HT Brunch Cover Story: 5 stories from the Ramayana you haven’t heard before

Regional languages are packed with delightful retellings of the Ramayana that include stories not found in the oldest documents

Valmiki composed the Ramayana a long time ago. We don’t know when. Archaeologists place the Vedic period to roughly 1000 BCE in the Gangetic valley. But the Sanskrit documents retelling the story are only 2,000 years old, suggesting a long period of oral storytelling. Fifteen hundred years ago, the Sanskrit epic came to be associated with kingship and we find the royal retellings such as Ramakien and Ramakirti as far as South East Asia where the story travelled with sea merchants.

The composition of the Ramayana in regional languages began about 1,000 years ago with a Tamil retelling by Kamban(Parth Garg)

“Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana is based on the Awadhi retelling by Tulsidas, but it is not the ‘National’ Ramayana ”

Most Indians, hear the Ramayana in local tongues, based on regional epics (Parth Garg)

The abduction of Sita as shown in the Odisha shadow puppetry known as Rabana Chaya

When a rooster cleared the air about The abduction of Sita by Ravana, Ram offered him a golden crown 

Sampati’s son seen with vanaras during the Puri Sahi Jatra

By helping the monkeys locate Sita with the help of his son, Sampati’s wings started to grow again

Wooden art from Jagannath chariot depicting Ram shooting an arrow

Ram eats the mango with bite marks, and not the one without bite marks, thus rejecting caste purity rules

Lakshman and the bears preparing Ram’s arrows as seen in an Odisha mural

“If Ravana returns Sita,” Ram says, “I’ll still keep my promise and make Vibhishana king, but not of Ayodhya instead of Lanka”

Ram shooting down Ravana’s umbrella as seen in Odisha Temple art

Even today, Odiya fishermen refer to jelly fish as Rabana-chatta, or Ravana’s umbrellas