Volume 1Shiva's BowThe rakshasa king Ravana asks for immunity from gods, gandharvas, yakshas and rakshasas, leaving out humans because he despises them. So Vishnu chooses to be born as the son of an old king who has long had no son.Open this volume →
Volume 2Two BoonsThe day before Rama's consecration, a maidservant persuades Queen Kaikeyi to claim two old boons from King Dasharatha. The king swears by Rama before he knows what they are, and the demand is that Rama be banished to the forest for fourteen years.Open this volume →
Volume 3The SandalsBharata is called home from his grandfather's country with word that all is well. In Ayodhya he finds his father dead and his elder brother Rama banished to the forest, and his own mother, smiling, hands the kingdom to him.Open this volume →
Volume 4The Golden DeerIn the Dandaka forest, the ascetics ask Rama to protect them from the rakshasas, and Rama gives his promise. His wife, Sita, warns him against killing anyone who has shown him no enmity, but Rama would sooner lose Sita than break that promise.Open this volume →
Volume 5The Arrow from Behind the TreeHanuman comes down from Rishyamuka in disguise to meet two archers on the shore of Pampa. Rama is looking for his abducted wife, Sugriva wants to be free of the threat from his elder brother, Vali, and before a fire the two swear to help each other.Open this volume →
Volume 6The LeapHanuman leaps the sea alone and slips into Lanka at the size of a cat to look for Sita. All night he searches the city of the rakshasa king and nearly gives up, until only one garden is left that he has not entered.Open this volume →
Volume 7The BridgeRama knows where Sita is held captive, but his vanara army is stopped at the edge of the sea. In Lanka, Vibhishana begs his elder brother, Ravana, again and again to give Sita back, until he is standing in the great hall with a mace in his hand.Open this volume →
Volume 8The FireKumbhakarna has fallen, and the sons of Ravana come out through the gates of Lanka with jeweled chains around their necks. Then Indrajit snares Rama and Lakshmana with arrows granted by Brahma, and that night the field is full of motionless bodies.Open this volume →
Volume 9UttaraRavana is dead and Rama is on the throne of Ayodhya when the sage Agastya comes and tells the origins of his enemy. The story starts in a Lanka that once stood empty and arrives at a ten-headed child who counts humans as grass.Open this volume →