The Rāmāyana, Volume 2. Āranya, Kishkindhā, and Sundara Kāndam

The second volume of the Rāmāyana opens on exile: Prince Rāma, his wife Sītā, and his brother Lakṣmaṇa have been banished from Ayodhyā to the wild Dandaka forest. What begins as a meditation on dharma and duty soon darkens into something more primal. They encounter hermits seeking protection from demons, face the fearsome Rākshasa Virādha, and are ultimately shattered when the ten-headed demon king Rāvaṇa kidnaps Sītā, spiriting her away to his island stronghold of Lankā. But this is also where Rāma finds his army. In the monkey kingdom of Kishkindhā, he allies with the exiled Sugrīva and his incomparable general Hanuman. The Sundara Kāṇḍa, the poem's luminous center, follows Hanuman alone across the ocean, into Rāvaṇa's palace, to find Sītā imprisoned in a grove of ashoka trees. Their eyes meet through fire and distance. He offers her Rāma's ring. She gives him a jewel for her husband. The war has not yet begun, but its shape is now visible. This is the Rāmāyana at its most transporting: part adventure, part spiritual meditation, part aching love story. It has been told and retold for two millennia because it asks what we owe each other when everything has been taken away.