Ramayana Chinthakal

Lectures on the Ramayana This series of thirty lectures on Valmiki Ramayana was delivered by the Late Rt. Hon. V S Srinivasa Sastri under the auspices of the Madras Samskrita Academy. The series started on 5th April 1944 and continued till 8th November. The Academy took special efforts to record them in order to publish these lectures later in a book form. Sastriji deals with all the major characters of Ramayana not as divine incarnations but as ordinary human beings with their follies and weaknesses who seek to rise to a level of divinity through life’s trials and tribulations fortunes and vicissitudes and temptations and failures just as Valmiki perceived them. In his inimitable style Sastriji concludes the lectures by remarking that the real coronation should take place in our hearts where Rama and Sita are to be crowned and enthroned. Rama and Sita are the perfect models to follow In life and the author fervently appeals that we should let them govern our thoughts and behavior. Even Gandhiji urged to publish these lectures in a book form. The book was first published in 1949 (Reprinted in 1952) the modified second edition in 1961 (Rep.1968 1977) and the modified third edition in 1986 (Rep. 1996 2013).