Why Is the Rāmāyana Difficult for Western Readers to Understand?
The ancient Indian epic is not difficult because its story is complicated. The challenge lies in understanding the cultural, religious and moral world in which the story unfolds.
The Story Is Not the Problem:
The basic story is quite simple: Rama, the eldest prince of the ancient Kosala Kingdom in India, goes into exile to keep two promises made by his father. His wife Sita accompanies him and is abducted by Ravana, the evil king of Lanka. Rama searches for her and finds her with the help of the Vanaras, especially the bravery of Hanuman who becomes his ardent devotee. Rama rescues Sita by killing Ravana in a devastating war. Then Rama and Sita return home to the capital Ayodhya. Western readers can follow this story easily.
The difficulty comes from a few sources. 1) The first one is simply that the names of the characters are unfamiliar, and hard to pronounce. Keeping track of who is related to whom, where alliances stand, and so on becomes a problem. 2) The story appears to be a religious text for Hindus, which many readers are not interested in exploring. 3) The story is not told chronologically, but out of order, as various characters harken back to some element of the tale that began generations before; after such a long-ago story is related, the action snaps back to the present. A reader who is unfamiliar with the story then wonders “Where are we?” 4) Then there are the unfamiliar Indian/Hindu social customs, which an Indian reader would understand, but a non-Indian would not. There are no explanations in the original because the original audience was expected to know. The difficulty begins when one asks why the characters behave the way they do, especially the hero, who follows Dharma even at the sacrifice of his own self-interest. A modern Westerner would normally not react that way, and uneasiness stays in the mind as events progress.
Dharma Is Not Simply Duty:
To appreciate the Ramayana, one must have a good grasp on Dharma. The Sanskrit word, meaning ‘that which is upheld,’ describes a way of living that makes life good and worthy. Dharma encompasses all aspects of righteous living, including conduct, duties, rights, laws, and worship of deities, with the spiritual goal of liberation from the cycle of rebirth or achieving self-realization of the ultimate reality. Adharma—the opposite of Dharma—is non-virtuous action. Unrighteousness, wickedness, betrayal, discord, and immoral actions are all examples of Adharma.
For Rama, Dharma involves many things: obligations to father, family, kingdom, society, and moral order. The purpose of Valmiki in writing the Ramayana was to exhibit the behavior and acts of an ideal man according to the Hindu religion, namely those of Rama. Rama cannot ignore the instructions of his Dharma and perform only those actions that benefit him. The fact that dharmic obligations can conflict with personal interests, and that Rama follows them, might disturb the Western reader. Judging Rama according to modern individualistic ideas can lead to misunderstanding and difficulty. One sees this right at the beginning, when Rama goes into exile for fourteen years to keep the promises given by his father. Those promises were explained to him by Mother Kaikeyi. Rama only asks her, “Is that all you want me to do?” He was willing to do whatever else she might desire. Rama explains to his brother that “Mother is like a God to us, so her words must be obeyed.”
The Gods and the Human World Are Interwoven:
Western readers may instinctively separate religion and mythology, and the mythology’s impact or connection to humans. In the Ramayana, they are all connected. The Greek mythological stories are based on the likes, dislikes, and tyrannical wishes of the gods, and have no relevance to humans in the modern world; even those gods don’t exist anymore. But that is not the case in India. Gods like Vishnu are as alive today as they were in Rama’s time, and their roles have remained the same. The Ramayana is fully alive, and its instructions for a dharmic life are followed even today. The divine beings, supernatural events, extraordinary powers, and human beings and their decisions and actions all belong to the same narrative universe.
The Ramayana Characters Display Difficult Behaviors:
In the Ramayana, the characters are not ideally perfect or absolutely bad. Rama is not simply a “Good Guy” and Ravana a “Bad Guy.” Rama is compassionate and noble, but some of his decisions can trouble a modern reader. Rama killed the Vanara king Vali while hiding behind a tree, which was against the warrior principle; besides, Vali was not his declared enemy. Rama admitted his fault and said he would have to pay for that. Karma will be at play for him too. Most of all, his unacceptance of Sita after winning the war would baffle any Western reader, as would his sending a pregnant wife to the hermitage without any consultation with anyone.
Similarly, Ravana was not an all-out evil in the Western sense. Ravana is a powerful, learned and accomplished king. He was highly educated in sacred texts, he invented a musical instrument, and Vedas were chanted every day in his palace. His only great defect was his uncontrollable desire for power and sensual pleasures. He abducted Sita not because he wanted her, but to punish Rama for insulting his sister. Unfortunately, he fell in love with her at first sight and could not give her up. This complexity is what makes the story difficult to read and, at the same time, worth reading.
Rama is an Avatar:
An understanding of this comes from understanding why Valmiki wrote the story and will help the Western reader appreciate it. Rama’s birth as an avatar of Vishnu was to establish a righteous kingdom on earth, which had become adharmic because of Ravana’s evil actions. Not only does he have to kill the evil actor, but he also must establish the moral kingdom. He must be a just and virtuous king. Every citizen must be valued and treated with equal respect, and all citizens must also become dharmic. He must set an example of how that is achievable. That is why he sacrificed his personal life for the sake of his subjects. He sent his wife to exile when he found that his subjects were doubting her chastity. He did that because he believed that a king’s duty is to keep his subjects in peace and contentment, not the other way around. Western readers may not be accustomed to, and may be surprised by, this kind of behavior from their heroes.
No Cathartic Ending Western Narrative Expects:
Western storytelling—going back to Aristotle’s Poetics—generally wants resolution: the hero’s trial produces growth, reunion, or clear tragedy, and the audience gets emotional release either way. The Rāmāyana’s ending refuses this shape. After Rama rescues Sita and kills Ravana, the story doesn’t simply end in reunion. There is no condemnation of Rama for treating Sita the way he did, questioning her chastity, on three occasions, the way a modern reader might expect a text to expound against injustice. The epic holds both things at once—Rama as the ideal man, and Rama as the person who did this to his wife—without resolving the tension into a clean verdict.
Reading the Ramayana with a Western Eye
The purpose of reading the Ramayana for a Westerner is twofold: First, a Western reader is not to accept everything in the epic uncritically, nor to judge it immediately by modern Western standards. One should also remember that the characters are not always meant to behave like modern people. The expectations surrounding marriage, family loyalty, kingship, obedience, honor, husbands’ and wives’ responsibilities to each other, women’s roles in society, and individual freedom were different.
It is important to enter its world first, to understand its assumptions, values, and imaginations, and then ask what it has to say to us today. This also helps us understand why all Hindu Indians learn the story from childhood. Why do they follow it with some kind of devotion? Are the lessons they derive applicable to Westerners in a culture that pushes individuality? As India becomes more connected to the global world, both as a people and for commercial reasons, it is necessary to recognize the values that drive its people. So, understand the world of the story first; then decide what you think about it.
Want to explore the Rāmāyana further?
The Rāmāyana for Western Readers: The Legend behind Diwali retells the ancient epic while providing the cultural and mythological context that can help readers unfamiliar with the Indian tradition enter its world.
About Debu Majumdar
Debu Majumdar is the author of The Rāmāyana for Western Readers, What Did the Buddha Teach?, Sacred River: A Himalayan Journey, Night Jasmine Tree, and the Viku children’s books. Please click below to know more about him.
