Ramayana Quotes

Valmiki, Vyasa and Kalidasa are the Indian equivalents of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. The story of Rama, the ideal son and ruler, Sita, the ideal wife, Bharata and Lakshmana, the ideal brothers and Hanuman, the ideal devotee, has been so beautifully stated in the epic poem of Ramayana that even in the remotest village of India, even the most illiterate man, woman or child is familiar with the characters and situations in the story. The credit for this goes to the poetic and dramatic genius of Valmiki. (Valmiki)

Valmiki (14th - 15th century B. C.), the author of the epic Ramayana, bears comparison with Homer.

Valmiki

The current language Pāṇini describes is very close in structure to the late Vedic found in certain Brāhmaṇa texts. As noted earlier, scholars have recognized other varieties of Sanskrit. Epic Sanskrit is so called because it is represented principally in the two epics, Mahābhārata ("Great Epic of the Bhārata Dynasty”) and Rāmāyaṇa ("Romance of Rāma”). In the latter the term saṃskṛta ‘adorned, cultivated, purified (by grammar)' is encountered, possibly for the first time with reference to the language. The date of composition for the core of early Epic Sanskrit is considered to be in the centuries just preceding the Common Era.

Pāṇini

Tulsidas wrote 12 books, but, by far, the most important is the Ramacharitamanas (the holy Lakes of the Acts of Ram), a Ramayana written in old Hindi (Avadhi) couplets. The book was written under the direction of Hanuman himself. It is read all over North India, and particularly during the time of the Ramlila. It is sung aloud in large groups for devotional purposes.

Tulsidas

It can be said without reservation that Tulsidas is the greatest to write in the Hindi language. Tulsidas was a Brahmin by birth and was believed to be a reincarnation of the author of the Sanskrit Ramayana, Valmiki.

Tulsidas

Friend Monkey is really my favorite of all my books because the Hindu myth on which it is based is my favorite - the myth of the Monkey Lord who loved so much that he created chaos wherever he went. ... when you read the Ramayana you'll come across the story of Hanuman on which I built my version of that very old myth. I love Friend Monkey.

P. L. Travers

I chose to rewrite it in poetry because the original Ramayana was in poetry- the fact is, it's sort of been corrupted into prose. In its original form it was an epic poem rather like the Iliad or works of that sort. Rather than traditional poetry, it was a verse novel, without a traditional structure. What I most wanted to do was to preserve the essential musicality of the lines. Especially as the Ramayana like so many stories, was based on a fundamentally oral tradition.

Daljit Nagra

He then goes a step further and briefly imposes a Freudian reading on the text, a reading outdated and crude even in the current Western context of cultural criticism. He says the depiction of 'the other' in Ramayana can be understood as a projection of the unfulfilled sexual desires of traditional Indians. .... The motive of applying a totally alien framework, viz., the Freudian one, to a traditional Hindu text is something that is questionable.

Rajiv Malhotra

When the Ramayana was being shown as a serial on TV, Leftist and progressive artists, led by doughty warriors like A.K. Hangal and Dina Pathak, organized a march in Bombay to protest against this "communal" act of Doordarshan (Rama being a pre-Islamic Indian hero, any serial on him would obviously be a "communal" one). Addressing a rally at the conclusion of the march, Dina Pathak bitterly castigated Doordarshan for showing another "communal" item on its network-a report of the archaeological discovery, by Dr. S.R. Rao, of the remains of ancient Dwarka, under the sea, off the coast of Gujarat (Dwarka, having sunk under the sea long before the birth of Islam, any report on it would obviously be a "communal" one). Need we say more?" (TALAGERI 1993:32-34).

Shrikant Talageri

It is surely more important to discover what he [Valmiki] had in mind when he wrote the work [Ramayana] and how he intended his readers to study and interpret it. From this standpoint, there is hardly any doubt that his intention was to delineate Rama as an avatar.

Valmiki

He [Válmíki] was the son of Varuna, the regent of the waters, one of whose names is Prachetas. According to the Adhyátmá Rámáyana, the sage, although a Bráhman by birth, associated with foresters and robbers. Attacking on one occasion the seven Rishis, they expostulated with him successfully, and taught him the mantra of Ráma reversed, or Mará, Mará, in the inaudible repetition of which he remained immovable for thousands of years, so that when the sages returned to the same spot they found him still there, converted into a valmik or ant-hill, by the nests of the termites, whence his name of Válmíki. (Valmiki)

Ratnakar, the bandit, became the poet Valmiki. Once when he tried to rob a sage, of his meagre belongings, he was told that no one else but he would suffer the consequences of his misdeeds. Repentant and reformed, he asked the sage for the way out of sin. He was told to recite Mara, mar (reverse of Rama). The bandit sat in penance and recited the mantra and forgot the world. An anthill enveloped him. When he was dug out, he was a realised soul and called Valmiki (one who came out of Valmike - Sanskrit for anthill). The urge to write Ramayana was triggered by Valmiki's sensitive reaction to the wailing of a bird, whose mate was killed by a hunter. The ideal society portrayed so realistically in the Ramayana by Valmiki made Gandhiji name the Utopia he envisaged for India: Rama Rajya!

Valmiki