The life at Panchavati was moving on smoothly when one fine day, a demoness by name Surpanakha came upto them. Surpanakha was Ravana's younger sister, who he loved very dearly. Now, this Surpanakha saw Rama at Panchavati and was attracted by him. She approached him in the guise of a beautiful lady and asked him to marry her. Rama jovially said that he had his wife and did not have to marry now, while his younger brother was alone and she could try asking him out. She turned to Lakshmana and found him equally handsome. So, she took the chance of asking him if he would marry her. Then, he also jovially said that his brother was more handsome and but for Sita, he would be ready to marry her. Then, Surpanakha attacks Sita to get Rama for herself. In a fit of rage, Lakshmana takes an arrow, and disfigures her face. Surpanakha then goes and complains to her cousin brothers Khara and Dushana. Khara and Dushana come to defeat Rama and Lakshmana, but only in vain. Both of them are vanquished with some real ease by the Raghu kula brothers.
This news reaches Ravana. Ravana was the lord of Lanka. It was actually the land of his older brother Kubera, but he urpsed it from him because he just loved the beautiful land. His mother was a rakshasi who acted as a nymph and got married to Vishravas, the rishi. So, the rishi cursed her that the children who were born to them will be of a demonous nature. Then on her begging forgiveness, he modified the curse, saying that the children will have a demonous intent with a decreasing level in order of birth, with the last son being a purely Sattvic person. They had children in the order: Ravana, Surpanakha, the huge Kumbhakarna and Vibhishana. When Ravana and Kumbhakarna were once performing penance, pleased with their efforts, lord Brahma appeared before Kumbhakarna and asked him what he wanted. The devas fearing he will ask something destructive given his huge figure, requested Saraswathi devi to make him say something extremely stupid. So, the devi played on his tongue to make him say that he wanted to sleep for 6 months a year. So, Kumbhakarna used to sleep half the year. Now, this Ravana now wanted to take revenge on Rama for what had happened to Surpanakha, Khara and Dushana. He knew that if they had defeated Khara and Dushana, it wouldn't be easy to fight and win him on the battlefield and so something had to be done by hook or by crook.
He called for his uncle Maricha, and asked him to disguise as a golden deer and lure Rama away, while he will kidnap Sita, who he knew was extremely beautiful and he wanted as his queen. Maricha, who had previous experience of Rama, was initially not willing to support Ravana in this idea, but he had no way out as Ravana told him that he'd be killed if he didn't come.
Without a way out, Maricha transformed into the beautiful golden deer. Sita liked it and in a childlike innocence, she wanted it. Rama went after it and hunted it down, when it died forming Maricha, and shouting, "Lakshmana, save me!" in the voice of Rama. Then Sita asked Lakshmana to go to rescue Rama, but Lakshmana told her that he didn't need help, as he was too strong to ask for any, and it must be the act of some demon to get him away from there. Then she claimed that Lakshmana desired her, and that's why he wasn't going to the help of his brother and trying to stay back there. Without any other option, he drew a line around the ashram called the Lakshman Rekha which no one could get through without Lakshmana's permission. Now, he left searching for Rama. In the meanwhile, Ravana comes in the guise of a sage, and tries to come in. When he realises he is unable to do it, he asks for some bhiksha and asks Sita to give it to him. When she tries to give it from inside, he calls her outside. Then when she steps outside, he carries her and elopes in his airplane, the Pushpak. As Sita cries for help, Jatayu, a vulture king and an aide of Dasharatha notices this and hence goes and gives Ravana a fierce fight. But Ravana uses a sword to first cut both his wings, and then a cut across his heart. Then, he falls to the ground dying, and Ravana successfully elopes with Sita.
In the meanwhile Rama, who is unable to find Sita in the ashram, is heartbroken. He finds Jatayu lying near the ashram, and asks him about what happened. Jatayu tells him that he saw someone kidnapping Sita, and he fought him but in vain. Saying this, he breathed his last. Rama performed Jatayu's last rites like he would do those of his father.
Following this, he went to search for Sita. On the way, he found this demon called Kadamba with a mouth in his stomach who came to eat Rama. Rama destroyed him with one Astra. Then, he proceeded when a old man. The old man asked Rama if he was a person of Vaali. Then Rama told him all details and why he was there. On this information, the old man transformed into a monkey and introduced himself as Hanuman, and took the two of them on his shoulders to his monkey king, Sugriva. Then Sugriva told him about his story.The vanara Vali (Sanskrit: वाली) was king of Kishkindha, a son of Indra and the elder brother of Sugriva.He was famous for the boon that he had received, according to which anyone who came before him lost half his/her strength to Vali, thereby making Vali invulnerable to any enemy. Once Ravana called Vali for a fight when vali was doing his regular shiva puja. He took Ravana in his tail and took around all worlds. Humbled, Ravana called for a truce.
Vali had been known as a good and pious vanara-king, but had been too outraged to listen to his brother Sugriva after his brother had sealed the entrance to a cave in which Vali was fighting a rakshasa. Sugriva had mistaken the blood flowing out of the cave to be his brother's, blocked the entrance to the cave with a boulder and left for Kishkindha, assuming that his brother was dead. When Vali had emerged victorious over the rakshasa, he had found that the entrance to the cave was blocked (not a problem for his strength), and had then discovered Sugriva ruling in his place.Sugriva tried to explain the situation to Vali, but Vali would not listen. Vali banished Sugriva from the kingdom, and held the latter's wife captive in his own palace. Sugriva fled into the forest, where he met Hanuman, who later became a trusted lieutenant of his. Now, Rama and Sugriva understood each other's problems and decided that they would help each other to solve their problems. First Vali had to be slayed. So, Rama arranged a combat between Sugriva and Vali which would act as a trap for Vali as Rama would shoot at him. But the two vanara brothers looked identical to an extent that Rama couldn't distinguish between the two. So midway through the fight Rama garlanded Sugriva to distinguish between the two. Now he easily shot Vali from the back. Now, when Vali fell to the ground, he asked him a question saying that the biggest mistake he had made was having kept Sugriva's wife with him, but he being a monkey didn't have to be bound by human laws. Then Rama replied saying, if he had the intellectual ability to ask such a question, he was intellectually a human, and hence had to be bound by human laws. Without any possibile escapism, Vali admitted his mistake and died with Rama's hands chastising him. Rama asked Lakshmana to make Sugriva the king of Kishkintha as he couldn't come inside a palace till the 14 years of exile were over. So all the festivities of the coronation were over, and it was 6 months up. But the vanaras seemed to have forgotten the promise they had made to Rama to retrieve Sita. Then, Lakshmana went to Sugriva and in a fit of rage, asked him if he had gone to the cheap monkey characterestics of not keeping up promises. Then, an extremely guilty Sugriva made preparations to search for Sita. Following this, he sent his various armies to various parts of the world to search for Sita. His most strong army was that headed by Jambavan, and Hanuman which went towards the south. The search was soon on...
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