Summary: One of the most important literary works of ancient India, the Ramayana has deeply impacted all aspects of world culture. Not just a literary monument, it is a living cultural and spiritual guide for more than a billion people in India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and beyond. For those not familiar with the Ramayana, it is the most widely read epic in world history, and has been described as the original epic quest-comparable to Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet rolled into one. The story of the enlightened hero Rama-who conquers the greatest forces of evil and is reunited with his beloved, equally enlightened wife Sita-continues to grip the imagination and is surprisingly relevant to today's readers as they face the moral dilemmas of our modern world. Consisting of 24,000 verses in seven books, this grand story can be cumbersome to navigate for the modern reader, even in translation. It is for this reason that longtime transcendental meditation practitioners and Ayurveda book authors Linda Egenes and Dr. Kumuda Reddy have put together a delightfully straightforward retelling in The Ramayana. Offering a lyrical retelling-in prose and poetry-of the timeless epic of loyalty, betrayal, and redemption, this lucid and eminently readable adaptation will introduce readers to one of the most influential works of world culture.
