Published Paper Details:

The Ramayana is a story of everlasting interest. It has influenced the hearts and minds of millions of Hindus for countless ages; it has inspired them to high thinking, splendid effort and right conduct. Even today, there is hardly a hamlet in India where the Ramayana story is not told and expounded in Sanskrit, or in the vernacular language, to hundreds of men, women and children who listen to the discourse with rapt and rapturous attention. Apart from daily or occasional expositions, it no exaggeration to say that young children are fed by the folkwomen with the important events of the story together with their mother's milk. Romesh Chandra Dutt has rightly observed that 'there is not a Hindu woman, whose earliest and tenderest recollections do not cling round the story of Sita's sufferings and faithfulness, told in the nursery, taught in the family circle, remembered and cherished through life'. Referring to the two great epics of ancient India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Jawaharlal Nehru says in his 'Discovery of India' 'I do not know any book anywhere which has exercised such a continuous and pervasive influence on the mass mind as these two. Dating back to a remote antiquity, they are still a living force in the life of the Indian people'. We have Ranganatha Ramayanam by Gona Buddha Reddy, in which Rama's life and achievements figure prominently. The present paper describes the important events in Balakandam of Ranganatha Ramayanam.