Valmiki’s epic literary creation Ramayana has formed the foundation of India’s social culture for the last two thousand years.  Presented as a story, the book helps map individual issues in society through the context of characters in the book with the positive message that an ethical person is the winner in the world.  It narrates the story of the patient and heroic Rama, the loyal and supportive brother Lakshmana, the feminine and motherly Sita and the doings of a monkey-like character Hanuman.  With a supporting cast of about a hundred strewn in twenty-four thousand stanzas, the epic is considered the most successful literary creation in the world.

Various poets and cultures have adopted the story to create educational models for the local societies in different regions.  Each of these retellings is brilliant in its own modification of the plot and the characters suiting to the context.  Versions exist in Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Odia, Prakrit, Pali, Thai and Khmer.  The Avadhi version produced in seventeenth century by the musician poet Goswami Tulasi Das has been most popular among the regional versions.  Titled SriRamacharitamanasa, the book is treated as the auspicious religious literature for the most of north and central India.  Like the original Valmiki, Tulasi Das is keen on education and social reform.  The tradition formed to create reading-festivals through a serial reading of the book in twenty-four hours.

While Valmiki Ramayana is academic, the SriRamacharitamanasa is popular.  It is said that the indentured labors from India to the Caribbean in nineteenth century smuggled the first copy as a literature “novel” since any religious literature was prohibited.  The book has formed a part of the religious observance among the expatriates from India in different areas of the world.  The first observance of a full reading in Boston was arranged by Sri Prabhulal Rathi and his wife Smt Drupadi Rathi with the support of Late Smt Sarladevi Dayal.  The event caught on quickly among the local families and annual readings continued to be held in multiple homes through the years.

The first public reading of the Sundarakanada from Valmiki’s Ramayana and the complete reading of SriRamacharitamanasa was started at SriLakshmi Temple in 1994 with the efforts of Trustee Bharat Dave and of the priest Pandit Krishna Bhattar.  Dr. Bijoy Misra (a later Trustee) helped organize the event by arranging the readers and preparing the logistics.  It became the largest religious observance event at the time in the area.  Special flower decoration, musical rhythm and the beauty in literature have made the event memorable to the devotees of Hiindu faith and students of literature.  The Sundarakanada reading is done in the evenings spanning for nine days and the SriRamacharitamanasa reading is completed in a marathon session of twenty-four hours.

Next week the Temple celebrates twenty-fifth year of the event with the readings scheduled from March 17 through the SriRamanavami celebration on March 25.  Particularly, the complete reading of SriRamacharitamanasa will commence at 1 PM, Marc 17 and end at 1 PM, March 18.  All are invited.  Texts in Devanagari and Gujarati will be available.  Arrangements will be made for staying over the night for interested readers.  On behalf of the Temple, we encourage all devotees to participate in this milestone event.  Please call the Temple at 508-881-5775 to help sponsor the event.  Please write to Bijoy Misra at misra.bijoy@gmail.com or Prabhulal Rathi at pjrathi@gmail.com on questions of logistics.  Please check the announcement at https://www.srilakshmi.org/Weblink/RamaNavami-Akhada%20Ramayanam%20Parayanam%202018-25.pdf

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