Ramayana- A Real historic narration?

[kaushik]

Ramayana as we all know, stands tall-one of the greatest epics in Indian history. It is very important that the immense values & insights that Ramayana has garnered to its readers are passed on to genrations to come as well. At this juncture, it would be good to clarify on the origin of Ramayana, that of Valmiki's composition.

Was it a real string of incidents passed on to us through Valimiki?? or was it from some divine vision that kindled him to compose?

Please do share your valuable thoughts on the same.Thanks in Advance!!

[Copperknickers II]

Well, I would suspect that like other great epics it is a story with vague factual basis embellished and largely fabricated for storytelling purposes, distorted a lot along the way. The Indian epics of course are some of the oldest in the world, so some of the hardest to verify.

[kaushik]

Well, I would suspect that like other great epics it is a story with vague factual basis embellished and largely fabricated for storytelling purposes, distorted a lot along the way. The Indian epics of course are some of the oldest in the world, so some of the hardest to verify.

We cannot doubt the great sage or the authenticity of his work, however there are several other factors that need be considered while decoding his works.
Socio-economic structure prevalent at that time as one primary reason on his view.
Focus on the energy force of Rama and dedication to his life, can give a person the glimpse of Rama's life.
Alwars and many others have written Ramayana sequences that were not a part of Rama's life from Valmiki.
There is an interesting book that is coming into the market called I, Rama, King of Ayodhya which talks of Rama's life from his own view. Divine knowledge is available for those people who seek spiritually, but historic is only on stone.
Isolating those two threads, one can find the reality vs perception.
Why not Rama's life be read from the know-how of today's knowledge ?

[Genius of the Restoration]

You can find many historical truths in any given text, but I'd be wary about how far to read into the whole Ramayana. Asking whether the whole thing was divinely inspired is rather useless in this particular forum, because it's not something you can possibly establish using historical methods. Which aspects of the Ramayana do you think might be a string of real incidents? I remember reading something about the Pandavas and Kauravas central to the Gita being based on something historical, but I can't remember if I thought it was right or not and haven't got my stuff with me to check . I suspect it's something along the lines of what Copperknickers said though.