Can someone summarize the Ramayana for me please?

Ramayana

Ramayana was originally written by a sage Valmiki in the Sanskrit language and later on it was translated into other languages in different versions. The main story of the Ramayana is about Lord Rama. In short the Ramayana is about Rama who was born in a royal family and was supposed to be the king, but because of his step- mother, he was forced to exile from his kingdom for fourteen years. During this period his consort Sita was kidnapped by a demon called Ravan, who was the king of Lanka. Rama with the help of his brother, Lakshman, and an army of monkeys under the leadership of Hanuman, rescued Sita.

But the Ramayana isn't only about Lord Rama and his attempt to rescue his consort Sita. Ramayana is also about devotion, loyalty, family roles and respect to elders. The Ramayana does not begin with the life of Rama, but actually with the people on earth who suffer from the demon named Ravan. Ravan is a cruel king who terrorizes the people of earth, especially the religious people and prevents them from performing religious rituals. But Ravan is also a great devotee of the three Gods who rule the universe, Brahma; the creator, Vishnu; the preserver and Shiva; the destroyer and therefore has their blessings and assurance that they as Gods will not hurt him. But the people of the earth, who suffer from Ravan, go up to heaven to visit the Gods and ask for their help. The Gods decide that Lord Vishnu will incarnate as a human being on earth and destroy Ravan. They find out that king of Kosala named Dasrath who has three wives is childless and longing for heir. So Lord Vishnu incarnates as his older son.

The king's first wife Kausalya gives birth to Rama. His second wife gives birth to Lakshman and Shatrugan and his third wife Kaykeyi gives birth to Bharat. The four brothers are sent for education in an ashram. They four brothers were very close to each other even though they were stepbrothers. They return to their kingdom after completing education.

Rama gets married to Sita. Sita is an adopted daughter of another king. In order to win her hand, the contestant had to bend a bow, which belonged to Lord Shiva. Many could not even lift this bow. When Rama arrived he did not only bend this bow but also broke it and so got Sita's hand.

King Dasrath intended to inherit his kingdom to his eldest son, Rama. But Bharat's nanny gets jealous and goes to Bharat's mother and begins to incite her about what might happen of her if Rama becomes the king. Incited, Bharat's mother goes to the king and demands from him the two boons he had promised her sometime earlier in life. She demands to send Rama to exile in the forest for fourteen years and make her son Bharat the heir of the kingdom. King Dasrath who is in great dilemma and pain, eventually bows to her demands.

Rama accepts his father's decision without any argument, but the other brothers including Bharat get furious. Lakshman decides to join his brother in exile and so giving an example of brotherly loyalty. Bharat inherits the throne but after his father's death goes to Rama and tries to convince him to return. Bharat tell Rama that because he is the eldest son of the king he is the rightful heir of the throne but Rama refuses and claims that father boons should be respected. Bharat agrees to remain the ruler of the kingdom until Rama's return from exile and as a symbol to prove that the throne belongs to Rama he takes Rama's slippers and puts them on the throne.

The forest in which Rama arrived with his wife Sita and his brother was full of demons. A female demon, Surpanakha fall in love with Rama and she tries to seduce him. Rama being a loyal husband refuses to her flirts, so she tries to kill Sita. At this point Lakshman takes his sword and cuts the demon's nose. She goes to her brother, Ravan, and tells him of the disgrace that happened to her. Ravan decides to avenge this humiliation by kidnapping Rama's wife Sita. He even notices that she is very beautiful and desires her.

Ravan plans ways to far away Rama and Lakshman from Sita so that he can kidnap her. One day Sita sees a very beautiful deer and desires it. She urges Rama to get it so Rama goes deep into the forest to get it. As time passes and Rama does not return, Sita starts to get worried. After some time she hears a cry which she thinks is Rama's cry so she begs Lakshman to find Rama. Lakshman aware of the fact that something bad might happen to Sita, refuses to leave Sita alone. But Sita compels Lakshman to find Rama. Lakshman agrees but draws a line in front of their hut and begs his sister- in- law not to pass this line because it might be dangerous and sets off to search Rama.

When it is quiet dark a sage comes to the hut begging for food. Sita hears the begging of the sage and brings some food for the sage and so passes the line Lakshman had marked. When she gets closer to the sage she finds out that the sage is actually Ravan in disguise. Ravan kidnaps Sita and takes her to his kingdom Lanka. And so this basic plot of the Gods to have Rama to fight with Ravan takes place. On his way to Lanka, Sita struggles with him a lot, A vulture, who resides near Rama's hut, hears her cries and fights with Ravan. Ravan injures that vulture seriously. When Rama and Lakshman return, the vulture who is dying tells them that Ravan kidnapped Sita. Rama and Lakshman decide to find out Sita.

Rama and Lakshman need an army to find and fight Ravan and they get this help from the monkeys. The king of monkeys who was exiled by his brother gets Rama's help to fight and slain his brother. After regaining his throne the monkey king assigns one of his commanders, Hanuman to serve Rama in his assignment to find Sita. After some time the monkeys come across another vulture who tells them that Ravan has kidnapped Sita and taken her to his island kingdom, Lanka.

Hanuman who is capable of flying gets to Lanka after fighting some dangers in the way. He finds Sita in the garden guarded by female demons, in a depressed mood. He proves to her that he is Rama's messenger and offers to carry her back. But to vindicate her honor she prefers that Rama himself should rescue her. Hanuman promises that Rama will come and rescue her.

Hanuman decides to check the capability of Ravan's security forces. He begins to destroy the garden, provoking the security guard and hurting them. Eventually he is captured and brought to Ravan. Hanuman tells Ravan that he is Rama's messenger and demands from him to free Sita or else he will die. Ravan gets furious and at first intended to kill Hanuman, but because Hanuman is a messenger he decides only to punish him by burning his tail. Hanuman flies back to Rama not before setting fire to Ravan's city with his burning tail and extinguishes his tail in the sea.

After Hanuman's return, Rama plans his way to reach Ravan's island. Rama and his advisers plan a land bridge to Lanka. The monkeys bring tree and rocks from the forests and build the land bridge to Lanka. After arriving in Lanka they send a peaceful messenger to Ravan, but Ravan refuses. So a war begins in which both sides lose many forces. Even Rama and Lakshman get hurt. The monkeys also began to get weak because Ravan's forces use biological weapons, which weaken their senses. So a medical expert in Rama's forces claims that to neutralize this a special herb is required which exists in a far away mountain, named Mahodaya.

Hanuman flies to that mountain and finds out that the mountain is full of different herbs, so he brings the whole mountain to Lanka. Slowly the forces get back to their senses.

Eventually after many battles Ravan faces Rama and after two continuos days of battles Rama kills Ravan and visits Sita. But the Ramayana does not end here. The fact that Sita lived in another man's palace causes some rumors about her chastity. She is obliged to take a fire test in which she sits in a fire but comes out unharmed and therefore is purified from charges.

In the original version of the Ramayana, after Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala the rumors about Sita's adultery in Ravan's captivity continue and therefore the people disrespect her. So Rama, who is now the king, decides to banish Sita from his kingdom. In the forests she meets a sage named Valmiki, who later on wrote the Ramayana. In Valmiki's ashram Sita gives birth to two twins of Rama, Lav and Kush. These two children learn from Valmiki to sing the Ramayana as a poem and they go everywhere and start telling everyone the Ramayana, meaning Rama's story. They even arrive into Rama's court and tell him his story and so Rama recognizes his sons. He brings back his wife Sita who decides to prove her loyalty to Rama by asking Mother Earth to swallow her if she was loyal to Rama and so Mother Earth to testify her loyalty, opens up and swallows her and Sita disappears into earth. Later on Rama himself jumped in the river to end his life, followed by many.

The Rāmāyaṇa (Devanagari: रामायण) is an ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the poet Valmiki and is an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The name Rāmāyaṇa is a tatpurusha compound of Rāma and ayana "going, advancing", translating to "the travels of Rāma"[1]. The Rāmāyaṇa consists of 24,000 verses[2] in seven cantos (kāṇḍas) and tells the story of a prince, Rama of Ayodhya, whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon (Rākshasa) king of Lanka, Rāvana. In its current form, the Valmiki Ramayana is dated variously from 500 BCE to 100 BCE, or about co-eval to early versions of the Mahabhārata.[3] As with most traditional epics, since it has gone through a long process of interpolations and redactions, it is impossible to date it accurately. The Rāmāyana had an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry, primarily through its establishment of the Sloka meter. But, like its epic cousin Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana is not just an ordinary story. It contains the teachings of ancient Hindu sages and presents them through allegory in narrative and the interspersion of the philosophical and the devotional. The characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanumān and Rāvana (the villain of the piece) are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India.

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i believe that cute_filipina has narated the story.. :) i just want to add a different perspective of the story from zecharia sitchin point of view. the final battle of rama described about atomic weapon and the chariot (vimana) give us details on modern UFO. it is said that the original scroll of the epic (which has not completely decipher/found) contain instruction on building the UFO/aircraft...so, is it just a story?a legend? or is it the prove of our modern ancestor? it's for you to decide...

Ramayan is the identity of Hindu religion gives directive principles of individual living especially man and his relationships. From their Hindus have been practising one man marry one women only strategy. Unlike Muslims "one man for many women", it directs good individual philosophy.

Here is your answer, you owe me one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana

I think it is a story teaching Hindu also art & culture.

We are not here to do your homework for you. Research it yourself.

Ramayana:

Summary

The Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics,the other being the Mahabharata. The Ramayana tells about life in India around 1000 BCE and offers models in dharma. The hero, Rama, lived his whole life by the rules of dharma; in fact, that was why Indian consider him heroic. When Rama was a young boy, he was the perfect son. Later he was an ideal husband to his faithful wife, Sita, and a responsible ruler of Aydohya. "Be as Rama," young Indians have been taught for 2,000 years; "Be as Sita."

The original Ramayana was a 24,000 couplet-long epic poem attributed to the Sanskrit poet Valmiki. Oral versions of Rama's story circulated for centuries, and the epic was probably first written down sometime around the start of the Common Era. It has since been told, retold, translated and transcreated throughout South and Southeast Asia, and the Ramayana continues to be performed in dance, drama, puppet shows, songs and movies all across Asia.

From childhood most Indians learn the characters and incidents of these epics and they furnish the ideals and wisdom of common life. The epics help to bind together the many peoples of India, transcending caste, distance and language. Two all-Indian holidays celebrate events in the Ramayana. Dussehra, a fourteen-day festival in October, commemorates the siege of Lanka and Rama's victory over Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. Divali, the October-November festival of Lights, celebrates Rama and Sita's return home to their kingdom of Ayodhya

Prince Rama was the eldest of four sons and was to become king when his father retired from ruling. His stepmother, however, wanted to see her son Bharata, Rama's younger brother, become king. Remembering that the king had once promised to grant her any two wishes she desired, she demanded that Rama be banished and Bharata be crowned. The king had to keep his word to his wife and ordered Rama's banishment. Rama accepted the decree unquestioningly. "I gladly obey father's command," he said to his stepmother. "Why, I would go even if you ordered it."

When Sita, Rama's wife, heard Rama was to be banished, she begged to accompany him to his forest retreat. "As shadow to substance, so wife to husband," she reminded Rama. "Is not the wife's dharma to be at her husband's side? Let me walk ahead of you so that I may smooth the path for your feet," she pleaded. Rama agreed, and Rama, Sita and his brother Lakshmana all went to the forest.

When Bharata learned what his mother had done, he sought Rama in the forest. "The eldest must rule," he reminded Rama. "Please come back and claim your rightful place as king." Rama refused to go against his father's command, so Bharata took his brother's sandals and said, "I shall place these sandals on the throne as symbols of your authority. I shall rule only as regent in your place, and each day I shall put my offerings at the feet of my Lord. When the fourteen years of banishment are over, I shall joyously return the kingdom to you." Rama was very impressed with Bharata's selflessness. As Bharata left, Rama said to him, "I should have known that you would renounce gladly what most men work lifetimes to learn to give up."

Later in the story, Ravana, the evil King of Lanka, (what is probably present-day Sri Lanka) abducted Sita. Rama mustered the aid of a money army, built a causeway across to Lanka, released Sita and brought her safely back to Aydohya. In order to set a good example, however, Rama demanded that Sita prove her purity before he could take her back as his wife. Rama, Sita and Bharata are all examples of persons following their dharma.

This lesson focuses on how the Ramayana teaches Indians to perform their dharma. Encourage students to pick out examples of characters in the epic who were faithful to their dharma and those who violated their dharma. Mahatma Gandhi dreamed that one day modern India would become a Ram-rajya.

Main Characters of the Ramayana

Dasaratha -- King of Ayodhya (capital of Kosala), whose eldest son was Rama. Dasaratha had three wives and four sons -- Rama, Bharata, and the twins Lakshmana and Satrughna.

Rama -- Dasaratha's first-born son, and the upholder of Dharma (correct conduct and duty). Rama, along with his wife Sita, have served as role models for thousands of generations in India and elsewhere. Rama is regarded by many Hindus as an incarnation of the god Vishnu.

Sita -- Rama's wife, the adopted daughter of King Janak. Sita was found in the furrows of a sacred field, and was regarded by the people of Janak's kingdom as a blessed child.

Bharata -- Rama's brother by Queen Kaikeyi. When Bharata learned of his mother's scheme to banish Rama and place him on the throne, he put Rama's sandals on the throne and ruled Ayodhya in his name.

Hanuman -- A leader of the monkey tribe allied with Rama against Ravana. Hanuman has many magical powers because his father was the god of the wind. Hanuman's devotion to Rama, and his supernatural feats in the battle to recapture Sita, has made him one of the most popular characters in the Ramayana.

Ravana -- The 10-headed king of Lanka who abducted Sita.

Kaushlaya -- Dasaratha's first wife, and the mother of Rama.

Lakshmana -- Rama's younger brother by Dasaratha's third wife, Sumitra. When Rama and Sita were exiled to the forest, Lakshmana followed in order to serve.

Ramayana: A Summary

1. Dasharatha, King of Aydohya, has three wives and four sons. Rama is the eldest. His mother is Kaushalya. Bharata is the son of his second and favorite wife, Queen Kaikeyi. The other two are twins, Lakshman and Shatrughna. Rama and Bharata are blue, perhaps indicating they were dark skinned or originally south Indian deities.

2) A sage takes the boys out to train them in archery. Rama has hit an apple hanging from a string.

3) In a neighboring city the ruler's daughter is named Sita. When it was time for Sita to choose her bridegroom, at a ceremony called a swayamvara, the princes were asked to string a giant bow. No one else can even lift the bow, but as Rama bends it, he not only strings it but breaks it in two. Sita indicates she has chosen Rama as her husband by putting a garland around his neck. The disappointed suitors watch.4) King Dasharatha, Rama's father, decides it is time to give his throne to his eldest son Rama and retire to the forest to seek moksha. Everyone seems pleased. This plan fulfills the rules of dharma because an eldest son should rule and, if a son can take over one's responsibilities, one's last years may be spent in a search for moksha. In addition, everyone loves Rama. However Rama's step-mother, the king's second wife, is not pleased. She wants her son, Bharata, to rule. Because of an oath Dasharatha had made to her years before, she gets the king to agree to banish Rama for fourteen years and to crown Bharata, even though the king, on bended knee, begs her not to demand such things. Broken-hearted, the devastated king cannot face Rama with the news and Kaikeyi must tell him.

5) Rama, always obedient, is as content to go into banishment in the forest as to be crowned king. Sita convinces Rama that she belongs at his side and his brother Lakshman also begs to accompany them. Rama, Sita and Lakshman set out for the forest.

Bharata, whose mother's evil plot has won him the throne, is very upset when he finds out what has happened. Not for a moment does he consider breaking the rules of dharma and becoming king in Rama's place. He goes to Rama's forest retreat and begs Rama to return and rule, but Rama refuses. "We must obey father," Rama says. Bharata then takes Rama's sandals saying, "I will put these on the throne, and every day I shall place the fruits of my work at the feet on my Lord." Embracing Rama, he takes the sandals and returns to Aydohya.

6) Years pass and Rama, Sita and Lakshman are very happy in the forest. Rama and Lakshman destroy the rakshasas (evil creatures) who disturb the sages in their meditations. One day a rakshasa princess tries to seduce Rama, and Lakshmana wounds her and drives her away. She returns to her brother Ravana, the ten-headed ruler of Lanka (Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon), and tells her brother (who has a weakness for beautiful women) about lovely Sita.

Ravana devises a plan to abduct Sita. He sends a magical golden deer which Sita desires. Rama and Lakshman go off to hunt the deer, first drawing a protective circle around Sita and warning her she will be safe as long as she does not step outside the circle. As they go off, Ravana (who can change his shape) appears as a holy man begging alms. The moment Sita steps outside the circle to give him food, Ravana grabs her and carries her off the his kingdom in Lanka.

7) Rama is broken-hearted when he returns to the empty hut and cannot find Sita. A band of monkeys offer to help him find Sita.

Ravana has carried Sita to his palace in Lanka, but he cannot force her to be his wife so he puts her in a grove and alternately sweet-talks her and threatens her in an attempt to get her to agree to marry him. Sita will not even look at him but thinks only of her beloved Rama. Hanuman, the general of the monkey band can fly since his father is the wind, and Hanuman flies to Lanka and, finding Sita in the grove, comforts her and tells her Rama will soon come and save her.

8) Ravana's men capture Hanuman, and Ravana orders them to wrap Hanuman's tail in cloth and to set it on fire. With his tail burning, Hanuman hops from house-top to house-top, setting Lanka afire. He then flies back to Rama to tell him where Sita is.

9) Rama, Lakshman and the monkey army build a causeway from the tip of India to Lanka and cross over to Lanka. A might battle ensues. Rama kills several of Ravana's brothers and then

Rama confronts ten-headed Ravana. (Ravana is known for his wisdom as well as for his weakness for women which may explain why he is pictured as very brainy.) Rama finally kills Ravana.

10). Rama frees Sita. After Sita proves here purity, they return to Ayodhya and Rama becomes king. His rule, Ram-rajya, is an ideal time when everyone does his or her dharma and "fathers never have to light the funeral pyres for their sons."

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