One thing I found interesting is how most of the animals and Raksasas function as shadows of the main characters, but Ravana the wicked king is a mirror image inversion of Rama.
The next interesting this is that many children are read this story because it is engaging and can be seen as childish, but scholars study this story and try to squeeze every last bit of knowledge out of the Ramayana they can because it is extremely insightful. This is similar to the Bible because we read children Bible stories all the time and still even some of the best scholars cannot capture the whole entirety of Biblical Studies.
Some of the similarities when it comes to other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, are interesting because of the isolation phase of the text. In all of these religions there is an isolation period where either one person or a group of people are put on a “mission” to not be at their home and when they end up finishing this period of isolation they have grown wiser and stronger. With Christianity this happens several times, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days and he became stronger after that, in Judaism the Israelites were sent away for 40 years, Buddhism in fact would have never happened if Siddhartha Gautama had not left his life and went to meditate and be enlightened.
Why a monkey? Is there a certain significance to monkeys that possibly he might have not been completely human? Just partly?
What is the significance of the numbers in the Ramayana?