Differences in Ramayana Versions

[Guest guest]

Babuji, I am mostly familiar with the Tulsidas

version, which of course was much later than the Valmiki.

Do you know it? And I thought Dasharatha's father

was Dilip; or was that the grandfather?<br><br>There

are small differences in all the versions; as the

difference in how the porridge is distributed when the three

queens become pregnant, things like that. The Tulsidas

has a wonderful section where the baby Rama reveals

himself as Vishnu to Kausalya, who is overwhelmed with

gratitude and then asks him to become a baby again, after

which she immediately forgets that he is anything but

her baby Ram.

[Guest guest]

Hello Cary,<br>there have been differences in all

versions of Ramayana. In the Valmiki Ramayana, no where

has Valmiki directly stated that Rama was Vishnu;

this has been stated in most of the other versions.

Actually there is a version of the Ramayana, called the

Adhyatma Ramayana, where Rama states that he is The

Supreme Being.<br>Dasharatha's father is supposed to have

been Aja and Aja's father Raghu. That is what both the

Bengali version of the Ramayana and the epic poem of

Kalidasa, Raghuvamsha state. Dilip was the father of Raghu,

thus being Dasharatha's grand father and Rama's great

grand father. Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha has a story of how

King Dilip was told to serve the holy cow, Nandini so

that he could have a son.