Indian Epics Styles Brainstorming

Topic. My Storybook will be based on Rama’s life. I will talk about Rama’s epic life with four different kind of views. Those views will be from Rama, Lakshmana, animal gods, and other four gods. Only one view will be chosen as the final style. The stories I will use as references would be all the Rama’s stories from the Public Domain Ramayana. Moreover, I will use some gods’ stories to introduce those gods.

Bibliography: Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition

Possible Styles:

Rama’s own view. This is the very common way to tell a main character’s story from his view. I will write Rama’s birth, exile, fights, death. I am most likely not using this style since this common style may not be interest for readers. I however save it as a backup style in case of the failures of the rest three styles.

Lakshmana’s view. This is the alternative way to tell Rama’s story. I will use Lakshmana’s view to tell the entire storyline. I will write Rama’s birth, exile, fights, death I will write Rama’s birth, exile, fights, and death again, but this time it will be from Lakshmana’s view. It will be very interesting to do this because I will think like Lakshmana think; I will be Rama’s brother fighting on his side. The room that I could imagine is very big. It will take longer time than Rama’s view, but it definitely worthy to do since this style will be new for readers.

Animal God’s views. To make the siege to the Lanka City, Rama decided to find four animals gods as his comrade-in-arms. However, those gods are hard to find. Furthermore, they are not that easy to convince. If I will use this style, I will write a lot of the animal gods’ thoughts in their minds. Maybe the Monkey King was looking forward to helping Rama, but the Snake King was not willing to help Rama at all. During the convincing, the Animal God’s psychological changes will be very important.

Four Gods’ views. This is currently my most likely style. To save his wife, Rama had to visit few gods to get their blessing for saving his wife. After the successful siege of the Lanka City, Sita was saved but she was in deep sleep that Rama could not wake her up. The reason would be cursed left by the evil Indrajit; the curse took away part of Sita’s soul, so Sita was in dead sleep. To make Sita awake, Rama must travel around the world to find lost Gods that could find Sita’s lost soul. Rama will visit four gods, but first three could not help him; they would give Rama the information of next god. Eventually, the Death God Yama, the fourth god Rama visited, helped Rama find Sita’s soul, but he warned Sita could only be saved by him this time since Yama had already broken the rule of death. The last god has been decided, which is the Death God Yama; however, it is hard to decide the first three gods Rama visited. I will keep on making the sequence of the first three gods; they must have some connections or I will make them connected. Those gods’ thoughts in their minds and talks with Rama would be the main part in this style.

Rama and Lakshmana builds a bridge

with the help of the monkeys;

they are writing Rama's name on the stones

so that the stones will stick together

Oleograph by Raja Ravi Varma.