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I have turned to the Ramayana of Valmiki in difficult times for over 40 years. When I was unable to sleep for months after the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, waking up in a sweat every night on hearing gunshots in my nightmares, my father’s aunt, a Sanskrit scholar and tennis player who played and won a match or two at Wimbledon in the 1930s, taught me half a verse from the Ramayana which, she told me, had been the mantra she recited before matches, during phases of debilitating illness, and indeed, every day. She assured me it would help me fight fear. Since then, yatra ramo bhayam natra nasti tatra parabhavah (where there is Rama, there is neither fear nor defeat) has been my mantra, too.

The Ramayana‘s poetry has captivated me, and I have a quote from the text for all occasions – even earthquakes, for those occur, the Ramayana tells us, when the mighty elephants Virupaksha, Mahapadma, Saumanasa and Bhadra, who support the earth, get tired and shake their heads for a moment to relieve their weariness.

So, does the Valmiki Ramayana contain insights on the burning issues of our time – the dharma of those who rule a realm and the character of those who lead religious establishments? It does.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

For these insights, we need to turn to the Uttarakanda, the seventh and last book of the Valmiki Ramayana. The sixth book, the Yuddhakanda, culminates in Rama’s long-delayed ascension to the throne of Kosala, and contains a few verses about the perfection of Rama’s reign. We are told that there was no fear of disease or poisonous snakes, the old never had to perform the funeral rites of........

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