Ravana the Demon King: Brainstorm and Styles

The topic I am deciding to write about is Ravana. A major element in the Ramayana that is omitted is the story from Ravana’s perspective. When I was reading through this book I noticed so many parallels to one of my favorite book series called Harry Potter. In Harry Potter there is an evil wizard named Voldemort who is power hungry just like Ravana.  Both villains grow up with strange childhoods, eventually become evil, and are overthrown. I could do a story on Ravana’s childhood, how he got each boone, and how his personality flaws led to his eventual death by the hand of Rama.

For this idea I have done some research. I am mainly going to be drawing ideas from the public domain edition of the Ramayana and a comic called Kubera the Lord of Wealth. The Ramayana provides me with ideas on Ravana’s personality, his conflict with Rama, and some of the boones and curses he has on him. The comic Kubera the Lord of Wealth gives me more background knowledge on Ravana’s childhood, and how he became so evil in the first place. One interesting fact is that Ravana’s first name was Dashagriva.

I have brainstormed a couple ideas for possible stories for my project. One of my stories is going to be about Dashagriva’s childhood. I am going to outline how he came into existence. I am going to include details from Kubera the Lord of Wealth that stated that one of the children of Dashagriva’s parents was predicted to be extremely evil. I can also create some sort of childhood story that challenges Dashagriva’s power and contributes to parts of his personality such as aggressiveness, cockiness, and thirst for power.

I can then have a story on how Dashagriva gets his invincibility to many beings except humans. He does not even consider humans a threat because he believes he is so powerful. This story will center on Dashagriva’s thirst for power and his transition to a more evil state of mind. He will summon a prophet to his house and ask how he can obtain more power. The prophet says he will become king of Lanka but also tells him that he will be killed by the hands of a human. Dashagriva then goes on a rampage and kills a bunch of humans. During this rage he will try to rape a woman and this is when a Brahma gives him the curse that he cannot rape a woman. He will then fight a war and become king of Lanka. To signify his evil state he changes his name to Ravana.

My last story will be on how Ravana is overthrown by Rama. There will be an epic battle but Rama will prevail in the end. This part will be similar to the battle in the Ramayana but I will try to make the story include more details on Ravana.

I am going to be telling my story from a third person point of view. I will include some meaningful quotes from some characters in my story if I need to. Each of my stories will be connected. I have a lot of the details laid out for my project already. I think this will be a fun project to complete.

Here is a picture of the evil Ravana:

Source

Bibliography:

Title: Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition 

Authors: M. Dutt, R. Dutt, Gould, Griffith, Hodgson, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Oman, Richardson, and Ryder.

Year: 2014

Title: Kubera The Lord of Wealth

Authors: Nimmy Chacko

Year: 2012