Lectures on the Ramayana

by V.S. Srinivasa Sastri, V.V. Srinivasa Ayyangar (Preface), K. Balasubrahmania Iyer (Preface)

The thirty lectures on the Ramayana which are published here was delivered by the late Rt. Hon. V.S. Srinivasa Sastri under the auspices of the Madras Samskrit Academy, in the Madras Sanskrit College grounds. The series began on the 5th April, 1944 and concluded on 8th November, 1944. The Academy had made special arrangements for taking shorthand reports of these lectures with a view to publish them eventually in book-form. Srinivasa Sastri has dealt with all the leading characters in the Ramayana with the deepest love and reverence. Passage of great beauty expressing the most sublime thoughts and sentiments are gathered and explained by the author in his own inimitable style. Nothing can be so beautiful as the way in which he closes his lectures. Speaking of Sri Rama's coronation at the end. "But the real coronation is in our hearts," he says with fervour" "Rama and Sita should be crowned in our hearts, enthroned in our hearts. Let them govern your thoughts and regulate your lives. At all important occasions, remember them and then you cannot go wrong." No one can deny these lectures are a most valuable contribution to our literature, and the author will be justly remembered more for his lectures on the Ramayana than for anything else.

474 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Nagarajan Narayanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that lovers of Srimad Ramayana cannot afford to miss! Careful and analytical reading is needed.

[Dushyant · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book I felt like I should read Ramayan as well and that is how I judge this book. Ramayan is a holy book of Hindus but it is not like Bible or Quran. It is a literary creation and should be valued in that way too. Mr. V. S. Srinivas Shastri has shed light on some interesting aspects of Ramayan in this book. Writing such books in the times when information was not a click away and that too in a language which was not his mother tongue is a big deal.

[Neel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of a lifetime. I have bought it, read it and gifted it to people.

Most of us have never read The Ramayana - except maybe in comic form. Mostly, we have only heard it in stories or worse, watched it on television or some other format. And it takes a while before we wake up to the dimensions in the story (like any Indian epic for that matter).

This book is a print of a set of lectures by VS Srinivasa Sastri and it is written in lecture format (and bad editing, spelling mistakes). Even with all that, this book makes grabs your attention and shifts you to the hall in which VSS would have spoken and you can feel the Ramayana with all the pathos, you can feel Rama, you can feel every word the author has uttered, you can feel the devotion of the author. It is mesmerising and refreshing - it cannot be describedl.

That is how great those lectures were I suppose. So, yes, we may have missed those lectures, but this book is a close second.

[Mahesh Sundararaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this over a period of 4 months. One of the best narrations of Ramayana I have come across. Though not presented in chronological order it is a book of 30 lectures that takes you through the different events in Ramayana.

Every character is brought out in vivid detail and the language is among the best I have read.

[Sriram Ravichandran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of 30 lectures delivered by VS Srinivasa Sastri in 1944, transcribed and published as a book. The lectures offer deep insight into the text of Valmiki Ramayana, its characters and how as a reader of this great poem, one can garner invaluable life lessons from it.

A must read!