RĀMĀYAṆA LAB

A digital Ramayana
for modern seekers

Vālmīki's epic, opened so you can wander it freely — every figure, the road to Laṅkā, each verse in its own script, and the dharma in every turn.

A few corners of the Lab that surprise even those who know the epic well.

Sixteen waystations from Ayodhyā south to Laṅkā and home again — tap any place to stand there.

Three ways to wander the epic — the story, the sacred texts, and what they teach.

The epic is told in seven books — tap any to open it on The Path.

About the Rāmāyaṇa Lab

A doorway into Vālmīki's world — so that the seeker who arrives unsure leaves prepared to read the epic itself.

In a busy world, many of us — and especially children — have drifted from our roots. The Rāmāyaṇa Lab is built to bring them back: to let a seeker wander into the world of the Rāmāyaṇa and grow quietly familiar with it.

The characters and their family trees, the side-stories, the verses and poems, the other living traditions — all of it here revolves around the central Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. Together they reveal the sheer wealth of knowledge India carries, and — for those who seek it — its spiritual depth.

The hope is simple. After spending time here, you should be able to step into Vālmīki's own text with the right mindset — confident, prepared, and full of enthusiasm.

Dr. Tejaswi Katravulapally

A quantum physicist by training, a Vedic scholar by discipline, and a Carnatic flautist by devotion, Dr. Tejaswi works at the confluence of Quantum Physics and the Indian Knowledge Systems. He holds a PhD in Quantum Physics and an M.Sc. from IIT Madras, and was honoured with the Spiritual Scientist Award (2024) by Andhra University.

A disciple of Master E.K. (Sri Ekkirala Krishnamacharya), he carries a living lineage that sees no contradiction between the laboratory and the sacred text — whose reading of the Rāmāyaṇa underlies the Lab's symbolic "Inner Reading" layer.

Built in the Vālmīki tradition. The seven Kāṇḍas, the figures and their arcs, the road to Laṅkā and the family trees all follow Vālmīki's epic. Every Sanskrit verse is shown in Devanagari with IAST transliteration and an English rendering, and each is cited to its Kāṇḍa, sarga and verse — verified against published editions before it is added.

Where the Lab steps beyond Vālmīki — the Nāma Rāmāyaṇa, the Hanuman Chalisa, the regional and devotional retellings — it says so plainly. The symbolic "Inner Reading" layer is offered as our own interpretation, never as scripture.

The Timeline

Drag the marker — or press play — to walk the whole epic scene by scene. The book, the people on stage, the verse spoken, and the place on the road all move with you.

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Dharma for Modern Life

The epic is a mirror. Choose the moment you are living, or wander the themes, and see what the Ramayana counsels.

From Ayodhya to Lanka

Sixteen waystations from the throne of Ayodhya, south through forest and sea to Lanka — and home again by the flying chariot. Tap any stop, step through in order, or let it walk the whole path for you.

The Family Trees

The bloodlines and bonds that drive the epic. Choose a house — tap any name to open their story.

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The Verses

A few of the epic's most luminous ślokas, transcribed from Vālmīki's text — each with its sound, its sense word by word, and the moment it belongs to.

Gāyatrī Rāmāyaṇa

Vālmīki's epic runs to some twenty-four thousand ślokas. This ancient set takes one verse from each thousand — twenty-four in all — and their first syllables, read in order, spell out the holiest verse in the tradition: the Gāyatrī mantra. The whole Rāmāyaṇa, distilled to a single garland of the sacred sound.

Śiva Tāṇḍava Stotram

Fifteen verses in the rolling pañcacāmara metre — a torrent of sound built to dance as it is spoken, praising Śiva in his cosmic tāṇḍava.

Rāma–Kṛṣṇa Viloma Kāvyam

One poem, two avatāras, read in two directions.

Thirty-six verses. Read each one forward, syllable by syllable, and it sings the story of Rāma. Read the very same syllables backward — unbroken, nothing added, nothing dropped — and it becomes the story of Kṛṣṇa. Not a second poem running alongside, but the identical stream of sound, reversed.

This is gata-pratyāgata — the rarest summit of śabda-citra, the poetry of pure sound. And the poet refuses every easy escape: he vows to use no single-syllable filler words, no obscure vocabulary, no tortured grammar — only drākṣā-pāka, the ripe-grape sweetness of plain speech. To carry two whole epics in mirror image, across thirty-six verses, under that vow, is a feat that has left pandits marvelling for centuries. One reads it less for sentiment than for sheer camatkāra — wonder; a tightrope-walk in language.

Its author, the astrologer-poet Daivajña Sūrya Kavi, calls his book a Prayāga — the sacred confluence of rivers. Rāma's story is the Gaṅgā; Kṛṣṇa's, the Yamunā; and his own art the hidden Sarasvatī where the two meet, in which, he says, let great poets come to bathe.

“The Gaṅgā is Rāma's enchanting tale; the Yamunā, the lovely story of Kṛṣṇa; the Sarasvatī, Sūrya Kavi's own art — a third, unseen. At this Prayāga, may the minds of poets come to bathe.”

One line of syllables, two readings. Watch the light run forward for Rāma, then backward over the very same beads for Kṛṣṇa — the words and the meaning change, the sounds never do.

The poet prints the reversal as the lower half of every verse — so the cards below show both readings in full.

Eka-śloka Rāmāyaṇam

One verse. Turn it like a bracelet — sixty-four times — and the whole Rāmāyaṇa spills out.

A single śloka of just thirty-two syllables. Move its first syllable to the end and read again — a wholly new, grammatical verse appears, telling the next moment of the story. Move the next syllable, and the next; after thirty-two turns the bracelet has come full circle. Then read the same garland of sound backward, and turn it thirty-two times more. In all, sixty-four verses — and together they narrate the entire Rāmāyaṇa, from invocation to Rāma's reign, across all six kāṇḍas.

This is kaṅkaṇa-bandha — “bracelet-binding” — among the most demanding feats of śabda-citra, the poetry of pure sound, where nothing is added and nothing dropped: only the same syllables, re-cut into new words. Where each turning falls, the words break differently — and a different scene of the epic is revealed.

Its author, Kṛṣṇamūrti of the lineage of Vasiṣṭha (likely 18th–19th century), called his work simply a kaṅkaṇa — a vow-bracelet bound upon the wrist. One reads it less for sentiment than for sheer camatkāra — the wonder of a single thread of sound holding an entire world.

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This invocation is verse 1. Every verse below is this very garland of syllables, turned and re-read.

Each turn lifts the lit syllable off the front and clasps it at the end — and the same garland re-breaks into the next verse. Read it one way for anuloma, the other for viloma.

A Wisdom-Forest of Rāmāyaṇas

Everything in this Lab grows from Vālmīki's Sanskrit. But his is only the root: the Rāmāyaṇa was re-sung in a hundred tongues and crossed every sea in Asia. Here is a map of that wider forest — the verses chanted around a reading, and the great retellings beyond the original.

Nāma Rāmāyaṇa

The whole epic told in one hundred and eight names — each a single line that closes with राम. A later devotional litany attributed to Pandit Lakṣmaṇācārya — not part of Vālmīki's text, but a chantable recap that walks his seven Kāṇḍas beat by beat.

On the ending: classical Sanskrit keeps the final vowel — rāma, with a light short a — yet the hymn is traditionally written राम् and chanted rām (as M.S. Subbulakṣmī sings it). The grammar says rāma; the chant clips it to rām. Both are right, in their own register.

Hanuman Chalisa

Goswāmī Tulsīdās' beloved hymn of forty verses to Hanumān — two opening dohās, forty chaupāīs, and a closing dohā. A devotional stuti in Awadhī, it stands a little apart from Vālmīki's Sanskrit narrative: not the epic told, but the heart's praise of its greatest devotee.

Composed c. 16th century in Awadhī (old Hindi), not Sanskrit — chanted across the Hindu world to this day.

Āditya Hṛdayam

On the last morning of the war, Rāma stands weary on the field before the unbeaten Rāvaṇa. The sage Agastya draws near and gives him a secret hymn to the rising Sun — and renewed by it, Rāma rises to victory. Thirty-one ślokas of Vālmīki's own epic.

Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa · Yuddha Kāṇḍa, sarga 105. Devanagari and transliteration follow the standard received text.

Praśnottara Rāmāyaṇa

The whole epic in question and answer — a way to learn it, to test yourself, or simply to wander. {{ prashna.count }} questions in the {{ prashna.kandaName }} Kāṇḍa.