A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” This quote, attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, means that only facing easy situations in life cannot make one a better person.
In Hindu epics, vanavasa or exile to the forest is an important part of the hero’s journey. The hero is leading a comfortable life from which he is ejected through some inciting incident. He loses the luxuries and comforts of the palace.
No longer are there servants to make everything easy for him. He has to fend for himself. He roams the forests suffering cold and heat and rain and hunger, all the while being afraid of wild animals.
He gains experience and strength, and comes back a bigger hero than he was when he left for the forest. If we look at the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, we see this happening to our heroes. Sri Rama, who was leading a comfortable life as a prince in Ayodhya and was to be the next king, was suddenly forced to go into exile for 14 years.
For his father’s sake, he, along with wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, embraced this suffering. In the forest, Sita was abducted by Ravana. It was not an easy task to bring her back, as Sri Rama did not have the army of Ayodhya to battle Ravana’s army.
Unfazed, he put together a rag-tag army of monkeys and rescued Sita. When he was a young prince at Ayodhya, Sri Rama was just like other young men of his time. Through the ordeal of vanavasa, he elevated himself so much that people started considering .