page_title: Adhyatma Ramayana
section_title: Significance
hierarchical_section_title: Adhyatma Ramayana / Significance
caption_attribution_description: English: Rama, Lakshman and Sita at the Kalaram Temple, Nashik.
context_page_description: Adhyatma Ramayana is a 13th- to 15th-century Sanskrit text that allegorically interprets the story of Hindu epic Ramayana in the Advaita Vedanta framework. It is embedded in the latter portion of Brahmānda Purana. The Hindu tradition attributes the text to the Bhakti movement saint Ramananda.
  The text consists of 7 books, 65 chapters and 4,500 verses in the form of a dialogue between Shiva and Parvati. Adhyatama Ramayana contains the ideal characteristics of Rama and the precepts related to devotion, knowledge, dispassion, adoration and good conduct. Rama is presented as the supreme Brahman in the text, while the struggles of Sita and him are re-interpreted in an abstract spiritual form. The allegory inspired several later versions of the Ramayana story in languages like Awadhi, Odia, Bengali and Malayalam version by Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan.
context_section_description: Adhyatma Ramayana represents the story of Rama in a spiritual context. The text constitutes over 35% of the chapters of Brahmanda Purana, often circulated as an independent text in the Vaishnavism tradition, and is an Advaita Vedanta treatise of over 65 chapters and 4,500 verses.
  The text represents Rama as the Brahman (metaphysical reality), mapping all saguna (attributes) of Rama to the nirguna nature (ultimate unchanging attributeless virtues and ideals). Adhyatma Ramayana raises every mundane activity of Rama to a spiritual or transcendent level, the story into symbolism, thus instructing the seeker to view his or her own life through the symbolic vision for his soul, where the external life is but a metaphor for the eternal journey of the soul in Advaita terminology.
  The book is aimed to be used as a guide and a ready source of instruction for a spiritual seeker, as it presents the Ramayana as a divine allegory. The text influenced the popular Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas.
caption: Rama, Lakshmana and Sita
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