Chapter 7

Rama

The avatar who, through his whole story, never knew he was one

A boon that got in the way again

Ravana had tried to protect himself the same way Hiranyakashipu once had: by naming every kind of being he believed might kill him.

Not a deva. Not an asura. Not a gandharva, yaksha or naga. But he did not include human beings — they seemed too insignificant to fear. Nor did he account for vanaras.

The devas appealed to Brahma and then to Vishnu.

This time there would be no fish, no boar, no half-man and half-lion. Vishnu would be born fully human.

Which is why, as a man

In Ayodhya, King Dasharatha was performing a sacrifice for sons.

Into that opening came four princes, the eldest of them Rama.

And Rama is unlike the earlier avatars in one striking way.

Within the Ramayana, he does not move through the story announcing himself as Vishnu.

What he never said himself

He grieves in exile. He weeps when Sita is taken.

He searches the forest and questions the trees.

He loses his temper. He waits for three days beside the sea.

The gods, the sages and the audience may know more. But inside the human story, Rama lives through events as a man.

And at the end

In the end, Ravana is killed by the very category of being he had dismissed when asking for protection.

The boon does not fail because its conditions are broken. It fails because something was left outside them — just as in the Narasimha story.

Rama's full life is not retold here. It belongs to the Ramayana itself, from beginning to end.

Note: Rama is counted seventh among the ten avatars, and his whole story is on this site separately in the Ramayana — so this chapter does not repeat it, and only says why this avatar happened. What is worth noticing is that in the middle kandas of the Valmiki Ramayana Rama moves mostly as a man, and the declaration of his being Vishnu is loudest in the Bala Kanda and the Uttara Kanda, which textual tradition has long treated as later additions. That men and vanaras were left out of Ravana's boon is plainly recorded in the Ramayana.

Source: from several texts, Rama

Now — how much stayed with you?

Fact

Whom did Ravana name in his boon as unable to kill him?

  • Every living thing, with no exception left
  • Only the devas
  • Devas, asuras, gandharvas, yakshas and nagas
  • Nobody; he never had a boon at all
Read the whole story — The names it did not seem necessary to say

The gap in Ravana's count is the same as the gap in Hiranyakashipu's — he left out exactly what he did not consider a danger.

To him men were not worth counting, and vanaras still less.

Which is why this avatar's form is so ordinary. Last time the way through came in a strange form; this time it comes in the plainest one there is.

Why is that?

Why did Vishnu not take a mixed form this time, as with Narasimha or Varaha?

  • Because such a form was no longer possible
  • Because Ravana feared animals
  • Because the devas had asked for it
  • Because the gap in the boon was a man, so being a whole man was enough
Read the whole story — The form is decided by the condition

In this gatha every avatar's form is decided by the work — to swim, a fish; to hold still, a tortoise; to smell out a path, a boar; to come through between pairs, half and half.

Here the condition was simple: a man had been left out. So nothing extraordinary needed inventing this time.

And that becomes the largest thing about this avatar: he really lives like a man, loses like a man, and suffers like one.

The texts disagree

Where in the Valmiki Ramayana is Rama's divinity stated most plainly?

  • In the Bala Kanda and the Uttara Kanda, which textual tradition treats as later additions
  • Equally in every kanda
  • Only in the Aranya Kanda
  • Nowhere; Valmiki never calls him Vishnu
Read the whole story — The middle kandas, and the outer ones

In the middle kandas of the Valmiki Ramayana — Ayodhya through Yuddha — Rama moves mostly as a man: grieving, angry, helpless.

Where his being Vishnu is loudest is the Bala Kanda and the Uttara Kanda, and textual tradition has long treated those two as later additions.

This is exactly the layering that keeps recurring in this gatha — with Matsya, Varaha and Vamana too. The story comes first, and its being an "avatar" is attached afterwards.

Who am I?

The two I did not think worth counting when I asked for my boon are the two who finished me. Who am I?

  • Hiranyakashipu
  • Kartavirya Arjuna
  • Bali
  • Ravana
Read the whole story — Two names left out

Ravana's list held everything from devas to nagas. It did not hold men or vanaras.

And at the end those are exactly the two standing in front of him — one man, and a whole vanara army.

This shape returns for the third time in this gatha: the boon is not broken, it is honoured, and the way through is found inside it.

Fact

What place does Rama hold in the widespread list of ten avatars?

  • Fifth
  • Sixth
  • Seventh
  • Eighth
Read the whole story — Two Ramas in one list

The name "Rama" appears twice in this list — Parashurama and Rama — and the confusion is common.

Parashurama's own name was also Rama; the axe changed it.

And the two meet face to face in one story: in the Ramayana, Parashurama comes before Rama after Sita's swayamvara. Which is to say the sixth and seventh avatars encounter each other.

Riddle

I am the avatar who never once in his whole story said who he was. Everyone who knew was outside it. Who am I?

  • Rama
  • Krishna
  • Narasimha
  • Vamana
Read the whole story — A man inside, an avatar outside

This is the largest difference between Rama and Krishna, and the next chapter rests on it.

Rama never claims his divinity inside the story. He waits, he weeps, he asks.

The reader knows and the devas know. The people inside the story — and he himself — do not.

Why is that?

Why has Rama been given only one chapter in this gatha?

  • Because his story is short
  • Because he is not needed in this list
  • Because the Vishnu Purana says nothing about him
  • Because his whole story is on this site already, separately, in the Ramayana's seven kandas
Read the whole story — One chapter, and a door

This chapter is not here to tell Rama's story. It is here to say why he is on this list, and which crack in a boon brought him.

The whole story — Bala Kanda to Uttara Kanda — is on this site in the Ramayana, with seventy questions.

The same holds for the Krishna chapter that follows. In both places the chapter's job is to be a door, not a wall.

What happened?

Whom did the devas take the problem of Ravana to first?

  • Straight to Vishnu
  • To Brahma, because the boon had been his to give
  • To Shiva
  • To Indra
Read the whole story — Asking the one who gave it

This shape repeats in the gatha — Brahma gives the boon, and then everybody comes back to him with the trouble the boon has made.

Brahma cannot take a boon back. All he can do is point out where the space in it has been left.

The same thing happened in the Hiranyakashipu chapter, and it happens again here — both times the real answer comes from inside the list itself.

Why is that?

Why does the story not treat Rama's suffering like a man as a weakness?

  • Because he does not really grieve, he only performs it
  • Because grief increases his power
  • Because the whole avatar rests on his being a man
  • Because Valmiki dislikes him
Read the whole story — Being a man was the condition

If Rama behaved like a god at every moment inside the story, the crack in the boon that the avatar existed for would have been wasted.

Which is why his weeping, his tiring and his waiting are not the story's weakness but its condition.

And it is why the story kept being read for centuries — there is a man in it, one you can talk to.

Put it in order

What is the correct order of this chapter's events?

  • Rama's birth → Ravana's boon → the devas' prayer → Ravana's death
  • Ravana's boon → the devas going to Brahma → Rama's birth → Ravana's death
  • The devas' prayer → Ravana's boon → Rama's birth → Ravana's death
  • Ravana's death → Rama's birth → the boon → the prayer
Read the whole story — Begins with a slip, ends on one

The whole story of this order is one slip — leaving two names out while asking for a boon.

Everything in between, which stretches across seven kandas in the Ramayana, happens inside that one slip.

And it ends where it began: at the part of the list that was left out.