Is Tulsi-Ramayana more biased against Ravana than Valmiki-Ramayan?
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quote this at all. Thank you. Hare Krishna Question Is Tulsi Ramayana more biased against Ravana than Valmiki Ramayana? Answer No, Tulsi Ramayana is more devotional than Valmiki Ramayana In both Valmiki Ramayana and Tulsi Ramayana the misdeeds of Ravana are depicted quite clearly Valmiki Ramayana itself describes how Ravana went around terrorizing the universe and he abducted women he ravished women and he caused plunder he devoured the sages so that is quite graphically described in Valmiki Ramayana and the how he drew out his own cousin Kuvera from his kingdom and took over his kingdom that is also depicted so the essential misdeeds of Ravana are depicted in both.
The major difference is in Valmiki Ramayana the defining question, the question that begins the narrative is what are the qualities of ideal human being and is there any person who embodies these qualities that is the question which Valmiki asks Narada Muni and Narada Muni describes briefly Ram as the ideal human being and describes his qualities thereafter so the focus in Valmiki Ramayana is on Ram being the ideal human being that’s why the the author Valmiki doesn’t focus too much on Ram’s divinity although it is clear that he is not just a human being and definitely not just an extraordinary human being he is someone more special but it is not explicitly stated at least in the initial stages of Valmiki Ramayana that Ram is God so only after he kills Ravana then Indra and Brahma come to thank him and appreciate him at that time it is as if in Valmiki Ramayana that Ram comes to know about his divinity when Brahma informs him about it so the point is the divinity of Ram is not stressed in the Valmiki Ramayana whereas it is adequately consistently stressed in Tulsi Ramayana Tulsi Ramayana for example is a book focused on depicting the devotional sentiments of the various characters in the Ramayana and for that purpose the glorification of Ram is much more in the Tulsi Ramayana than in the Valmiki Ramayana and the devotional sentiment is intense and because of that devotional glorification of Ram it may seem that there is a vilification of Ravana also happening so glorification vilification, glorification of the hero and vilification of the villain they go naturally together and in that sense it may appear as if so the Ravana is villainous in both but his villainous qualities are emphasized more and are contrasted more sharply with Ram Shivalra’s qualities in the Tulsi Ramayana but the attempt to say that Ravana is actually a good person who was later on depicted as bad is not based contradicts not only Tulsi Ramayana but contradicts Valmiki Ramayana also Valmiki Ramayana also describes his ravishing abducting maidens and his deposing his brother, his terrorizing the universe so he is a villain and that’s why Valmiki Ramayana and Tulsi Ramayana both depict him as villains Thank you.