Courtney Lum

I enjoy reading the Ramayana not for the conventional purposes, but because I find it so interesting how the text isn’t just an epic tale of capture, war, and a tragic hero, but that it actually is a text that provides spiritual guidance and moral values. The Ramayana is an extremely complex and terribly long text that doesn’t fit the structures of an epic (for it doesn’t start in medias res, but actually starts from the birth of Rama and the death of him), but since it’s one of a kind is placed into that category. The fact that this is a spiritual foundation for the religion of Hinduism, there is a lot of information regarding how to live your live (dharma) and how to achieve spiritual means in this life. Even though the Ramayana tells the story of a man making a journey, it also explains how to live your life in accordance to Hinduism.