Author: D. Vaidehi, Dr. Teena Tiwari, Dr. Shruti Agrawal

Abstract: Setting the Bala Kanda as the ethical and metaphysical axis along which the epic's moral world is established, this article comprehensively investigates the Valmiki Ramayana in a spiritual, hermeneutic mode. It refrains from reading the narrative as a mytho, historical saga and instead views the scripture as a guide that dramatizes through symbolic gesture, divine incarnation, and institutional authority of kingship and asceticism, the normative order of dharma and adharma. Using the classical Sanskrit texts, philosophical commentaries, and present-day hermeneutics as methodological tools, it interprets the birth of Rama, the sacrificial economy of Dasharatha, the enlightening role of Vishwamitra, and the performative breaking of Shiva's bow as allegories of the cosmic re-ordering and moral enlightenment. By placing Bala Kanda within the tradition of comparative review of sacred narrative and moral philosophy, the essay argues that Valmikis poem jubilates an open, ended concept of righteousness. The Ramayana is seen here not as something fixed and having the form of a static moral law but more as an interpretative system in development; a code that keeps changing and through which every human interpretative exercise has a profound effect eternally, undergoing reshaping by the continuous interplay of divine and human moral will, human agency, and social organization.

Keywords: Adharma, Bala Kanda, Dharma, Hermeneutics, Sacred Narrative.

Article Info: Received: 28 Apr 2026; Received in revised form: 24 May 2026; Accepted: 27 May 2026; Available online: 01 Jun 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.113.43