The Ravan of the bonfire is a villain, the Ravan of older stories, regional temples and hymns is a scholar, a king and a devotee. Reading these names at once shows how one name can hold several stories.
In the Valmiki Ramayana tradition, the child of a Bramhin sage Vishrava and the Rakshasa princess Kaikasi is born with ten heads and is called Dashagriva (ten-necked), or Dashanana (ten-faced). He is the grandson of the sage Pulastya, and is said to have mastered the Vedas and the shastras. On his mother’s side Kaikasi is the daughter of Sumali, the Rakshasa who first held Lanka.
The popular story of how he became Ravan is the story of how he became Shiva's greatest devotee. Flying home in his stolen chariot, Dashagriva reaches Mount Kailash, mocks Shiva's attendant Nandi, and tries to uproot the mountain. Shiva presses it down with a toe, trapping the king's arms beneath it. Dashagriva's scream shakes the three worlds, and that cry gives him the name: Ravan, from the Sanskrit for roaring or crying.
This naming scene sits in the Uttara Kanda, the last book of the Ramayana, which many scholars regard as a later addition. Scholars have also suggested it may be a Sanskritised form of Iraivan, the Tamil word for a lord or king, which would make it a title rather than a nickname. Some Sinhala nationalist readings split the word differently and see a sun race. Interpreters have also noted that Ravan (roaring, active) forms a deliberate pair with his half-brother's name Vaishravana (hearing, passive), a patronymic of Kubera.
In the Uttara Kand version, he spends a long captivity beneath the mountain composing praise. One popular version has him tear a head from his body, string it with his own tendons like a veena, and sing. The hymn is the Shiva Tandava Stotram, a vigorous poem in the Panchachamara metre that imitates Shiva's cosmic dance. Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Ravan, though that is tradition, and some devotional sources note that not everyone accepts it.
Shiva, pleased, frees him and gives him gifts. Most versions name the sword Chandrahasa, the moon-blade; some add the Pashupata weapon or a powerful linga, the Atmalinga. The Atmalinga story continues into Karnataka lore: Ravan carries the linga towards Lanka, is tricked by a boy (Ganesha, in the tale) into setting it down, and it roots itself at Gokarna. That tale lives in later regional retellings, and one standard reference notes it has little to no support in the Valmiki Ramayana.
The Ravananugraha panel at the Holysaleswara Temple in Karnataka, built in the Gupta era, shows Ravan under Kailash, playing a veena made from his own head and arms while Shiva and Parvati sit above. Ravan images appear alongside Shiva at Shaiva temples. That is the root of the idea that Ravan is Shiva's greatest devotee: the story of a proud king humbled into worship was already being sculpted long before the Ramayan grew in popularity.
Several communities view Ravan as a figure of reverence. In Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, Gond groups call themselves Ravanvanshis, descendants of Ravan, and worship him and his son Meghnad as deities, especially at a tribal festival in Phalgun. In Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, where Mandodari is said to have been born, the Namdeo Vaishnav community honours him as the town’s learned son-in-law. Bisrakh, near Greater Noida, claims him as a native son and mourns him through the nine days before Dussehra, while Kanpur’s Dashanan Temple opens only on Dussehra, when devotees chant Jai Lankesh. Mandore in Rajasthan and Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh keep similar traditions.
They remember him as a scholar, a Shiva devotee and a kinsman, rather than as the demon of the epic. That such a range of communities, tribal and Brahmin, claim him as their own may hint at older memories of a ruler that the Ramayan later recast, though this is only speculation.