Rāma

The ideal of dharma — the prince who gave up a kingdom without anger, whose name is a mantra, and whom saints have loved as God with form and beyond form.

“Rām Rām,” say villagers in North India when they meet. “Rāma, Rāma” is the last prayer whispered at many a deathbed, and in Malaysia a grandmother may sigh Rāmā! when the rice boils over. Few divine names are woven so deeply into ordinary speech. This page is about Rāma himself — as an avatar of Vishnu, as the measure of a good life, and as a name. The story he lives is told on The Ramayana; read it there first if it is new to you.

Who is Rāma?

The name comes from the root ram, “to delight, to rest in”: Rāma is “the one who delights,” or, as later devotional writers explain it, the one in whom yogis delight. He is the eldest son of King Daśaratha of Ayodhyā, of the solar dynasty of the Raghus — hence Rāghava and Raghunātha, “lord of the Raghus.” He is Sītāpati, Sītā’s husband, and Kodaṇḍarāma, Rāma of the bow. In the list of ten avatars he is the seventh (see Vishnu & the Ten Avatars).

Tradition and history

For the tradition, Rāma lived in the Tretā Yuga and Vālmīki was his contemporary. Historians, who find no evidence outside the texts, note that in the oldest layers of Vālmīki’s poem Rāma is mostly a human hero, and that his identity with Vishnu is stressed in the first and last books, generally thought to be later. Over the first millennium CE his worship as God grew, and by Kamban (12th century) and Tulsidas (16th) he is fully the Lord from the first page. Temples dedicated to Rāma himself become common only in the second millennium.

The best of men

Rāma’s great epithet is maryādā-puruṣottama, “the supreme person who keeps within the bounds.” Krishna, by contrast, is often called līlā-puruṣottama, the one who plays beyond them. Rāma shows what the divine looks like when it accepts every limit of a human life — obedience to a father, loyalty to a wife, duty to subjects — and keeps them perfectly. Vālmīki’s poem opens with exactly that question, put by the poet to the sage Nārada:

कोन्वस्मिन् साम्प्रतं लोके गुणवान् कश्च वीर्यवान् ।
धर्मज्ञश्च कृतज्ञश्च सत्यवाक्यो दृढव्रतः ॥ ko nv asmin sāmprataṃ loke guṇavān kaś ca vīryavān,
dharmajñaś ca kṛtajñaś ca satya-vākyo dṛḍha-vrataḥ Who in this world today is truly virtuous, and who is valiant? Who knows dharma, who is grateful, truthful in speech, and firm in his vows? Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 1.1.2

Nārada’s answer is Rāma. Tap each quality to see where the epic shows it:

Not all of Rāma’s acts are easy to admire. Readers have argued for centuries over Sītā’s fire ordeal, her later banishment, the killing of Vālin from hiding, and the beheading of Śambūka. They are set out with the defences and critiques side by side on The Ramayana. Devotees hold them in different ways: some note that the hardest episodes come in the later Uttarakāṇḍa, which many devotional Rāmāyaṇas omit; some see Rāma suffering for duties he did not choose; some simply say that they love Rāma and argue with him too. All of these are honest responses.

The refuge

One verse from the war book matters more than almost any other to the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, which calls it a charter of prapatti, surrender. Rāma answers those who would turn Vibhīṣaṇa away:

सकृदेव प्रपन्नाय तवास्मीति च याचते ।
अभयं सर्वभूतेभ्यो ददाम्येतद्व्रतं मम ॥ sakṛd eva prapannāya tavāsmīti ca yācate,
abhayaṃ sarva-bhūtebhyo dadāmy etad vrataṃ mama To anyone who comes to me even once for refuge, saying “I am yours,” I give freedom from fear from every being. This is my vow. Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Yuddhakāṇḍa 18.33 (southern vulgate numbering)

Rāma adds that he would grant refuge even to Rāvaṇa if Rāvaṇa came. For Vedānta Deśika and the Śrīvaiṣṇava teachers, this is God’s nature in a single line: the Lord does not weigh the merits of the one who surrenders.

The name

For millions, Rāma is above all a name to repeat. The Rāma-nāma tradition holds that the name is not just a label for God but God’s presence in sound — and, in a much-quoted saying, even greater than Rāma himself, because the name saves those whom Rāma never met. A verse from the Rāma Rakṣā Stotra, Shiva’s words to Pārvatī, is chanted at the close of the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma in many homes:

श्रीराम राम रामेति रमे रामे मनोरमे ।
सहस्रनाम तत्तुल्यं रामनाम वरानने ॥ śrī-rāma rāma rāmeti rame rāme manorame,
sahasra-nāma tat-tulyaṃ rāma-nāma varānane “Śrī Rāma, Rāma, Rāma” — I delight in Rāma, who delights the mind. O lovely one, the name of Rāma equals the thousand names. Rāma Rakṣā Stotra (attributed to the sage Budha Kauśika); also recited at the end of the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma

The best-known Rāma mantra is thirteen syllables long: śrī rāma jaya rāma jaya jaya rāma, “Śrī Rāma, victory to Rāma, victory, victory to Rāma.” In Maharashtra it is linked with the 17th-century saint Samarth Rāmdās, who by tradition repeated it many hundreds of thousands of times; in the 20th century Swami Ramdas of Anandashram in Kerala made its unbroken chanting the heart of his ashram. Gandhi’s favourite bhajan, “Raghupati Rāghava Rājā Rām,” and the mantra’s use at funerals (“Rām nām satya hai,” “Rāma’s name is truth,” chanted as the body is carried in North India) show how far the name reaches.

Three poet-saints

Tulsidas (16th century), in Banaras, retold the story in Awadhi as the Rāmcaritmānas, “the lake of Rāma’s deeds.” Here Rāma is the supreme Brahman who took form out of love, and the devotee’s whole task is Rām-bhakti. The Mānas became the scripture of North Indian households and of the Rāmlīlā plays; its opening invocation and its many chaupāīs are sung daily. Tulsidas is also credited with the Hanuman Chālīsā.

In the Tamil country, Kamban’s Irāmāvatāram made Rāma the Lord in Tamil verse (see Tamil Sacred Literature), and the Āḻvār Kulacēkarar sang a famous lullaby to the baby Rāma.

Ayodhyā and Rāma Navamī

Ayodhyā, on the Sarayū river in Uttar Pradesh, is honoured as Rāma’s birthplace and counted among the seven cities that grant liberation. It has also been the centre of a long modern dispute. A mosque, the Babri Masjid, built in the 16th century, stood on a site many Hindus believe to be Rāma’s exact birthplace. The mosque was demolished in December 1992 by kar sevaks mobilised in a campaign led by the VHP and allied bodies, followed by deadly riots. In 2019 the Supreme Court awarded the site for a temple, directing that land elsewhere be given for a mosque, while holding that the 1949 placing of idols in the mosque and its 1992 demolition were illegal; the new Rāma temple was consecrated in January 2024. The history remains deeply contested, and Hindus themselves hold a range of views about these events.

Rāma Navamī, Rāma’s birthday, falls on the ninth day of the bright fortnight of Caitra (March–April). Devotees fast, read the Rāmāyaṇa — often over the nine preceding days — and cradle a small image of the baby Rāma at noon, the hour of his birth. Community practice In Tamil homes and temples, pānakam (jaggery water with ginger and cardamom) and nīr mōr (spiced buttermilk) are offered and shared, and some Malaysian temples and bhajan groups hold a Rāmāyaṇa reading or a Sītā Kalyāṇam, the wedding of Rāma and Sītā.

Rāma in Southeast Asia

Long before Indian workers came to Malaya, Rāma had already arrived. The Malay Hikayat Seri Rama, Java’s Kakawin Rāmāyaṇa, the Thai Ramakien and the Khmer Reamker all tell his story in their own ways; see The Ramayana. In Thailand the kings of the present dynasty take the title “Rama.” In these lands Rāma is often a hero of culture rather than a god of worship — a reminder that the same figure can be loved in many ways.

Try this

Write śrī rāma — in any script you know — slowly, eleven or twenty-one times, on a clean page, keeping your mind on the name as you form each letter. This is likhita-japa, “written repetition,” a practice many Rāma devotees keep in notebooks for years. Or chant śrī rāma jaya rāma jaya jaya rāma for five minutes, and sit quietly afterwards.

Check your knowledge:

Quick check

“Maryādā-puruṣottama” means…

Rāma shows the divine accepting and perfectly keeping the limits of a human life.

To whom does Rāma give refuge, against his allies’ advice?

Rāvaṇa’s brother. “To anyone who comes even once… this is my vow.”

Tyāgarāja’s songs to Rāma are mostly in…

He lived at Tiruvaiyaru in Tamil Nadu but composed in Telugu, the court language of Carnatic music in his day.

Kabir’s “Rām” is…

A nirguṇa Rām, beyond every form.

Questions people often ask

Is Rāma a god or an ideal human?

Both, and the balance depends on the text. In Vālmīki he mostly lives as a man who does not know he is divine; in Tulsidas he is God from beginning to end. Many devotees find his humanity is exactly what makes him approachable.

Can I love Rāma and still be troubled by the Uttarakāṇḍa?

Yes. The tradition itself was troubled: playwrights rewrote the ending, and many beloved Rāmāyaṇas omit it. See the hard episodes on The Ramayana.

Why is Rāma always shown with Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa and Hanumān?

In temples Rāma is rarely alone: the family image — Rāma-parivāra or Rāma-darbār — shows the Lord with his wife, his devoted brother and his servant. Devotion to Rāma is devotion to a whole household of virtues.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Which of Rāma’s qualities do you most need in your life right now?
  2. What “bounds” — promises, duties, limits — do you keep even when they cost you?
  3. Is a name a way to God for you, or does it feel like only a word?

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Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading