Ravana
- Also spelled:
- Rāvaṇa
Ravana, the 10-headed king of the demons (rakshasas) and primary antagonist in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana (“Rama’s Journey”). Ravana’s abduction of Sita and his eventual defeat at the hands of her husband, Rama, are the central incidents of the popular epic, which is one of the most important texts in Sanskrit literature and Hinduism. As the enemy of the divine hero Rama, the demon Ravana typically represents evil in the Hindu tradition, and the opposition of Rama and Ravana is a common stand-in for good versus evil.
Portrayal in the Ramayana
Although a rakshasa, Ravana is depicted in Valmiki’s Ramayana—usually considered the oldest and most authoritative version—as a learned being with exceptional musical skill and as a great devotee of the god Shiva. Ravana is also said to be the great-grandson of the creator god Brahma through the lineage of Pulastya, one of the mind-born sons of Brahma, further blurring the distinction between demon and god. His father is a sage named Vishravas. Ravana’s wife is Mandodari, the daughter of Maya, an asura. Ravana performs extreme asceticism for 10,000 years, which prompts Brahma to grant him a boon. Ravana requests, and is granted, the boon of invulnerability against all types of divine beings—importantly excluding human beings, whom the rakshasa considers to be incapable of harming him.
Despite these positive portrayals, Valmiki’s Ramayana clearly casts Ravana as a demon of unmatched power who acts outside the bounds of proper Hindu ethics. As he is described in Book III (Aranyakanda, “Book of the Forest”), translated by Arshia Sattar:
Rāvaṇa could stir up placid oceans, he could play with mountains and he could defeat the gods in battle. He did whatever he liked whenever he liked. He constantly violated dharma. He lusted after the wives of others, he was capable of using every celestial weapon and he was always disrupting sacrifices.
Ravana ruled the kingdom of Lanka, which in Valmiki’s Ramayana may or may not refer to what is now Sri Lanka, the island country off southeastern India. The rakshasa took control of Lanka after expelling his half brother Kubera, the god of wealth and king of yakshas. After Kubera fled to Mount Kailash, Ravana followed him there, battled him, and took his magnificent flying pushpaka (“flower”) chariot.
At the end of the Ramayana, in Book VI (Yuddhakanda, “Book of War”), Ravana is killed by Rama, who is a human avatar of the god Vishnu, thus circumventing Ravana’s divinely granted invincibility. Rama achieves this deed with a special arrow that was forged by the god Brahma and given to him by sage Agastya. After an intense battle, Rama shoots the arrow into Ravana’s heart, causing the rakshasa king to fall dead out of his chariot. Rama’s feat fixes an imbalance between the gods and the rakshasas and, importantly, results in his rescue of Sita.
Artistic representation
Ravana is described as having 10 heads and 20 arms and is vividly portrayed in Rajasthani paintings of incidents of the Ramayana, flying away with Sita, fighting with Rama, and sitting with his demon councilors. In sculpture, a favorite incident depicted is his shaking of Mount Kailash, Shiva’s sacred abode. Shiva stopped him by pressing the mountain down with his toe, keeping him imprisoned beneath for 1,000 years. Notable examples of this representation can be seen at Ellora in Maharashtra state and at Elephanta Island in Mumbai Harbour.
The opposition of Rama and Ravana as a symbol of good versus evil is a common and meaningful trope throughout much of Indian philosophy and literature. Here are two examples:
The 11th century Kashmiri scholar Mammata Bhatta, in his influential study of aesthetics Kavyaprakasha (“Light on Literature”), writes that good poetry is not just aesthetically pleasing but also offers “counsel such as that one should behave like Rāma and not like Rāvana” (translated by Ganganatha Jha).
In a version of the Ramayana written by Ramdas about 1680 for the Marathi king Shivaji, the author subtly suggests that Rama is the Hindu king Shivaji, while Ravana represents the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
Ritual and reverence
The autumn Hindu festival Dussehra celebrates Rama’s defeat of Ravana. The festival’s name is derived from the Sanskrit words dasha (“ten”) and hara (“defeat”), implying the defeat of the 10-headed demon. During this predominantly northern holiday, it is customary for celebrants to burn effigies of Ravana—often along with those of Indrajit (Ravana’s son, also called Meghanada) and Kumbhakarna (Ravana’s monstrous brother)—that are stuffed with firecrackers and set ablaze. In northern India, Ramlila pageants, in which performers enact the Ramayana story, are staged leading up to this celebratory conflagration symbolizing the triumph of good over evil.
While Dussehra celebrates Ravana’s death, glorification of Ravana is not unknown. There are scattered instances of Ravana worship across India. Ravana’s positive traits are especially emphasized in certain Tamil and Telugu versions of the epic. In modern times Tamil groups who oppose what they believe to be the political domination of southern India by northern centers of power have interpreted the story of Rama defeating Ravana as an example of the Sanskritization and cultural repression of the south and thus express their sympathy for Ravana and their antipathy toward Rama. The Tamil activist E.V. Ramasamy—whose support for Dravidian and non-Brahmin identities precipitated the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) political party—described Ravana as an ideal political leader and as the protagonist and tragic hero of the Ramayana.
The identification between Lanka and the island of Sri Lanka, while not plainly evident in early sources, became more concrete beginning about the 10th century, when the Cholas in Tamil Nadu associated the island with Ravana’s kingdom, framing their conquest of the island in terms of the Ramayana’s sacred battle between upright Rama and the evil demon king. Since the 14th century some Buddhists in Sri Lanka have revered Ravana as a historical king of the island and a cultural hero rather than as a demon. Since the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, Sinhala Buddhists have increasingly constructed an identity for themselves, in opposition to Hindu Indians, as descendants of Ravana.