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Culture · The First Poem

The Rāmāyaṇa

A prince exiled by a promise, a wife carried over the sea, an army of monkeys, and a bridge built to the island of the demon king. A living atlas of the ādi-kāvya — its story, its people, the road it walks south, and the war that ends it.

A crowded battle before Laṅkā: the vanara host with Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa at the upper left, Rāvaṇa's many-headed champions on horses and white elephants — a dense Mewar-style painting on a green field
The battle at Laṅkā · Sāhibdīn & workshop, painted for the Mewar court, 1649–53 · British Library (Mewar Rāmāyaṇa) · public domain
Start here — if the epic is new to you

The Rāmāyaṇa is one of the two great Sanskrit epics of ancient India — the ādi-kāvya, the "first poem," told and retold across Asia for well over two thousand years. It is a single story, walked from beginning to end: a prince is turned out of his own coronation by a promise his father cannot take back; his wife is stolen away to an island fortress; and an army of monkeys helps him cross the sea to win her home. This page is an atlas of that story — read it in any order, at any depth.

  1. Read the Story first. Seven short books in order — each has a one-line version, and a fuller retelling if you want it.
  2. Look people up as you go. Every name on this page is in The People — search it whenever you lose track of who someone is.
  3. Then wander. The road south on The Journey map, the war movement by movement, the full Timeline, and the Ideas underneath it all.
kāṇḍa — a book of the poemrākṣasa — the demon folk of Laṅkāvanara — the monkey folk of the southā, ṣ, ṇ — the marks are pronunciation guides; read past them freely
Rāma enthroned with Sītā at his side, his three brothers standing around them, and Hanumān kneeling with joined palms at his feet
The whole story in one frame: Rāma and Sītā enthroned, his three brothers around them, Hanumān at his feet. Raja Ravi Varma press lithograph.
Rāma stands on the shore with his great bow as the sea-god Varuṇa rises from the waves — Raja Ravi Varma press print
Rāma
The exiled prince of Ayodhyā. The poem's measure of what keeping your word costs.
Sītā seated in the aśoka grove among rākṣasa women — Raja Ravi Varma, 1894
Sītā
His wife, carried off to Laṅkā. The epic turns on her endurance.
Lakṣmaṇa
The brother who chooses exile too, and never leaves Rāma's side.
Hanumān flies to the Himālaya for healing herbs, leaping across a mountain landscape — Mewar Rāmāyaṇa, 1652
Hanumān
The monkey who leaps the ocean — the poem's most beloved figure.
Many-headed Rāvaṇa enthroned in his court as the captured Hanumān is led before him — Mughal painting, 17th century
Rāvaṇa
The ten-headed scholar-king of Laṅkā, undone by one abduction.
The Story7 Kāṇḍas

On the text  This atlas follows the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa in the Baroda Critical Edition, with the Princeton translation of Robert Goldman and his collaborators for English. The Bāla and Uttara Kāṇḍas are widely held to be later additions to a core running from Ayodhyā to Yuddha; where a famous episode belongs to that later frame — or to Tulsīdās, Kamban, or folk telling rather than to Vālmīki — it is flagged, not folded in. Names use IAST diacritics.
The People
Ayodhyā & her kin Vanaras & allies Laṅkā Sages & the gods
The HousesThree descents

The epic sets three lineages against one another: the solar kings of Ayodhyā, descended from Ikṣvāku; the rākṣasas of Laṅkā, descended from the brahmin sage Pulastya; and the vanaras, fathered on the forest by the gods themselves. Rāma and Rāvaṇa are not opposites by birth — both come of ancient and honourable stock.

The JourneyAyodhyā to Laṅkā
Kosala & allied ground Hermitage / sacred Vanara country Rākṣasa countrySelect a station →
On the map  Every identification of an epic site with a modern place is traditional rather than archaeological, and several are disputed. The pins mark where long tradition has put these places; the coastline and rivers are drawn to true longitude and latitude so the shape of the journey — the long, deliberate movement south — is honest even where a single site is not certain.
The WarLaṅkā · Yuddha-kāṇḍa

The Yuddha Kāṇḍa does not count its days as the Mahābhārata counts Kurukṣetra's eighteen; the fighting is told in waves, each carrying a champion of Laṅkā out to meet the vanara host and each ending with his death. What follows are the book's movements in the order the Critical Edition gives them. Select one.

The giant Kumbhakarṇa, felled and bleeding on a yellow field, as blue-skinned Rāma draws his bow and vanaras look on
The death of Kumbhakarṇa · Sāhibdīn's workshop, Mewar Rāmāyaṇa, 1652 · British Library · public domain
After Laṅkā  Rāvaṇa dead, Vibhīṣaṇa is crowned in his brother's city, and Sītā is brought out of the Aśoka grove — to be told by her husband, before the assembled armies, that he fought for his honour and not for her. She enters the fire and Agni gives her back unburnt. The Puṣpaka flies north; the fourteen years are complete to the day; and the poem, in the book that follows, will not let the matter rest.
The Timeline

The whole arc in order — from the childless king's sacrifice, through the two boons and the fourteen years, to the war on the island and the long, unquiet aftermath. Colour bands mark the movements of the poem.

The IdeasWhat the poem is about

The Mahābhārata is a war story wrapped around a philosophy. The Rāmāyaṇa is something rarer — a tragedy built entirely out of promises kept.

On the paintings  Every image on this page is a real painting of the epic, credited where it appears: folios from the Mewar Rāmāyaṇa painted by Sāhibdīn and his workshop for Rāṇā Jagat Singh (1649–53, British Library); a 'Shangri' Rāmāyaṇa folio (c. 1700–10, Brooklyn Museum); a Pahari Daśaratha and Kaikeyī attributed to Nainsukh and an agni-parīkṣā of c. 1820; a Mughal Hanumān before Rāvaṇa (17th century); Hanumān's leap attributed to Paṇḍit Seu (c. 1720); oils and press lithographs by Raja Ravi Varma; and a company-school Rāma and Rāvaṇa from the Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0). All are in the public domain or under open licence, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Indosphere · Culture · Anchored to the Baroda Critical Edition & the Princeton Vālmīki · Variants flagged, not folded in