Topics Brainstorm

1. Possible Topic: Traveling India. This particular idea is very enticing to me because I enjoy traveling so much.  When I was reading the Ramayana, I was intrigued to find out that there is a Ganges river in India.  I think it would be interesting to map the places important to the stories to put them in context.
Research so far. There is an entire Wikipedia disambiguation page for places in the Ramayana.  The ancient city of Ayodhya still exists.  It might be interesting to write a storybook that combines the city today with its ancient version.

In the city of Ayodhya

Image by Ramnath Bhat

2. Possible Topic: Rakshasas. Rakshasas have been a big part of the Ramayana so far, so I imagine there is a lot more interesting stories to go along with them.  I also think it is interesting that someone can be cursed to live as a rakshasa as Viradha was.
Research so far. All rakshasas we have read about so far have been evil, but apparently this is not a universal trait.  Ravana's multiple heads make him intriguing as well.  He is an especially distinctive stick figure in my notes.  Because there are so many rakshasas, there would be plenty of material to use in a storybook.

Ravana

Image from Wikipedia

3. Possible Topic: Avatars. From the Ramayana reading, I know that Rama is the avatar of Vishnu and Sita is the avatar of Lakshmi.  I've never heard the term avatar used to refer to an incarnation of a god on Earth.  I think this topic is really interesting because I can learn about a specific god through the stories of his avatars on Earth.
Research so far.  I am most interested in focusing on the avatars of Vishnu.  According to the Wikipedia page, Vishnu has 10 avatars also known as the Dashavatara.  I find it interesting that with each incarnation, Vishnu's avatar's become more evolved.  His first avatar is Matsya, a fish.  Then he is a tortoise, a boar, a half man half lion, dwarf, and then a man.  I feel like this particular topic has a lot of potential directions.  I could tell a storybook that ties together themes or morals from several of these stories, or I could have Vishnu's avatars interact in some way.

4. Possible Topic: Monkeys. This is a little more specific than the animal characters listed in the suggested topics, but monkeys seem to be very recurring so far.  I was also impressed by the image shown below of Rama building the bridge.
Research so far.   It looks like the monkeys in the Ramayana are referred to as the Vanaras.  It is also unclear whether the Vanaras were monkeys or forest dwelling people.  In addition to Hanuman, there is Sugriva, Vali, Makardhwaja  among others.  It seems that they are most prominent in the Ramayana but are also mentioned in the Mahabharata.

Rama Builds the Bridge

Image from Images and PDE Epics