Reading Notes: Ramayana C

For this week's reading, I finish up the Ramayana, Public Domain Edition. Part C ranges from stories number 41-60. The most interesting part of this story was the focus on Hanuman as a semi-main character. It depicts him on his journeys to find Sita, and in the beginning where he does not help Rama.

Perhaps more interesting is the beginning story of how Rama gains Hanuman's trust in the first place. It is never actually explicitly mentioned within these stories of Rama directly helping Hanuman as he had previously, but rather, Sugriva. This in turn leads to Sugriva being indebted to Rama. The thankfulness and admiration that everyone has for Rama is evident when Hanuman realizes that he might have burned down the entire down and Sita, where he would rather die than return a failure to Rama.

Also of interest is the seemingly odd restrictions placed on Ravana. There is substantial hinting that in his past, he was also treacherous, as in the first half of the Ramayana, it is mentioned that he remembered he could not take Sita against her will, and this time, it is reminded that he cannot kill Hanuman as he is an envoy of someone else. Ravana decides a lesser punishment can be dealt in the form of lighting Hanuman's tail on fire, but it is enough for Sita to simply pray to the gods that Hanuman not feel this pain for the punishment to go away.

Finally, the story switches between verses and paragraph form, with the paragraph form being far more condensed than the verse form, suggesting that while a lot of the verse form might lack content, it supplies something more to the reader as well.

Hanuman is a main focus of the story. Source: Wikipedia

Bibliography: Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition compiled from M. Dutt, R. Dutt, Gould, Griffith, Hodgson, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Oman, Richardson, and Ryder.

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