RAMAYANA, the older of the two great poems of the I lindus, and that in which the pnnapal hero is Rama. Three versions exist of this book, one supposed to have been composed by Valnuki, one by Tulsi Das, one by Yvan'. That of Vyasa la known as the Adhi Anna llamayima. The story of the Ramayana has some resemblance to that of tho Bind. Sint, the beautiful wife of the hero Rama, is carried off by the giant Ravana to the island of Lanka or Ceylon, whither Manz follovrs him, and after a variety of adventures recovers his spouse, and subsequently recognises hus tiro sons, Kusa and lAva.
The reef across the Straits of Mansar is called 13ridge ; and the legend says that lisms Situ threw the rocks which compose it into the sea. The bare story of each epic is probably his torical. Bentley assigned the Ramayana to the 4th century of the Christian era. The scene is laid in Oudh. It describes his youthful days, his education and residence at the court of Ins father, Dasarat'ha, king of Ayodhya, his marriage with Sita, and his inauguration as heir apparent ; 2dly, the circumstances that led to his banishment, his exile and residence in the forests of Central India; 3dly, his war with the giants or demons of the earth for the recovery of his wife, Sita, who had been carried off by Havana, king of Ceylon, his conquest and destruction of Ravana, and his restoration to the Oudh throne. The first two parts contain little of extravagant fiction, brit in the third part there is the wildest exaggerations and hyperbole, the subject being the conquest of the parts then conquered and pertaining to Brahmanic India, and of the island of Ceylon. With its other subjects,
the Ramayana describes the forest or wilderness of Dandaea as covering the whole extremity of the Southern Peninsula, and the rude inhabitants are designated Rakshasha (monsters), or Vanara (monkeys), the former meaning races or tribes hostile to the Aryans. The word Vanara is from Vana, a wilderness, and Nara, a ma,n,—that is, a wild or uncivilised man ; and to this sense, as to the wild races in the extreme south, the fable of Hanuman, the chief monkey, and that of his army, Mr. Taylor thinks may be reduced. He says that those who have seen the Colleri and Marava will readily consider them to differ from all family likeness of the Aryan Hindus, and as their visages often resemble baboons more than men, it would require even less than the ardent poetical imagination of a Vahniki to induce the employment of an equivalent word which would so aptly seem to convey the idea imparted by their appearance.
The name is from Rama, and Ayana, to go. Ramayana has seven kanda or books, and 24,000 sloka, or about 48,000 lines. Mr. Fergusson sup poses that the events it details occurred 2000 B.C., and those of the Mahabharata about 1200 B.C.