Learning the Background.
I am not very familiar with Indian culture, so I decided to watch the Ramayana Introductory Videos to learn about the story before we begin reading it next week. In the first video, Crash Course Mythology: Ramayana I was able to get an understanding of the significant characters that I will be reading about in the story and the video also gave me some general information about the plot line of the story. Figuring out the king's family and having a family map of how everyone is related will be helpful when reading the story. Here is what I have so far. The King, Dasaratha, has three wives, Kausalya, Kaikeyi, and Sumitra. Dasaratha and Kausalya have one child Rama that stands out and curiously is blue (I am still unsure of why he is blue.). Dasaratha and Kaikeyi have two children that are twins Satruchna and Lakshmana. It seems that Lakshmana is very loyal to his brother Rama and helps him throughout the story. I did not figure out what Satruchna does during the story. Dasaratha and Sumitra have one child, Bharata, who takes over the throne after his father dies and banishes Rama to the forest for fourteen years. Once I figured out the set-up of the family I learned about the villain Ravana who kidnaps Rama's wife Sita and tries to force her to marry him. Rama and Lakshmana with the help of a monkey king and an army go and rescue Sita by defeating Ravana's army. The second film, Ramayana, and Diwali explained how the story of Ramayana is essential to the holiday of Diwali. Indian culture celebrates Diwali because it was the day that Rama and Sita were able to return home after being banished for fourteen years. When Rama and Sita returned home, the City was excited and celebrated their homecoming, so they still honor the hero's homecoming to this day with Diwali. In the final video, Ramayana Epic: Live I learned about how popular the story of Ramayana is to the rest of the world. The story of Ramayana has been told in many different forms through plays, puppets, comic books, and even TV shows it has been created to all different types of media. The video explains how it might just seem like a cultural or religious thing for Indian culture, but it has spread to more than that culture and is genuinely an epic that is still taught and read today by many different ethnic groups.
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Image: Ramayana monument at the garden in Prema Mandir. Source: Wikipedia by Saisumantha532
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