The story covered in the workshop in the Weston Discovery
Centre is a short version of the simplified Ramayana outlined
below).
The epic story of the Ramayana involves prince Rama who was
married to a princess called Sita.
When Rama’s father wanted to stand down from the throne and
hand the reign over to his eldest son Rama, he was reminded of
two promises he had made to his second wife. He had promised
her that their son Bharata would succeed as king and that Rama
was to be sent into exile into the forest for fourteen years. To help
his father to make this difficult decision, Rama gave up the throne
and willingly left going into the forest with his wife Sita and his
half brother Laksmana. Sadly, stricken with grief, Rama’s father
died.
Rama’s half brother Bharata refused to take the throne and went
into the forest to look for Rama. Rama insisted on staying in the
forest to lead a simple life so Bharata returned to rule on behalf of
Rama.
One day whilst in battle, a female giant fell in love with Rama. To
punish the giant, Laksmana (Rama’s half brother) cut off one of
her ears and the tip of her nose. Upset and humiliated by this, the
giant turned to her brother, Ravana(the ten headed giant king)
for help.
Ravana decided to kidnap Rama’s beautiful wife Sita in revenge.
Rama went in search of his wife Sita and on the way met the
king of the monkeys. The monkey king’s wife had been seized
from him by his own brother, so Rama came to an agreement with
the king of monkeys. This agreement was that if he helped the king
get his kingdom and wife back, the king would help Rama.The monkey kingdom was attacked, the king’s brother was
defeated and the monkey king was reunited with his wife. To keep
his promise the monkey king agreed to help Rama.
The monkey king sent his minister Hanuman, who had magic
powers, to search Ravana’s land for Sita. To prove he was
helping Rama, Hanuman took Rama’s ring.
Hanuman found Sita on the island of Lanka and told her that
Rama was coming to save her. At first Sita did not believe
Hanuman thinking he was a demon in disguise. Hanuman was
able to prove he was telling the truth as he showed Sita Rama’s
ring.
Sinta was very happy, but the demon Ravana caught Hanuman
and set his tail on fire! In the end, Hanuman managed to escape
and went back to the forest to get Rama and Laksmana. They
returned with the whole monkey army to attack the island of Lanka.
The monkeys made a bridge over to the island and a terrible battle
took place. Finally Rama killed the demon Ravana and was able
to rescue his wife Sita!
When Rama found Sita, he was worried that she may no longer
love him. He thought she might have fallen in love with Ravana while she was his prisoner. Rama made Sita walk through fire to
show that she still really loved him.
Finally Rama and Sita, happy to be together again, returned to
Rama’s land with Laksmana. When they got there they were
greeted by Rama’s brother Bharata who immediately handed the throne back to Rama.
