This initiative is to facilitate people in reading Ramayana in a regular and systematic manner.
Many people want to read Ramayana at least once in their lifetime. But Ramayana is a long poem. It takes more than four years for one to read Ramayana at the rate of one hundred Slokas per week, and hence people keep postponing the idea. This initiative is to help them follow a discipline and read Ramayana regularly, on a weekly basis.
Everyone who signs up for this program will get Ramayana Slokas, about a hundred a week, delivered in their email, starting from Sarga 1 of Baala Kanda. One can read it at one's own comfort at one's own home.
A separate counter is maintained for each individual reader. Readers can pause for a few weeks if required or restart from an earlier Sarga, at any time. Readers also can retrieve the past Sargas from the My Page, if needed.
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People like to read Ramayana for many reasons. Some do it purely for devotional purposes. Others do it for getting guidance on how to lead life. Some others do to get insights into Indian culture that has endured for millennia. And yet others read Ramayana just for enjoying its literary beauty.
Reading Ramayana can be a unique personal experience as well as a cherished shared experience. One can consider reading along with others, either meeting in person, or through a video or audio conference call every week. It is easy to keep the momentum going when people read as a group.
Further, and most importantly, one should make every effort to read Ramayana to their own children or grandchildren, especially to those who are between the ages of five and twelve. Story-telling and listening is a nature created mechanism to create a wonderful inter-generational bonding.
Children who develop strong bonds with parents and grand-parents early in the life fare well later in life, be it in making better choices in their teens or later in holding themselves steady through the troughs and peaks of career and family life. Read more about these advantages in the following articles.
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Krishna Sharma, a mathematician by training, an Information Technology Architect by profession, and a Philosopher, Sociologist and Psychologist by passion, wrote the English translation, striving every bit to stay true to the original and at the same time keep it lucid and employ the idioms native to the English language to enhance the beauty.
Krishna Sharma also adds a unique commentary to the translation, providing insights into the story, narration, style and significance of characters and events, from a psychological and sociological perspective that is hard to find elsewhere. The commentary is kept seperate from the translation, so that one can read the Slokas and Meaning without distraction, if preferred.
The weekly emails are delivered with Slokas in the script of one's choice, from among Devanagari, Roman(English), and eleven major scripts of India, and with meaning in English. (The aspiration of this initiative is to provide meaning in other languages as well in the future). One can choose to receive either the Slokas or meaning or both in the weekly email. Once can also choose two scripts for the Slokas, such as Devanagari and Roman or Devanagari and Tamil, if so desired.
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If you like this initiative and want to help it, you can do so in many ways. Please indicate your area of interest in volunteering, on the signup form, which can be anywhere from proofreading the content to spreading the word about Read Ramayana through email, WhatsApp groups or at large spiritual gatherings or in schools and colleges. It would be very gratifying for one to know that others also could get to read Ramayana because of one's effort or encouragement.
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The audio of Ramayana with pristine pronunciation by Vedic Pundit Sri Srirama Ghanapati is added to this translation, with his graceful permission. Please click here for more information about him.