vede rāmāyaṇe caiva purāṇe bhārate tathā
ādāv ante ca madhye ca hariḥ sarvatra gīyate

“Throughout the Vedas and everywhere in the Rāmāyaṇa, Purāṇas, and Mahābhārata, from the beginning to the middle to the end, the praises of Lord Hari are sung.” (Hari-vaṁśa 3.132.95)

Śrī Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is one of the foundational scriptural authorities on all aspects of Vedic and Vaiṣṇava philosophy, culture and discipline. As such, this great literature has been a source of knowledge and inspiration to Vaiṣṇavas of the four authentic disciplic successions that stem from the Supreme Lord Himself, and is much loved among all who accept the authority of the Vedic scriptures, even if they happen to be Śaivas, Śāktas and so on. What to speak of them, even some Buddhists, who officially deny any allegiance to Vedic teachings, revere the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, for it is a true sage’s direct perception in samādhi about Rāma, the very personification of dharma—rāmo vigrahavān dharmaḥ.¹

But, Rāma is more than that. According to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the cream of all Vedic literature, He is an incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, the Original Supreme Personality of Godhead:

ete cāṁśa-kalāḥ puṁsaḥ kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam
indrāri-vyākulaṁ lokaṁ mṛḍayanti yuge yuge

“All of the above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original Personality of Godhead. All of them appear on planets whenever there is a disturbance created by the atheists. The Lord incarnates to protect the theists.” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.3.28)

And this subject has been clarified by the highest authority in the universe, Lord Brahmā himself:

rāmādi-mūrtiṣu kalā-niyamena tiṣṭhan
nānāvatāram akarod bhuvaneṣu kintu
kṛṣṇaḥ svayaṁ samabhavat paramaḥ pumān yo
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who manifested Himself personally as Kṛṣṇa and the different avatāras in the world in the forms of Rāma, Nṛsiṁha, Vāmana, etc., as His subjective portions.” (Brahma-saṁhitā 5.39)

But we should not materialistically imagine that the incarnation is substantially inferior to the source of incarnations, for that is also clarified by Lord Brahmā in the same Brahma-saṁhitā (5.46):

dīpārcir eva hi daśāntaram abhyupetya
dīpāyate vivṛta-hetu-samāna-dharmā
yas tādṛg eva hi ca viṣṇutayā vibhāti
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

“When the flame of one candle is expanded to another candle and placed in a different position, it burns separately, and its illumination is as powerful as the original candle’s. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, expands Himself in different forms as Viṣṇu, who is equally luminous, powerful and opulent. Let me worship that Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda.”

Therefore, based on the above example of the flame of a candle, we should understand that Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, Nṛsiṁha, Nārāyaṇa and other Viṣṇu forms of the Supreme Lord are all substantially the same persons, though in particular forms He chooses to exhibit more of His qualities and in other forms He chooses to exhibit less of His qualities.²

As such, Śrī Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa expounds the transcendental nature and supremacy of Lord Rāma by identifying Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead Nārāyaṇa and prescribes, in several ways, the absolute necessity of surrendering unto Him. In each of His forms, the Supreme Lord exhibits a certain mood, and in the form of Rāmacandra, the son of King Daśaratha, He is famous as maryādā-puruṣottama, the Supreme Person who follows Vedic dharma meticulously for the welfare of one and all.³

Since Lord Rāmacandra meticulously adheres to Vedic dharma, the Rāmāyaṇa incidentally reveals the intricate details of the divine system of varnasrama-dharma in its original pure form.

Though there are innumerable renditions of Rāma-līla, Śrīla Prabhupāda notes that the Rāmāyaṇa of Maharṣi Vālmīki is the definitive and authentic account of the pastimes of Lord Rāma.

Though the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is book that is popularly read even now, it has been intellectually abused almost to the extent the Bhagavad-gītā has been abused. Rāma has been often misunderstood to be “the ideal man,” or “a human symbol of the sacred divine,” and so on, with all such hodgepodge ideologies culminating in philosophies of impersonalism or voidism. But neither the Bhagavad-gītā nor the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa are meant to be food for one’s own mental speculations on the nature of reality. Like the Bhagavad-gītā, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is meant to be understood through the paramparā system, or an unbroken chain of spiritual masters and spiritual disciples stemming from the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu Himself. Otherwise, like the Bhagavad-gītā, the simple message of the Rāmāyaṇa cannot be understood.

The central teaching of the Rāmāyaṇa is that Rāma is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the eternal Supreme Lord of all living entities, who because of their aversion to unmotivated and uninterrupted service unto His lotus feet are being subjected to the continuous cycle of birth, death, old age, and disease; therefore, it is in their best interest that they surrender unto His lotus feet. And the Supreme Personality of Godhead is ever ready, out of affection for the living entities, His dear children, to award them all kinds of protection from the miseries imposed upon them by material nature. We should not commit the mistake of thinking that Lord Rāma is a conditioned soul like us or even a liberated soul; He is none other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, ever independent and free from the influence of māyā.

Notice this famous statement of Lord Rāma:

sakṛd eva prapannāya tavāsmīti ca yācate
abhayaṁ sarva-bhūtebhyo dadāmy etad vratam mama

“It is My vow to all creatures that if one only once seriously surrenders unto Me, saying ‘My dear Lord, from this day I am Yours,’ I shall protect him from all creatures.” (Rāmāyaṇa 6.18.33)

This is clarified in the Bhagavad-gītā (18.66 and 7.14):

sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.”

daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante māyāṁ etāṁ taranti te

“This divine energy of Mine consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it.”

And so when the great Rāmāyaṇa is understood through the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā, which is acknowledged by the ācāryas to be the definitive essence of all Vedic scriptures, through the paramparā system, the cardinal teachings of the Rāmāyaṇa become obvious. This might appear strange to those who read such scriptures merely out of academic interest, disregarding paramparā authority; but the end result is that they will continue to be unable to realize the transcendental truths taught in the scriptures and clarified by the standard Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyic authorities such as Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya and Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

The question may arise, “What is the necessity of translating the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa again? There are already a number of English translations of the entire epic.”

Our straightforward answer to this that Śrīla Prabhupāda, the founder-ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness explicitly desired a detailed multi-volume edition of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, like his detailed edition of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:

“I have a great desire to translate the Valmiki Ramayana because that is authorized. […] I wish to translate Valmiki Ramayana exactly in the way I have done Srimad-Bhagavatam.” (Letter to Dinanatha N. Mishra dated 26 July 1975)

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s edition of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam contains the Sanskrit text in devanāgarī, its roman transliteration, Sanskrit-English equivalents, a translation and an explanation (“purport”) summarizing the commentaries on the Bhāgavatam by standard Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyic representatives. And he wanted to present the Rāmāyaṇa in the same manner.

And so, in this edition of Śrī Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, as followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda, we have endeavored to present:

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam on Rāma-līlā: A very brief summary of the Rāmāyaṇa, Canto by Canto, as found in the Sanskrit text of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Sanskrit-Engish equivalents, translations and purports.

Canto Summary: An annotated unabridged translation, Canto by Canto, of a Sanskrit summary of the Rāmāyaṇa from the Madhva-sampradāya—the Saṅgraha Rāmāyaṇa—by Nārāyaṇa Paṇḍita, the famous biographer and junior disciple of Madhvācārya. The Madhva-paramparā considers this to be a brief explanation of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. The unique feature of this work is that it takes care to reveal the supremacy and transcendence of Lord Rāmacandra at every step. It is based on the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa as well as Śrī Madhvācārya’s summary of Rāma-līlā in his Mahābhārata-tātparya-nirṇaya.⁴

Chapter Summary: A brief summary of each chapter, derived from the commentary.

The Sanskrit text of the Rāmāyaṇa in devanāgarī, its roman transliteration, Sanskrit-English equivalents and a translation. The Sanskrit-English equivalents that we have presented here are contextual and not literal in order to make sure that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the English equivalents and the translation. The roman transliteration is in italics; the Sanskrit-English equivalents are in italics and regular typeface; the translation is in bold.

Commentary: An annotated abridged English rendition of a celebrated classical Sanskrit commentary on the Rāmāyaṇa from the Rāmānuja-sampradāya—the Rāmāyaṇa-bhūṣaṇa—that also happens to be the only commentary that covers the entirety of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa from the four Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas. The commentator Śrī Govindarāja states that it is based on the 18 cardinal teachings of the Rāmāyaṇa that Śrī Rāmānuja had learnt from one of his gurus, Śrī Śailapūrṇa. Faithful and serious Vaiṣṇavas will be delighted to learn about the various aspects of the process of surrender unto the Lord, a subject that surfaces every now and then in the commentary. The commentary appears in regular typeface after the translation.

Note: A brief excerpt from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā As It Is in every chapter of the Rāmāyaṇa to elucidate a particular portion of the text or commentary. Prabhupāda has mentioned that the teachings of the Rāmāyaṇa can be understood easily by reading Bhagavad-gītā: “If you read Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, that is also as good as reading Bhagavad-gītā. But if you read Bhagavad-gītā, you understand the transcendental science very easily. There is no difficulty. So we shall advise [everyone] to read Bhagavad-gītā.” (Lecture on Bhagavad-gītā 7.1 on 9 October 1975 at Durban)⁵ Whenever required, for the sake of additional clarification, statements in other books of Śrīla Prabhupāda and his predecessor-ācāryas have been added in. Notes are explicitly identified and placed after the commentary.

We have presented our own annotation in the form of footnotes to clarify the Canto Summary and Commentary.

How will this detailed presentation of the Rāmāyaṇa be of help to practicing Vaiṣṇavas, especially in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement?

From the commentary, it is clear that the Rāmāyaṇa does not teach us to follow dharma or religiosity to attain artha or economic success and kāma or sensual satisfaction in this life or the next life; it is factually focused on teaching all aspects of the process of surrendering unto Rāma, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to help us attain liberation from this miserable world of material existence. Therefore, this edition, unlike most of the other editions of Rāmāyaṇa which generally tend to push the readers away from Lord Rāma due to misconceptions regarding Him and our relationship with Him, helps the faithful and devoted reader understand the true nature of Lord Rāma as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as the Lord of all demigods headed by Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva, and pushes the reader to surrender to Him.

Incidentally, one will also find that this scripture presents a wealth of significant detail regarding the workings of civilized humanity, that is, a community of human beings who accept Vedic authority, follow certain common spiritual duties and additionally follow the specific duties of the four varṇas and four āśramas (with the women following their specific duties) in such a manner that they are released from the clutches of māyā within one lifetime.

This will then be of special interest to members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement established by Śrīla Prabhupāda, for he had stated that the first half of his mission was to establish bhāgavata-dharma or the process of devotional service to Kṛṣṇa and that the second half of his mission was to establish varṇāśrama-dharma. It is also well-known that he had stated that he was able to personally accomplish the first half of his mission, and that he bequeathed the second half of his mission to his followers. Since the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa presents all aspects of varṇāśrama-dharma in detail as demonstrated by the Supreme Lord and His associates, it should be of special interest to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s faithful followers.

Yet another feature of this edition is that each chapter of the Rāmāyaṇa has an ink drawing depicting an incident in it, along with colored cover paintings for each printed volume. We sincerely hope that this will stimulate the devotees of the Supreme Lord to remember the pastimes of Lord Rāmacandra and His associates in pure devotion.

Though we have presented this edition primarily for those who have read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, it will be useful for one and all interested in successfully surrendering themselves unto the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead under the guidance of more advanced Vaiṣṇavas with the ambition of developing pure love for Him.

Regarding the Sanskrit text of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa that we have presented here, in general, we have presented it as it is found in the Madhva Vilas edition published from Kumbhakonam in 1911. It was itself a critical edition, with variant readings noted in every page. Since the text in this edition is generally attested by Śrī Govindarāja’s commentary, we have preferred this to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute’s edition. When the printed text in the Madhva Vilas edition appears to be different from the commentator’s reading, we have adopted the latter.

We do have plans to add further content in future editions: (1) a systematic compilation of quotations from the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda on Lord Rāmacandra in the appendix, (2) excerpts from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as translated and explained by Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples in notes to every chapter, (3) quotations from the writings of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s predecessor ācāryas on Lord Rāma in notes, (4) a brief explanation of how every chapter of the Rāmāyaṇa teaches one or more of its eighteen cardinal teachings in footnotes, and (5) a critical review of selected remarks by other commentators on the Rāmāyaṇa in the appendix.

Criticisms along with suggestions for the improvement of this edition of Śrī Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa are invited.

On behalf of Rūpa Raghunātha Vāṇī Publications,

Vidvān Gaurāṅga dāsa

ruparaghunathavani@gmail.com

www.ruparaghunathavani.com