Had discussion with Raavana temple devotee, and I would like to share this here to get your guys perspective

Hi guys,

I follow Kashmir Shaiva's Tantric path, and traditional hindu stuff outside of it is bit not familiar to me.

We have two temples worshipping Raavana in our town, and one of my friends took me there today.

Out of curiosity, I had asked them why they would worship Raavana in the first place, and one of the devotee told that Raavana has even temples many places of India and Sri Lanka, even in the district of Ram's birthplace.

Few of the perspectives he shared:

  1. There are 20+ versions of Raamayana, with each contradicting other. In few versions, Sita is the daughter of Raavana, and few versions Raavana is the hero as well. Few of these versions were written equally during the time period of Valmiki.

  2. Hinduism is so freaking old, that nobody knows why certain things are there in the first place. So most of the concepts in Hinduism are left out for Franchise. Anyone can take it and use it according to their likes and wish. Take Lord Shiva for example. He's been Aghori, living in Kailasha or Himalayas as per North Indian scriptures. But South Indian scriptures doesn't have any clue of this, and claims Lord Shiva to be in Podhigai mountain, and the first Siddha who had transferred his knowledge to 18 Siddhas. Both North Indian and South Indian versions disagree and contradict with each other. In fact, Lord Shiva being portrayed as an Aghori smoking Ganja is pretty offensive to South version till very recently, thanks to the internet. But it's fine, as one group going against the another group because it challenges their preconceived notion of their god is against Hinduism's core concept of Dharma.

  3. Similarly, Raavana is being perceived in many different ways, and the actual question comes who's authorizing what is the right perspective. The devotees are simply claiming to follow a different version of Ramayana written, and they're not opposing the Valmiki version as well. Very similar to different portrails of Lord Shiva.

I'm interested in how this sub thinks about these perspectives.