Mama Ramayanayana
( My story of
Ramayana- A three year saga. )
A
humble request to my
friends , fans and admirers.
I would like
to jot a few lines regarding me
and the story of Rama. It was from my father that I learnt
the Ekasloki Ramayana
Aadho
Rama thapo vananu gamanam, Hathwa mrugam kanchanam,
Vaidehi
haranam, jatayu maranam, Sugreeva sambhashanam,
Bali
nigrahanam, samudhra tharanam, Lanka pureem dahanam,
Paschad
Ravana Kumbha karna madanam, Ethat ithi Ramayanam
Once
Rama went to forest,
He
chased the deer,
Sitha
was kidnapped,
Jatayu
was killed,
There
were talks with Sugreeva,
Bali
was killed,
The
sea was crossed,
Lanka
was burnt,
And
later Ravana and Kumbha karna,
Were
also killed.
This
in short is the story of Ramayanam.
It was again
from him as a baby that I heard the story of Ramayana .It was possibly in the
fifth standard that I learnt the Sri
Ramodantham , the story of Ramayana which strangely started from
the birth of Ravana to Visravas
and from then on I have been
reading several Ramayana
books in several versions. I found that the greatness of Rama as a human being attracted me a
lot . In 2000 when I started translating stotra rathnas , I stumbled
on several stotras(prayers)
based on this great story . Some of
them are:-
1.Samkshepa Ramayana - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra1.htm
2,Ragothamashtakam - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra2.htm
3.Nama Ramayanam -
http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra4.htm
4.Rama Narayana Sthuthi (Malayalam ) - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra19.htm
5.Sri Rama
Keerthanam - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra26.htm
6.Pasurappadi Ramayanam (Tamil)- http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/pm5.htm
7.Gayatri
Ramayanam - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/pm32.htm
8.Sri Ramodantham - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/pm3.htm
9.Saptha rishi Ramayanam - http://stotrarathna.blogspot.in/2012/04/saptha-rishi-ramayanam.html
10.SAmkshepa
Sundara Kandam - http://stotrarathna.blogspot.in/2009/07/samkshepa-sundara-kandam_20.html
11.Raghu Veera
Gadhyam- http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra31.htm
12,Sri Rama Mangalasasanam - http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/ra14.htm
I had also earlier translated an Upanishad called Rama Rahsya Upanishad (http://www.celextel.org/upanishads/atharva_veda/ramarahasya.html
) which
is the part of the Vedas and which extols the greatness of Rama , indicating that the holy name “Rama” was much ancient than Ramayana itself. Recently God Rama
wanted me to translate three versions of Ramayana. They were:-
1.Translation of Adhyathma Ramayana from Malayalam.
It was
in April 2012 that one of my friends requested
me to translate Adhyathma Ramayana
of Thunjathu Ezhuthachan from Malayalam , which was itself a translation
from Sanskrit, so that it can be read
during the Karkidaga Masa.It had 6 Kandams , 119 chapters and 4200
verses. I took it up for translation
and completed it in 4
months. http://rajathathas.blogspot.in/.
Later I found that I was the only who has translated this great book in to English and put in the web .My search
also indicates that though there is an English book
translating Adhyathma Ramayanam from Sanskrit to English, there was no translation of this
extremely popular Malayalam book.This Ramayana is a transcreation
of Valimiki Ramayana supposed to be authored by the great Veda Vyasa. Rama by that time was considered as full
Avathara of Vishnu and there
are more than ten prayers addressed to
Rama by various characters of Rama
including Kousalya, Khara, Khabanda, Sabari and so on . And
the first great Malayalam poet translated
in to Malayalam poem , as if it was related by a parrot .Even today a copy
of this book is preserved like a treasure by every Hindu Malayali in his home
. It is read every year with
great reverence in the Karkidaga montha fondly called by Malayalis as the “Ramayana month”.
2.Translation of Valmiki Ramayanam from Sanskrit.
It was in the
month of April 2013 that my friend Sri Lakshmanan of
Celextel who requested me to take
up the translation of Valmiki Ramayanam in to English . I was reluctant . I told him that I may not live to see its completion but
I started translating it and completed it by August 2014. This great book
had 24000 verses
in six Kandas with 534 chapters
, the great epic already there were 6-7 translations available in the web. Here are a few of
them:-
THree volumes
Translation
verse by verse
Translation
by Ralph T.H.Griffith
Another great
translation
Another great
translation
Another translation in English verse
It is very
important to note That sage Valmiki
was a contemporary of Rama ,In fact Rama met him while going to
Dandakaranya. When he was searching for a suitable hero
for writing an epic , sage Narada
suggested Rama as the suitable
hero. The meter of what he wrote was
based on the wailing of a female
Krouncha bird when its mate was killed
by a hunter .There is not a single instance
of prayer addressed to Rama in the
entire book .People do respect him but they do not pray him. The only prayer in that book is Adithya
Hrudayam addressed to the Sun God . No
temples are indicated any where .There is a mention of Sandhya Vandana being performed by Sita . When Rama wants to do obsequies to his late
father , he offers fruits and meat
available in the forest as the sacrificial offering . A pooja of housewarming was conducted by killing a deer .I am telling all these things to
indicate that Rama was considered as a human being and the worship in temples had
not become popular at that time .This book
also has a very detailed description of the geography of India and very detailed listing of its flora.
My translation can be found in
3.Translation of Kamba Ramayana from Tamil
Kamban
considered as the emperor among poets
in Tamil is supposed to have lived in 8th
centaury AD. He was essentially a poet rather than a story teller. His
trancreation of Valmiki Ramayana , which
he preferred to call it as Ramavatharam (The incarnation of Rama) was perhaps the first epic that was translated in to Tamil. It has 10368 verses in 95 chapters of six Kandas.Though he
acknowledges the source of the story to Valmiki , he had almost rewritten the
story. As a Tamil poet , he followed the
great traditions of Tamil Grammar
in writing an epic. A great philanthropist called
THiruvennai Nallur Chadayappa
Vallal financed his venture .The grateful
Kamba mentions about him in various
places in the epic.In fact he is picturized as the one who
handed over the crown to sage Vasishta
during carnation of Rama .The great
poet could never leave out any chance
for pretty long descriptions in various
places .He mentions that Kausalya went
to the temple of Ranganatha (the family deity of Dasaratha) as soon as she heard about Coronation of Rama . He made
various changes in the story of Valmiki
. People believe that there
were various protests when he
wanted to dedicate it Lord Ranganatha
of Sri Rangam temple . There is a belief that he was compelled to get certificates from various learned
people for doing that , There is also a
story that the king did not want Kamban to use words which people do not commonly use.
Kamban changed the names of all the characters of Ramayana to suit the limited alphabetical
list in Tamil as well as to suit the
Tamil Grammar. Ofcourse he had borrowed
certain meters of poem writing from
Sanskrit in certain places . My
translation of Kamban’s great epic was started in the month of January 2014
and had been completed on !5th January
2015 and this can be found in
There are no on line references of English translation
of Kamba Ramayanam available in the web
and though many people have
started doing it. Most of the prose translation available are abridged versions of the original . I found a reference saying that so far only the first 4000 verses have been translated in to English.
This journey
of mine in the great ocean of Ramayana spanning for three long years had almost changed my personality. Due to age
whenever , I did not feel confidant , I
used to ask my friends in the face book and
in google plus to pray for me
.Not only they did but wrote to me
encouraging me .My grateful
thanks to all of them.
I do not
guarantee total freedom from
mistakes in these translations because I
did all alone and I again was the only
one who proof read it . I request that
my future generation of youngsters to whom I wrote this , read it , correct it and
further improve it .Here is the greatest wealth of India which I am passing to you all with the hope
and request that you would preserve and improve the treasure further and
pass it on to your next generation. I would like to thank God Rama and
his great devotee Hanuman for choosing
an ordinary person like me to do this job.May God bless you all .
