98 Fun Facts About Ramayana

Valmiki, the traditional author of the Ramayana, is revered by the title Adi Kavi, meaning what?

The first poet; some legends say Valmiki was once a robber before he turned to penance and became a sage.

Rama is regarded as an avatar of which Hindu god?

Vishnu, as his seventh avatar, born a man at the gods' bidding to put an end to the demon king Ravana.

Valmiki's Ramayana has about 24,000 couplets; which epic is roughly four times longer?

Mahabharata, which even retells Rama's story in brief, while the Ramayana tells it at great length.

Which kanda, the Ramayana's first book, covers Rama's birth?

Bala Kanda, in which the sage Vishvamitra takes the young Rama away to kill the demons ruining his sacrifices.

What does the name Ramayana literally mean?

It joins Rama with ayana, "travel", by an internal sandhi that lengthens the shared vowel.

Ayodhya, Rama's capital in the kingdom of Kosala, stands on the banks of which river?

Sarayu; Ayodhya on its banks counts among Hinduism's seven holiest cities because the epic places Rama's birth there.

Which of King Dasharatha's wives was the mother of Rama?

Kausalya, the eldest queen; after years without sons, Dasharatha held a fire sacrifice, and its offering let his wives bear four.

For how long was Rama exiled to the forest?

Fourteen years: Queen Kaikeyi claimed boons Dasharatha owed her to have Rama exiled and her own son Bharata crowned.

Which maidservant poisoned Kaikeyi's mind and urged her to claim her two boons?

Manthara, a hunchbacked maid, warned Kaikeyi that she and her son Bharata would be sidelined once Rama was crowned.

How did Rama win Sita at Mithila with Shiva's great bow?

Stringing it and breaking it: many princes had failed even to string the bow before Rama bent it until it snapped.

How did King Janaka find Sita?

In the earth while ploughing a field: King Janaka was tilling the ground for a sacrifice, and he adopted the baby he found.

Lakshmana, who followed Rama into exile, is considered an incarnation of which serpent?

Shesha, who came as Lakshmana, Rama's younger brother, and returned as Balarama, the elder brother of Krishna.

What did Bharata do when his mother won him Ayodhya's throne?

Ruled only as Rama's regent: he set Rama's sandals on the throne and governed from Nandigram until his brother came home.

Which demoness, Ravana's sister, lost her nose and ears to Lakshmana?

Shurpanakha, 'she whose nails are like winnowing fans', then turned to the demons Khara and Dushana for revenge.

Ravana lured Rama away from Sita using the demon Maricha disguised as what?

A golden deer: while Rama chased it and Lakshmana went to find him, Ravana carried Sita off to Lanka.

In what disguise did Ravana approach Sita's cottage to abduct her?

An ascetic seeking hospitality; once Sita welcomed him, Ravana dropped the disguise and carried her off to Lanka.

Which creature tried to rescue Sita from Ravana and was mortally wounded?

Jatayu, a vulture, was mortally wounded, and his brother Sampati later pointed the monkey search party toward Sita.

Rama helped Sugriva regain the throne of Kishkindha by killing which elder brother of his?

Vali, whose wife Tara warned him not to fight because Sugriva had Rama's backing.

Which book, called the heart of the epic, is devoted to Hanuman's leap to Lanka and his heroics there?

Sundara Kanda; on the leap, Hanuman had to get past sea demonesses who tried to swallow him.

What token did Hanuman give Sita to prove that Rama was alive?

His signet ring; when Hanuman brought back news of where Sita was held, Rama marched his army on Lanka.

Where in Lanka did Hanuman find Sita imprisoned?

The Ashoka grove, a garden of Ravana's palace, where Sita kept refusing his advances.

What did Ravana's court do to Hanuman after he was captured?

Set his tail on fire, and Hanuman turned the burning tail on the city, setting Lanka ablaze.

Which vanara, a son of the architect god Vishvakarma, is credited as engineer of the causeway to Lanka?

Nala; the chain of shoals between India and Sri Lanka is still called Rama Setu, or Adam's Bridge.

Which brother of Ravana defected to Rama's side and was installed as king of Lanka after the war?

Vibhishana; a temple legend says Rama gave him the image of Ranganatha, which he set down at Srirangam on the Kaveri.

Unable to identify the herb that would heal Lakshmana, what did Hanuman do?

Carried the whole mountain back, and its herbs healed not only Lakshmana but other fallen soldiers of Rama's army.

Ravana's brother Kumbhakarna was cursed to sleep for how long at a stretch?

Six months; the goddess Saraswati is said to have tied his tongue, so he asked Brahma for sleep instead of Indra's throne.

How many heads is the demon king Ravana usually shown with?

Ten, with twenty arms, and Rama's victory over him is what the festival of Dussehra celebrates.

Besides being a demon king, Ravana is described as a great scholar and a maestro of which instrument?

The veena; he is said to have played and sung to Shiva, and is credited with the hymn Shiva Tandava Stotra.

Ravana's flying chariot, the Pushpaka Vimana, was taken from which god, his half-brother?

Kubera, whom Ravana had driven out of Lanka before seizing the chariot for himself.

How did Sita prove her purity after Ravana's defeat?

By passing through fire unharmed, and only after that trial did Rama accept her back.

Which festival marks Rama's return to Ayodhya after his exile?

People are said to have lit rows of lamps to welcome him home, and his coronation is called Rama pattabhisheka.

The just reign of Ayodhya's king after his exile is remembered by what name, used for an ideal state?

Rama Rajya; Mahatma Gandhi borrowed the phrase for his vision of an ideal Indian society.

Which Uttara Kanda stories suggest it was added later?

Sita's abandonment and the killing of Shambuka: many scholars find both at odds with how Rama is portrayed elsewhere in the epic.

What are the names of Rama and Sita's twin sons?

Lava and Kusha; Valmiki taught them the epic, and the twins spread it by travelling and reciting it.

How did Sita finally leave the world in the Uttara Kanda?

It came after she reunited her sons with their father, as a final testimony to her purity.

Hanuman is traditionally regarded as the spiritual son of which god?

Vayu, the wind; as a baby Hanuman mistook the sun for a fruit and leapt at it, and Indra struck his jaw.

Valmiki is said to have burst into verse after a hunter killed what?

A mating crane: grief at the surviving bird's cries is said to have moved Valmiki to curse the hunter in verse.

Tulsidas's 16th-century Ramcharitmanas is written in which language?

Awadhi, an eastern Hindi dialect; Tulsidas chose it over Sanskrit to make Rama's story accessible to ordinary people.

Kamban's Ramavataram, a celebrated 12th-century retelling, is in which language?

References to the Rama story appear in Tamil Sangam literature centuries earlier.

The Ramakien, compiled under King Rama I, is a national epic of which country?

Thailand; after Burmese forces sacked Ayutthaya in 1767 and earlier versions were lost, the epic was rewritten under Rama I.

The Kakawin Ramayana, written around 870 AD, is a rendering of the epic in which language?

It was based not on Valmiki but on the Ravanavadha of the Indian poet Bhatti, and adds the clown-servant Semar and his sons.

Ramayana scenes are carved on the balustrades of which 9th-century temple complex in Yogyakarta?

The 14th-century Penataran temple in East Java carries similar reliefs.

In the Buddhist Dasaratha Jataka, Dasharatha rules from which city instead of Ayodhya?

Benares; in that Buddhist telling Sita is Rama's sister, and the exile lasts twelve years.

Which devoted son of blind parents did King Dasharatha shoot by accident while hunting?

Shravana; his grieving parents cursed Dasharatha to die parted from his own son, which came true after Rama's exile.

What stood on the Ayodhya site where the Ram Mandir was consecrated in January 2024?

The Babri Masjid, a Mughal-era mosque destroyed in 1992; a 2019 Supreme Court verdict granted the site to Hindus.

Which son of Ravana hurls the weapon that mortally wounds Lakshmana during the war in Lanka?

Meghanada, better known as Indrajit, 'conqueror of Indra', a title won by defeating the king of the gods.

Kecak, a chanted dance-drama retelling the Ramayana, comes from which Indonesian island?

Bali, where the German painter Walter Spies helped shape kecak into a Ramayana show in the 1930s.

Ramanand Sagar's hugely popular television Ramayan was first broadcast on which channel?

Doordarshan, which brought the series back during India's 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, when it again became the country's most-watched show.

In a beloved folk tale, which tiny creature did its bit to help the monkey army build Rama's bridge?

A squirrel pitched in with what little it could, and Rama stroked its back in thanks. The three pale stripes on Indian palm squirrels are said to be the marks of his fingers.

In a popular later tale, what did Hanuman tear open to reveal an image of Rama and Sita?

His chest opened to show an image of the couple on his heart, silencing the courtiers who had demanded proof of his devotion.

In later tellings of the Ramayana, what did Lakshmana put around the forest cottage to keep Sita safe?

A line in the soil, the Lakshmana Rekha, appears nowhere in Valmiki's original. In India the phrase now means any rule or limit that must never be crossed.

According to legend, the sage Valmiki is named for what, which grew over him as he sat meditating?

An anthill is valmika in Sanskrit. Legend says the former thief sat chanting a mantra for so long that the mounds rose around his whole body.

In many later tellings, Rama's final arrow strikes Ravana in which spot, where his nectar of immortality lay hidden?

His navel held a store of the nectar of immortality, a secret said to have been betrayed by the demon king's own defecting brother.

What simple food did the aged forest devotee Shabari offer Rama, having tasted each piece first in later tellings?

Wild berries, each one bitten to make sure it was sweet, were all she had. Rama ate them gladly, saying nothing could equal food offered with such devotion.

In a popular Ramayana tale, what was written on the drifting stones of the sea bridge to make them hold together?

Rama's name, written on each rock at Hanuman's suggestion, stopped the floating stones from drifting apart, so the causeway could finally take shape.

With Sita banished, what took her place beside Rama when he performed the great royal horse sacrifice?

A gold statue of her sat at his side, because the rite called for the king's wife and Rama would accept no one else in her place.

Janakpur, revered as Sita's birthplace and home to the Janaki Mandir temple, lies in which present-day country?

Nepal ended up with Janakpur when the 1816 Sugauli Treaty fixed its border with British India across the old Mithila region. The Indian town of Sitamarhi claims the same honour.

The animated film Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama was a co-production between India and which country?

Japan was home to Yugo Sako, the filmmaker behind the project, who discovered the epic while making a documentary in India and read ten versions of it in Japanese.

When serpent arrows bound Rama and Lakshmana on the battlefield of Lanka, whose arrival made the snakes flee?

Garuda, the king of birds and sworn enemy of every serpent, had only to appear for the living bonds to slither away and set the brothers free.

Ayodhya, the city revered as the birthplace of Rama, stands in which modern Indian state?

Uttar Pradesh holds Ayodhya, a city that older Buddhist and Jain texts call Saketa.

Rama Navami, celebrated each spring, marks which event in the life of Rama?

His birth is celebrated on the ninth day of the spring month of Chaitra, in March or April, as part of Chaitra Navaratri, the nine-night festival of spring.

In popular tellings, whose doubts about Sita's time in Lanka pushed Rama to send her into the forest?

A washerman voiced the doubt, and Rama, holding that a queen must stand above all gossip, had the pregnant Sita left in the forest.

Queen Kaikeyi was promised her two fateful boons after doing what for King Dasharatha?

Saving him in battle earned the promise: in one telling she kept a loose wheel of his chariot in place with her own thumb. She left the boons unclaimed for years.

What did King Dasharatha's queens share, handed up from the sacrificial flames, to conceive Rama and his brothers?

Celestial porridge rose from the altar in the hands of a radiant figure, and the king divided it among his three wives.

Sita, the heroine of the Ramayana, is worshipped as an avatar of which Hindu goddess?

Lakshmi is said to follow her husband into each of his earthly lives, reappearing in a later age as Rukmini, the wife of Krishna.

Ravana and his subjects in Lanka belong to which race of shape-shifting beings in Hindu mythology?

Rakshasas were pictured as fanged, flesh-eating giants who could fly, vanish and change their size at will.

Ravana's boon from Brahma made him invincible to every kind of being in creation except which one?

Humans were left out of the boon, and that single gap is why the gods needed a mortal prince to bring Ravana down.

In Indonesia, Ramayana episodes are a staple of wayang kulit, a traditional theatre performed with what?

Shadow puppets carved from leather are worked by a master called the dalang, who moves them between a lamp and a screen.

Which warrior sage challenged Rama to combat on the road home from his wedding to Sita?

Parashurama, himself revered as an earlier divine incarnation, came to recognise who the young prince was and withdrew to a life of yoga.

Which youngest son of Dasharatha, twin of Lakshmana, later slew the demon Lavanasura and became king of Mathura?

Shatrughna is the quietest of the four brothers until late in the epic, when Rama sends him against the demon and crowns him king of the conquered city.

Which elder of Sugriva's search party reminded Hanuman of his forgotten powers before the leap to Lanka?

Jambavan, the aged king of the bears, knew that a childhood curse had made Hanuman forget his strength until someone reminded him of it.

Which young vanara prince, sent as Rama's final envoy, dared Ravana's courtiers to shift his planted leg?

Angada promised that Rama's army would abandon the war if anyone could move him, and one courtier after another strained at the leg without budging it.

Which sage of the southern forests armed the exiled Rama with a divine bow, two quivers and a sword?

Agastya handed over the weapons at his hermitage, saying that a god had once used the very same bow to rid the world of evil.

Which wandering divine sage first told Valmiki of Rama's virtues, in the opening chapter of the Ramayana?

Narada was answering a question: Valmiki had asked whether a truly righteous man was still left in the world, and the visitor described Rama.

Which ancestor of Rama lends his name to Kalidasa's classical Sanskrit poem about the kings of the dynasty?

Raghu is Rama's great-grandfather in Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha, and Rama's epithet Raghava simply means a descendant of Raghu.

The Ramayana's monkey kingdom of Kishkindha is identified with which historic site in India?

Hampi, later the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, stands on the Tungabhadra river, which tradition equates with the epic's Pampa.

The Ramanathaswamy Temple at Rameswaram, where Rama is said to have prayed before crossing to Lanka, honours which god?

Shiva is worshipped there in a lingam that Rama himself is said to have set up, and the town counts among the four Char Dham pilgrimage sites of India.

From which forest retreat on the banks of the Godavari did Ravana carry Sita away?

Panchavati became the exiles' home after some ten years of wandering, and a district of the modern city of Nashik still goes by that title.

On which hill beside the Mandakini river did Rama first settle after leaving Ayodhya for exile?

Chitrakuta is where Bharata tracked his brother down with the whole army of Kosala and begged him, in vain, to come home and take the throne.

Which wife of the monkey chief Kesari is honoured as the mother of Hanuman?

Anjana gives her son his other popular title, Anjaneya, and several hills across India are claimed as the spot where she bore him.

The Hanuman Chalisa, Tulsidas's hymn to Rama's great devotee, takes its title from the Hindi word for which number?

The 40 quatrains, or chaupais, form the body of the hymn, framed by couplets at the start and end. Millions of Hindus recite it every day.

In the Ramayana, Hanuman vows to stay alive in this world for as long as what continues?

Rama's story is told somewhere at every moment, the reasoning goes, so Hanuman never dies: Hindu tradition counts him among the chiranjivi, the immortals.

To prove his strength to the doubting Sugriva, Rama shot one arrow clean through a row of seven what?

Sal trees, tall hardwoods of the Indian forest, were skewered one after another by the single shaft, proof enough that Rama could beat Sugriva's mighty brother.

In a popular telling, what did a boatman insist on doing before ferrying Rama over the Ganges?

Washing his feet was the boatman's playful condition: he claimed to fear that their touch, which had once freed the cursed Ahalya, might turn his boat into a woman.

What did Sita let fall among the monkeys on a hilltop as Ravana flew off with her?

Her jewellery, bundled in a cloth, landed beside Sugriva, who later showed it to a weeping Rama as proof she had been carried that way.

Which Indian novelist retold the Ramayana in a shortened English prose version based on Kamban's medieval poem?

R. K. Narayan, creator of the fictional town of Malgudi, wrote the book to keep a promise he had made to a dying uncle more than thirty years earlier.

Rama's war with Ravana fills a vast bas-relief gallery at which 12th-century temple in Southeast Asia?

Angkor Wat in Cambodia sets the Battle of Lanka on its western gallery beside the Kurukshetra War, the climax of India's other great epic.

Which Indian folk painting tradition is said to have begun with art King Janaka ordered for Sita's wedding?

Madhubani painting comes from the Mithila region of Bihar, where women traditionally made it with fingers, twigs and matchsticks as well as brushes.

Hindu tradition places the Ramayana in which genre of literature, alongside one other great epic?

Itihasa comes from a Sanskrit phrase meaning 'so indeed it was', which marks the epics out as accounts of the past rather than hymns or philosophy.

In some tellings, which elder sister of Rama was adopted by the king of Anga and married the sage Rishyasringa?

Shanta's husband went on to lead the very sacrifice that gave her father the four sons he longed for, so Rama owed his birth to his own brother-in-law.

Which mother of serpents tested Hanuman over the sea by insisting he could pass only through her mouth?

Surasa stretched her jaws ever wider as Hanuman grew, until he shrank to the size of a thumb, darted in and out again, and won her blessing.

Phra Lak Phra Ram, a Buddhist retelling of the Ramayana, is the national epic of which country?

Laos treats the tale as a jataka, an account of one of the Buddha's earlier lives, with its hero cast as the Buddha-to-be.

Which son of Hanuman is said to have been born after a sea creature swallowed a drop of his sweat?

Makaradhwaja is called after the makara, the sea beast that swallowed the drop while Hanuman cooled off in the ocean after setting Lanka ablaze.

Hindu tradition sets Rama's life in which of the four cosmic ages, the one before Krishna's?

Treta Yuga, the second age of the cycle, takes its name from the number three, and tradition places three divine incarnations in it, Rama the last of them.

According to a popular folktale, Hanuman smeared his whole body with what, hoping to lengthen Rama's life?

Vermilion, or sindoor, was what Sita wore in her parting for her husband's long life, so Hanuman reasoned that a whole coat of it would do even more.

Which weapon is the monkey god Hanuman almost always shown holding?

A mace, known as a gada, is Hanuman's weapon of choice, and wrestlers in northern India, who revere him, still train by swinging heavy wooden clubs of the same name.

In folk legend, which wife of Lakshmana slept through the whole exile so that her husband never needed rest?

Urmila took on her husband's share of sleep as well as her own, a sacrifice remembered as Urmila Nidra. She was a daughter of King Janaka, like Sita.

Which kindly demoness among Sita's guards in Lanka dreamt of Ravana's ruin and comforted the captive?

Trijata warned the other guards of what she had seen in her sleep, and later reassured Sita on the battlefield that her fallen husband was only unconscious.