Shorter of the two great epic poems of
India, the other being the Mahābhārata (“Great Epic of the Bharata
Dynasty”). The Rāmāyana was composed in Sanskrit, probably not before
300 bc, by the poet Vālmīki, and in its present form consists of some
24,000 couplets divided into seven books.
The poem describes the royal birth of Rāma in the kingdom of Ayodhyā (Oudh),
his tutelage under the sage Viśvāmitra, and his success in bending
Śiva’s (Shiva’s) mighty bow at the bridegroom tournament of Sītā, the
daughter of King Janaka, thus winning her for his wife. After Rāma is
banished from his position as heir by an intrigue, he retreats to the
forest with his wife and his favourite half brother, Laksmana, to spend
14 years in exile. There Rāvana, the demon-king of Lankā, carries off
Sitā to his capital, while her two protectors are busy pursuing a golden
deer sent to the forest to mislead them. Sītā resolutely rejects
Rāvana’s attentions, and Rāma and his brother set about to rescue her.
After numerous adventures they enter into alliance with Sugrīva, king of
the monkeys; and with the assistance of the monkey-general Hanumān and
Rāvana’s own brother, Vibhīnana, they attack Lankā. Rāma slays Rāvana
and rescues Sītā, who in a later version undergoes an ordeal by fire in
order to clear herself of the suspicions of infidelity. When they return
to Ayodhyā, however, Rāma learns that the people still question the
queen’s chastity, and he banishes her to the forest. There she meets the
sage Vālmīki (the reputed author of the Rāmāyana) and at his hermitage
gives birth to Rāma’s two sons. The family is reunited when the sons
become of age, but Sītā, after again protesting her innocence, asks to
be received by the earth, which swallows her up.
The poem enjoys immense popularity in
India, where its recitation is considered an act of great merit. Many of
its translations into the vernacular languages are themselves works of
great literary merit, including the Tamil version of Kampan, the Bengali
version of Krttibās, and the Hindi version, Rāmcaritmānas, of Tulsīdās.
Throughout North India the events of the poem are enacted in an annual
pageant, the Rām Līlā, and in South India the two epics, the Rāmāyana
and the Mahābhārata, even today make up the story repertoire of the
kathākali dance-drama of Malabar. The Rāmāyana was popular even during
the Mughal period (16th century), and it was a favourite subject of
Rājasthānī and Pahārī painters of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The story also spread in various forms
throughout Southeast Asia (especially Cambodia, Indonesia, and
Thailand); and its heroes, together with the Pāndava brothers of the
Mahābhārata, were the heroes of traditional Javanese-Balinese theatre,
dance, and shadow plays. Incidents from the Rāmāyana are carved in
bas-relief on many Indonesian monuments—for example, at Panataran in
eastern Java.
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
