The whole of the Ramayana is an Epic of humanity. Humanity does not mean mankind but that which particularly human nature. It is in this sense, Sri Rama is oftentimes called the paragon of humanity, an example of the perfection of human nature. This perfection is not inclusive of the foibles of man in his lower endowments. That majestic feature of bodily personality, the ideal perfection of physiological structure, the beauty of understanding, dignity of behavior, exemplary nature of conduct--to put it in one word 'perfection' as conceived or as conceivable by the human understanding--this is what comes forth as an answer from the great sage Narada.We have two Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, just as in the West they have two Epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These two parallel movements of Epic stories, known as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, give us a complete picture of the process of the advancement of the human soul towards its Perfection. It is not to be taken as a surprise that the culture of Bharatavarsha is a culture of the Spirit, "so that anything that is said and done or believed in, is directly or indirectly connected with the march of the Spirit to the recognition of its Perfection." We have no other culture here except the culture of the Spirit. A connecting of the visible phenomena with what underlies the phenomena is the significance of the Epics. And these two masterstrokes of genius given to us by Valmiki and Vyasa, in the form of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, give us the religion of India.In the Ramayana, there is such a contradictory picture of the personality of Rama, presented by Valmiki, where it is asked sometimes to look upon him as the perfected man and sometimes as a perfection of divinity itself manifest. There, for the first time, is a proclamation divinity of Rama, where Mandodari in deep sorrow over the death of Ravana, her husband, exclaims that it is Narayana that has come as Nara whi...
