The best source to know about Rāma is the Rāmāyaṇa. Rāma’s story was first narrated by Vālmīki, hence Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa is the oldest among the versions available today. The story has been retold innumerable times in many different languages and from many different perspectives.
How we view Rāma depends on how we view the Rāmāyaṇa. There are at least three ways the Rāmāyaṇa can be studied—as history, as literature, and as scripture.
Rāmāyaṇa as History
History deals with the past and as such is separated from us in time. It is about the existence (sat) of things as they were once upon a time, a record of a bygone era. We can study Rāmāyaṇa as a retelling of what happened probably a few thousand years ago.
The historical narrative gives us a fascinating glimpse into the kind of society that existed then, its cultural norms, its practices, and the various events in Rāma’s life. If history is thought of as a procession of past events, what we see will depend on where we stand and watch the procession. How Rāma’s story was viewed in the 10th century, for instance, is likely different from how we view it today. We stand in the 21st century and our perspective is influenced by the conventions and expectations of our present time.
History also deals with personalities. The personalities in the Rāmāyaṇa are separated from many of us not only culturally but also geographically. Rāma’s story occurs in the Indian subcontinent—and for many of us that’s quite some distance away. History can often look like a narrative of what happened some time in the past (when we weren’t around) in the lives of some people (whom we never met) in some corner of the world (where we’ve never been).
The Rāma of history cannot therefore be seen. We cannot meet him. He is separated from us by both time and space. We can think about him, we can try to visualize him, but we cannot see him with our physical eyes. Time and nature have erased the historical Rāma from the face of the earth.
Rāmāyaṇa as Literature
Creativity in art—Rāma reading the Rāmāyaṇa
Literature is a product of creativity. The writer imagines Rāma’s life and recreates it through words, using the power of language to stimulate the reader’s imagination. The Rāma of literature thus can only be imagined by the mind. That’s about all we can do if the Rāmāyaṇa is viewed as fiction. Our imagination may be on a firmer ground if we think of Rāmāyaṇa as a creative way of narrating what may have actually happened way back when. In other words, it may be possible to see the Rāmāyaṇa as creative writing based on history.
Many of the traditional versions of the Rāmāyaṇa were written by devotees after years of contemplation on Rāma and his life. Their Rāma was not an imaginary being, but one whom they had met in the deepest recesses of their hearts. It is that Rāma, very real to them, that they strove to bring to life through their literary works. Because of the subjective nature of their experiences, their Rāma is not the exact clone of the Rāmas found in other Rāmāyaṇa-s. Hence the often small but occasionally big differences we find in the various versions of the book.
Depending on how well Rāma’s story is narrated in literature, it has the potential to move us, to teach us, and to delight us. Rāmāyaṇa as literature thus brings happiness (ānanda) to the reader who can appreciate it and is nourished by it.
Rāmāyaṇa as Scripture
Scripture is the truth authenticated by direct experience. The Rāma of scripture can be experienced in the heart directly and intensely. This experience is rooted in consciousness (cit) and produces incomparable inner bliss (ānanda). It reveals the existence (sat) of Rāma, a real being who is absolute, unlike the space/time bound, relative reality of the Rāma of history, and the usually flimsy, imagined reality of the Rāma of literature.
The Rāma of scripture is bound neither by time nor by space. Scripture eliminates the separation in time and space, and brings Rāma to us in the here and in the now. No need to imagine this Rāma, I can see him. The Rāma who is present here with me (not in Ayodhyā or Vaikuṇṭha, but here), who is present now (not after my death, but now), is the Rāma with whom I can play (as Sri Rāmakrishna did with his Ramlālā), with whom I can argue, to whom I can complain, and whose hand I can hold. He is the Rāma who can hear me, who can see me, who can protect me.
Rāmāyaṇa as scripture makes its characters contemporary. Rāvaṇa is no longer simply the Tretā Yuga demon who terrorized the world and whom Rāma killed. We are now able to see Rāvaṇa in Hiraṇyakaśipu of Satya Yuga. We see Rāvaṇa being reborn as Śiśupāla in Dvāpara Yuga. Of more relevance to us is the Rāvaṇa reborn in Kali Yuga, our own times, in multiple forms and operating under multiple names, making it all the more difficult to recognize him.
But if Rāvaṇa is present today, so is the Rāma of scripture, who will vanquish not only Rāvaṇa’s manifestations in the external world but also the Rāvaṇa manifesting in subtler ways in our own hearts. It is the Rāma of scripture to whom the devotee prays in order to kill the Rāvaṇa-nature trying to make inroads in the heart. The Rāma of scripture also reveals to the devotee the Hanumān within, whose presence is felt in the vigor and strength of devotion and surrender.
The Rāma of scripture does not negate the Rāma of history or the Rāma of literature but fulfills them. The three Rāmas are not three but one. The Rāma of scripture makes the Rāma of history believable and the Rāma of literature lovable. The Rāma in my heart makes his story my story, for I am no longer reading or thinking of him as a distant figure, but of us, he and me, and how we are related. What is spiritual life if not a process of discovering the relationship between me and the Divine?
How I approach the Rāmāyaṇa determines the kind of Rāma I will meet. What am I looking for? Who do I really want? Do I want the Rāma of history who is remembered, the Rāma of literature who is imagined, or the Rāma of scripture who is seen tangibly “like a fruit in one’s hand” (kara-āmalaka-vat)? The answer is a no-brainer.