Tuesday, November 6, 2007

How many Ramayanas?

Valmiki, according to historians lived anywhere between 800 BC and 400 BC, composed Ramayana based on the oral traditions that were a thousand years older. In India, apart from at least four more Ramayanas in Sanskrit, there are the Jain Paumachariyam in Prakrit, Ramcharit Manas by Tulsi Das in Hindi, Sundarananda Ramayana and Adarsha Raghava in Nepali, Katha Ramayana in Assamese, Krittivas Ramayan in Bengali, Jagamohan Ramayana in Oriya, Rama Balalika in Gujarati, Ramavatar in Punjabi, Ramavatara Charita in Kashmiri, besides the well known Kamba Ramayanam in Tamil, Ramacharitam in Malayalam, Ranganatha Ramayanam in Telugu and Torave Ramayana in Kannada.