book 'The Vedic Age', Dr RC Majumdar, one of the most distinguished historians, listed the events of the Ramayan and Mahabharat, but made it a point, explicitly mentioning it, to delete all supernatural events. So for instance, while describing the Ramayan, events like the devas approaching first Brahma and then Vishnu, Hanuman returning w/ the Dronagiri mountain are deleted from the description
Incidentally, these divine touches are why these books are described as mythology rather than history, even though they were historical: the presence of gods and goddesses in them. When one is writing any history book, divine beings cannot be included since those proofs are generally not available to mortals. For instance, in western Anatolia, there is a place called Troy, and it is certain that the Trojan war actually happened. However, the reason Illiad is considered mythology as well is due to the description of gods and goddesses doing things: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite promising Paris different things to win over his endorsement, and Aphrodite promising him Helen once selected
I don't see an unlocked Help Thread here, so I'm posting my question here. It is somewhat Ramayan related, since the story of Ganga's descent to earth is a part of Balkand
I have been watching the serial 'Jai Ganga Maiya ki' on YouTube Tilak channel, namely the last part about Samrat Sagar and I've noticed that they've changed a lot of things from what we know from that Ramayan:
In the serial, Asmanjas is depicted as a yogi, who fakes being retarded. Maharani Kesani is shown as a warrior. Asmanjas is shown resisting marriage, being tricked into it, then Anshuman is depicted as being stillborn but revived by Kapila, court intrigues are shown by Sumati's father, Rishi Janhu is shown cursing the 60,000 princes b4 the Ashwamedha yagna is undertaken that they will be destroyed, and so on
What I was curious about: does anybody know the sources that this serial 'Jai Ganga Maiya ki' used to put together this story, since it obviously conflicts w/ the Ramayan?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH_UwLm2DQo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjsMfhPcWOE
There are old books called śaṅkāvali that are full of questions like yours with answers from preachers. I haven't read any of them, so adhyātma will be missing from my answers.
Vālmīki's characters are not as idealistic as the ones on TV. Daśaratha pleads with Kaikeyī (maybe joking) that he could slay someone who shouldn't be slain, or release someone who should be slain, if it would make her happy. Bharata's soldiers enjoy partying so much that they don't want to find Rāma in the Daṇḍaka woods or go back to Ayodhyā. The monkeys feel grief and loyalty intensely, and then forget about it when they get drunk and mate, or just misbehave. The Rākṣasas deceive and attack everybody, including their own family members. Characters have moods and impulses, so their behaviour can be unreasonable or inconsistent.
1. Rāvaṇa thought that no human could kill him, but he still liked to challenge human kings to battle: Marutta, Duṣyanta, Suratha, Gādhi, Gaya, Purūravas, and Anaraṇya (Uttarakāṇḍa 18-20), until Nārada pointed out that he was wasting his time killing mortals who would soon die anyway. Being a Rākṣasa, Rāvaṇa also enjoyed humans for sex and meat.
When the Rākṣasī guards ask Sītā why she, a human, wants to be only the wife of a human, she says that a human shouldn't be the wife of a Rākṣasa (Sundarakāṇḍa 22.3-7, 23.3). That's her point of view, and the Rākṣasa point of view is that human females should be grateful if a Rākṣasa wants them for sex rather than meat. Rāvaṇa tells Sītā that she can be either his wife or his breakfast (Araṇyakāṇḍa 54.22, Sundarakāṇḍa 20.8-9).
Rāvaṇa collected females of many species, including the wife of Takṣaka - a poisonous snake (Araṇyakāṇḍa 30.13). Rāvaṇa's home contained Rākṣasī wives as well as princesses that he had carried off by invasion (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.5); among royal humans, sages, celestials, Gandharvas, Pannagas, Yakṣas, humans, Rakṣas, Daityas, and Dānavas, whenever he saw a pretty girl or woman, he killed her family and took her into his airplane (Uttarakāṇḍa 24.1-3), where they wept for their parents, siblings, children, husbands, and parents-in-law and cursed him to die for a woman. Rāvaṇa also tried to grab Vedavatī who was a human (Uttarakāṇḍa 17). These details are narrated to convey how rapacious Rāvaṇa is.
When the focus shifts to how romantic Rāvaṇa is, Rāvaṇa calls himself Sītā's slave and says that he has never bowed to a woman before (Araṇyakāṇḍa 53.32-34). The facts shift too, because Rāmāyaṇa is not a history, it's a poem intended to evoke emotions. The same sarga that begins with a room full of princesses collected by invasion ends by informing us that those women of kings, sages, ancestors, Daityas, and Gandharvas - and Rakṣas-girls - were under the influence of desire for Rāvaṇa, and not even one woman in Rāvaṇa's collection was won by heroic force, nor desired another man, nor had another man previously - except Janaka's daughter (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.65-66). Hanumat reasons that Sītā must be extraordinary, since the grand-natured Rāvaṇa made an ignoble effort for her (Sundarakāṇḍa 7.69).
2. Vālmīki describes Śūrpaṇakhā as mutilated (virūpitā) when she meets Rāvaṇa (Araṇyakāṇḍa 30.22), but he doesn't react to her injuries at all, nor does she mention them. Śūrpaṇakhā begins by saying to Rāvaṇa that he is distracted by vulgar pleasures and, without assigning spies, ignores threats to his territory, whereby he will soon lose control over his people. After she tells him that Rāma alone killed 14,000 Rākṣasas including Khara and Dūṣaṇa, Rāvaṇa asks her to describe Rāma, which she does, saying that somehow he allowed her to live, hesitating to kill a female. She then describes Lakṣmaṇa, and still doesn't mention her mutilation. Next, describing Sītā's beauty, she lies that she went to persuade Sītā to be Rāvaṇa's wife, but doesn't say what response she received. She just says that if Rāvaṇa wants Sītā, he should kill Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa for easy access. Rāvaṇa gets into his donkey-chariot, goes to Mārīca, and tells him that Rāma killed 14,000 Rākṣasas and deprived Śūrpaṇakhā of her ears and nose, so Rāvaṇa wants Mārīca's help to steal Sītā and then he'll kill Rāma at leisure.
From all of this, I infer that Rāvaṇa didn't care about Śūrpaṇakhā or her revenge, and she knew it, so she appealed to his insecurity and lust instead as motivations to kill Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa. It didn't work; Rāvaṇa's priority was sex, not revenge. Only after bringing Sītā to Laṅkā, Rāvaṇa sends eight spies to watch Rāma and try to kill him, telling them that he won't be able to sleep without killing his enemy (Araṇyakāṇḍa 52.17-53.1). Ten months later, Hanumat finds Rāvaṇa fast asleep.
3. You can read Hanumat's reasoning at Sundarakāṇḍa 39.1-12. He decided that out of the four approaches to an enemy (sāma, dāna, bheda, parākrama), only a show of force was appropriate. He would terrify the Rākṣasas so that they would surrender. Without compromising his specific goal, he would achieve the greater goal. The easiest way to provoke a great battle would be to destroy the garden.
4. This incident isn't in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, but ... Whoever imagines a miracle is free to imagine why it only happens once. Raindrops turn into pearls, but only if it rains while the moon is with Svāti nakṣatra, right? Saṃsvedaja babies may happen the same way. Or, you can imagine that Hanumat produced babies throughout his life with all sorts of excretory fluids, the way Vasiṣṭha's kāmadhuk cow Śabalā produced the Kāmbojas from her throat, the Pahlavas from her udder, the Yavanas from her sex-organ, the Śakas from her dung-organ, the Mlecchas and Harītas and Kirātas from her hair-follicles (Bālakāṇḍa 54.2-3).
5. See no. 1 above: wife or breakfast.
6. Plenty of monkeys died on Rāma's side. That's why he asked Indra to bring them all back to life (Yuddhakāṇḍa 108.5-13). The Rākṣasas died fighting a formidable enemy that had invaded their home. If you have a better idea, feel free to write your own version of Rāmāyaṇa. There are Jain versions in which the Rākṣasas only get captured because Rāma fights the war in a spirit of ahiṃsā ...
In mythology, there may not be any objective truth of "what happened actually" because myths by their very nature are invented, shared, and retold with embellishment to suit contemporary tastes. What dharma meant to the characters in Rāmāyaṇa or Mahābhārata may not be palatable to us today.
Everything aside, Ravana ate humans? Yikes 🙄
