Saturday, January 24, 2015

Week 3: Rama and Sugreeva (Reading Diary A)

This third section of Ramayana focused on the new relationship between Rama and the monkey Sugreeva (Sugriva). I had trouble keeping up with the timeline of this section. It seems like it's been at least a year since Sita was taken by Ravana by the time Sugreeva's search parties go out to find her. I didn't quite understand why Rama instructed Sugreeva to wait until after the rainy season to find Sita. While it would be more inconvenient, Sita being held captive by Ravana and forced to do who knows what for months on end while Rama waits out the rain.

My favorite part of this section was Lakshmana storming into Kiskinda to confront Sugreeva, Angada, and Hanuman. Both Lakshmana's and Rama's anger was pretty intense and the monkey's in Kiskinda could see that. The fear of everyone was almost comical at one man approaching the city, although when he knocks down the barricaded gates, I'm sure that would have been terrifying. It was also funny how instead of Angada going to meet Lakshmana, he runs to his mother and she, with a group of other women, surround Lakshmana until they can calm him and tell him what happened.
Lakshmana confronts Sugriva. Wikimedia
One other thing I wondered about this section was Sugreeva's relationship with Vali. In this epic, what people say is usually the truth, unless the narrator points out that they are lying, as they did with Soorpanaka last section. But it seemed weird to me that Rama would just take Sugreeva's word, who is a complete stranger to him, as to what happened between him and his brother. When Vali and Rama were monologue-ing before Vali's death, I expected Vali to tell a different side of the story that would make Rama question his quick loyalty to Sugreeva.

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