Felicia Ooi; The Ramayana

The Ramayana is a smriti text which means it is a remembrance of an event and it is attributed to Valniki, who could be either a single author, or a person who compiled the works of many authors into a single text. The main character in the Ramayana is Ram; hence the name Ramayana, which literally means the "voyage of Ram" or the life of Ram.

Ram is portrayed as a very wise scholar who is the epitome of wisdom and intelligence. He is widely believed to be the reincarnation of Vishnu, one of the 3 main deities in Hinduism. He is shown to be the ideal man as the system in India at this time was one that valued knowledge above all things. The Ramayana is basically about Ram's life, and the cantos that we focused on involved the kidnapping of Sita (Ram's wife; the ideal wife) by Ravan (Ram's enemy) and about how Ram finally rescued her.

I did not really find it easy reading the Ramayana, it was slightly confusing even, perhaps because I had no idea about the many characters who were referred to occasionally throughout the cantos. Whereas in the Iliad, I had a little bit of background knowledge on the Greek gods/goddesses and the Greek heroes, which made me enjoy reading the Iliad.