The story in brief the two terrible boons
the king of ayodhya, dashratha, having grown old, decides to relinquish his throne for ram, his son and heir. but the youngest of his four wives, kaikeyi, insists that he crown her son bharat king. when dashrath does not relent, she reminds him of the two boons he had promised to grant her a long time ago. she now demands that for the first boon he make bharat the king and for the second he banish ram to the forests for a period of 14 years. the king agrees, as he has to keep the maryada of his word.
ram with his newly wed wife sita, and his loyal brother lakshman, give up their princely lives and head for the forest dressed like sadhus .

Shurpanakha
their trials begin with a chance meeting with a rakshasi , shurpanakha, who is besmirched by ram. she tries to woo ram, who politely declines to marry her. an enraged shurpanakha now attacks sita, but lakshman stops her in her tracks and cuts off her nose and ears. wanting revenge, she rushes to her brother ravan, the king of lanka and conqueror of all the three worlds. on seeing his sister's piteous state, ravan decides to avenge her by carrying away sita. he disguises himself as a wandering sadhu , and gets marich, his uncle, to distract ram and lakshman. when ram and lakshman are distracted, ravan carries sita off to lanka.

Sita in lanka
sita is kept a prisoner in ravan's garden in lanka, where she mourns for her husband. in the meanwhile, ram and lakshman make friends with the monkey king sugriv and his lieutenant hanuman, who promise to help them find her. hanuman gifted with the power of enlarging and reducing the size of his body, crosses the sea and leaps over the waters to reach lanka. there he finds sita and introduces himself as ram's messenger. sita is moved to tears, but hanuman is captured and his tail set on fire. hanuman being hanuman, escapes and sets fire to lanka.
once ram gets to know of sita's whereabouts, he along with lakshman, hanuman, and the entire monkey army surround lanka. the monkeys construct a bridge over the sea to lanka, and after a long drawn battle ram kills ravan and rescues sita.

Sita's trial
yet, the story does not end here, for ram questions sita's chastity after having spent long years at the mercy of another man. he demands that she undergo a test by fire. sita proves her chastity by coming out unscathed from the fire and a pleased ram takes her with him to ayodhya. however, sita is abandoned once again by ram to maintain the sanctity of public opinion. disappointed and pained she goes to live in the ashram of sage valmiki where she has twin sons - luv and kush, who as young men are reunited with their father, the god-king ram.

Ramayan, the word
ramayan is one of the two great indian epics that contain the essence of the indian sensibility and world-view. the word 'ramayan' literally means 'march of ram', ram + ayan (march) in search of human values.

as a literary work
ramayan occupies the highest position in indian literature, comparable only to the great mahabharat . while it retains the spiritual and moral qualities of the ancient vedas , it also incorporates the lyricism of the indian tradition of bardic story telling. as the ramayan is considered the first indian epic by the indian literary tradition, it is also called adi kavy a or the first epic.

the ramayan is structured and divided in the following way:
it is composed in couplets called shlokas that has a complex metre called 'anustup'. this form allows for the shlokas to be sung and memorised easily.
the shlokas are grouped into sargas or cantos that focus upon specific events.
the sargas in turn are grouped into seven kandas.
the seven kandas are: bal kanda, ayodhya kanda, aranya kanda, kishkindha kanda, uttara kanda, sundara kanda, yuddha kanda, lanka kanda, jala samadhi

Valmiki, the poet
valmiki is believed to be the first great poet in sanskrit literature. he was responsible for creating the first epic complete with a noble metre and an epical style of no compare. it is believed that valmiki was a dacoit; a simple hermit he met in the forest changed him into a virtuous man. he was blessed by the goddess saraswati to create the great ramayan a. interestingly, the word valmiki means 'a white ant hill' - a name he got because he is known to have meditated for so long without moving that an anthill came up over his body.

when was it composed
it is difficult to ascertain the period of ramayana's creation. historians believe it was composed sometime between the 4th and the 2nd century bc.