You will find no rest for the long years of Eternity For you killed a bird in love and unsuspecting Valmiki could not forget the injustice of the bird’s death It inspired him to write an epic poem called the Ramayana This long poem tells the story of a prince called Rama Rama battles to rescue his wife Sita from an evil king called Ravana The poem teaches important values and lessons In his poem Valmiki also included descriptions of the gods and beliefs of the Hindu religion Hinduism one of the oldest religions of the world can be traced as far back as 2500 BCE or perhaps even further Its stories began in ancient Indian texts called the Vedas Valmiki drew upon these ancient stories and added to them Today Valmiki is known as a great poet of Indian literature The stories he told in the Ramayana are a part of Indian mythology a collection of myths or stories that are important to Indian culture Like all myths the 6
stories in the Ramayana include magical or supernatural characters and events They contain truths about life that more realistic-sounding stories cannot express The stories are important to Hindus around the world ONE SOUL MANY LIFETIMES In Hindu belief all living things experience a cycle of birth death and rebirth Hindus believe that all beings live many times through reincarnation After death each soul is reincarnated or reborn into a new body Over the course of a lifetime if a soul does good things that soul has good karma Souls with good karma will be rewarded when they are born into their next life However if a soul has done bad things bad THE VAITARANI Indian mythology states that when people die they cross the Vaitarani This river separates the living from the dead On the other side is a place called Pitriloka pronounced pih-trih-LOE kuh There people can meet their ancestors Souls remain in Pitriloka until they are reborn into their next lifetimes Each soul will cross the Vaitarani many times 7
karma will cause the soul to be punished in the next life To Hindus this process explains why even good people sometimes suffer Reincarnation plays a role in many Indian stories Many of the heroes of these tales are souls that are reborn into different lives For instance the god Vishnu was reborn ten times in different forms on Earth whenever he was needed to help restore goodness to humanity Rama is the hero of Valmiki’s epic Ramayana He is also the seventh avatar or form of Vishnu The god Krishna is another one of Vishnu’s avatars Vishnu Rama and Krishna all look different and lead different lives but they share the same soul THE FOUR YUGAS In Indian mythology history is divided into four periods of time called yugas The first was Krita Yuga This yuga was a nearly perfect time People were good and kind They shared thoughts and ideas freely They did not even need words to communicate During this yuga 8
AVATARS OF VISHNU Each Indian god may have many different avatars As Matsya left Vishnu lived as a fish As Kurma center he was a tortoise And as Varaha right he was a boar Vishnu’s other seven avatars were also completely different What abilities would each of these forms have given Vishnu humans were the size of giants They towered some 30 feet 9 m tall Next came Treta Yuga This period marked a change in humanity People had become highly intelligent But they were no longer as good They had lost one-quarter of their truth They were also shorter approximately 20 feet 6 m tall During the third era the Dvapara Yuga approximately one-half of truth had been lost 9
