As we last left our hero
he was in search of his captured love, Sita.
In search of Sita, Rama
and Lakshmana found a monkey lying injured on the ground intertwined in a
thick bush of thorny vines. The two ran to his aid and helped remove him from
the wicked thorns. They provided him with medicine and bandages. After they had
helped him, he revealed himself to be Sugriva, A Monkey King of the Monkey
Kingdom.
He told Rama about
his evil brother, Vali, who had taken over the Kingdom and left him for dead.
Sugriva then told Rama and Lakshmana that if they would help him defeat his
brother and regain his crown that he would grant them one favor of anything
they needed. Rama had heard of the Monkey Kingdom before, a beautiful
place filled with waterfalls of glistening blue water and trees full of the
sweetest fruit, but knew that none of this would aid in his search for Sita. None the less, Rama decided to help the desperate monkey.
Upon arriving at the
palace, Sugriva masked the men in a monkey disguise in order to be able to walk
through the city without causing a scene. They pretended Sugriva was their
prisoner and took him to the palace where Vali lived. As soon as they saw Vali, Rama
pulled out his golden bow and shot Vali before his guards could defend him. The monkey kingdom was once again in
the hands of Sugriva!
Since Rama found no need
for Sugriva's favor, he and Lakshmana packed up their things to go. As they were
about to leave, Lakshama overheard Sugriva talking about how pleased he was with
his growing army that protected the city. Lakshmana ran to Rama and told him
the great news. Rama was thrilled and immediately went to the king. The king
was more than happy to send his army to help Rama in his search. Rama thanked
the Gods for his good Karma and went on his way.
When they found Ravana's
Palace, the two brothers and their army planned an ambush. They surrounded the
city and attacked. As soon as Ravana realized the war had begun, he sent his
powerful brother with their army to fight Rama's monkeys. The epic war
commenced and many lives were lost.
Rama did not want to lose any more lives, so he
marched to Ravana and challenged him to a duel. Since Ravana had powers beyond
Rama, he knew that there was a possibility that he would die but he knew it was
the only way to free Sita. As the fight progressed, Ravana delivered some bad
attacks. Rama was near death when a God who was watching over him delivered a
weapon from his own armory. Rama mustered up all of his strength and used his
new weapon to fire a flaming arrow into Ravana's eye and through his head. The
two fought for their armies with all they had but in the end Rama was
victorious! He found Sita and took his queen back to his village where he was
named King once again!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note:
This post is a continuation of the story I told from Week 2
The Golden Bow. The two heroes are the same and they are still in search of Sita. The story line follows the story of Ramayana pretty well but omits some things that I didn’t like such as the controversy of the way Rama killed Vali. I wanted the hero in this story to be unblemished or almost God-like because, after all, he is an avatar of Vishnu. I also changed the scene of the brothers finding Sugriva. I gave the brothers disguises when they go through the monkey kingdom because no humans are in the monkey kingdom. I wanted to change the story line of Rama helping Sugriva twice, instead of just once, in order to justify asking for an entire army because that is a large request. I also left out the ending of the story where Sita is cast out, Lakshmana dies, and Rama becomes Vishnu again because I wanted more of a happy ending story. The names are once again true to the actual story. In order to follow the suggested topic of a descriptive setting, I added much detail into the place that the heroes found Sugriva and also the Monkey Kingdom.
