The beauty of Valmiki Ramayana is its intricate detail of events and description of physical characteristics of all individuals in the historical tale. Valmiki maharishi even describes how Lord Rama walks and describes his body language in detail!
When Hanuman finds Sita maatha under the tree, Valmiki says that Hanuman put his hands on top of his head and offered Pranams/Namaste. Such is the detailed description of Valmiki Ramayana.
Sita devi after being in captivity for almost 10 months is heavily depressed and vulnerable. When hanuman tells her that he was sent by Lord Rama, she asks Hanuma to describe how Rama looks. Sita maatha was earlier tricked by wicked Ravana several times, so she wanted to make sure the person who came is indeed a genuine person and not someone in disguise.
Swamy Hanuma very humbly describes the physical characteristics of Lord Rama in great detail. Almost the whole 35th chapter/sarga in Sundarakanda is dedicated for this purpose. He describes about Lord Rama shoulders, dark brown shining skin tone, has a shell like neck, hidden collar bone, beautiful red eyes, square built body etc etc.
One particular sloka below in Valmiki Ramayana describes the height of Lord Rama.
त्रिवलीवांस्त्र्यवनतश्चतुर्व्यङ्गस्त्रिशीर्षवान् |
चतुष्कलश्चतुर्लेखश्चतुष्किष्कुश्चतुःसमः || ५-३५-१८
The sloka is from Sundarakanda, 35th chapter/sarga, sloka #18.
The units described in above sloka translates to 96 inches in modern day measurements. This indicates that Lord Rama was 8 feet tall!
Lord Rama is often described as “Aajanubhanum aravinda dalayataaksham" means someone with arms reaching upto his knees and with beautiful large eyes like leaves of lotus flower!
Blessed are those who got to see Lord Rama in person!
Sri Rama Jayam!
