Blindness in the Ramayana

Webster Journal # 3

Blindness in Ramayana

Temporal Blindness is where we are "time blinded" to what actually is going on in life due to a focus on what is going on right now at this moment. It is as if we put something major important in the back of our minds and then our actions are greatly dependent on that important thing we put in the back of our mind. In the Ramayana, Ravana is temporally blind when he decides to capture Sita, which ultimately leads to his death.

When Rama, his beloved wife Sita, and his helpful brother Lakshmana are forced to exile for fourteen years, they encounter many demons. Rama is ultimately put to the test when he has to find his beloved wife that has been captured by the demon herself, Soopanaka. She teases Rama and wants him to leave Sita, in favor of her. Soopanaka then runs to her brothers who ultimately fight for revenge against Rama and his brother. Ravana then is interested in Sita; by the way his sister Soopanaka has described her. So he then disguises himself as a beautiful deer and he then seizes on Sita and captures her and takes her to his home, Lanka. The abduction of his beautiful wife causes him to adventure out and find her.

Rama goes through a series of sadness when he can no longer think of Sita and what she is going through. "When he saw foaming, frothing, reddish floodwater rushing down the mountain, bearing and rolling along uprooted trees, he was reminded of Sita being carried off. It created a hopeless ache in his heart (117)." Rama is able to compose himself and manage his resources sufficiently to recruit a vast army of monkeys, build a great causeway across the ocean, lay siege to the powerful kingdom of Lanka, and in the end slay powerful Ravana in a single combat.

Ravana was temporally blind into seeing this occurring in the future because of his overwhelming obsession with Sita; at the time Soopanaka was in love with Rama. Ravana could have prevented his death by not capturing the love of Rama, which causes Rama to go on the ultimate quest into finding her and by doing so he kills the evil Ravana in revenge of him steeling Sita. He also could have prevented his death by letting Sita go back to Rama, so his life wouldn't be in such danger.

Temporal blindness can also be seen in my life today. I would say that our country and our president were blind on