Reading Diary B: The Divine Archer by F. J. Gould

I read The Divine Archer by F. J. Gould.  One of my favorite parts of the reading this week was the events leading up to the battle between Ravana and Rama.  This rendition of the story seemed to go more into the details of the events that occurred with Ravana.  I enjoyed seeing details about what was going on in his kingdom.  I found it interesting that several of the rakshasa were afraid of Rama and want Ravana to return Sita to Rama.  Queen Mandodari was interesting because I figured that she would be going along with Ravana but she instead tries talking to Ravana to persuade him to not go to war with Rama.  I think she had a few reasons for this was the size of army that Rama had gathered was said to be eighteen thousand billion.  Another reason was that she had heard of his exploits with the bow and knew that he was no ordinary man.  Something else that I found interesting in this version was that Vibhishana was an ally of Rama from the beginning.  In the Narayan’s version, he became an ally after he left Ravana’s kingdom.  When Rama arrived in Lanka, I found it interesting that he could see Ravana’s crown and Queen Mandodari’s earring from a great distance.  Then it was odd that he shot the crown and earring and took them instead of shooting Ravana.  If he had shot then he might have been able to end the war without having very many casualties. 

Hanuman's visit to Lanka (Source: wikimedia)