They have left their mark on nearly every aspect of Indian life. None of this detracts from the Ramayana’s, or more correctly, the Ramayanas, importance, their influence has been enormous. The Malay Ramayana, Hikayat Seri Rama, and the Lao version, Phra Lak Phra Lam, make Lakshmana the hero and Rama his sidekick. In some versions Sita is Rama’s sister, not his wife. In one version Ravana is the hero, not Rama. And when I say different, I mean really different. The Thai Ramayana differs greatly from the Indonesian one, not just in what it says but in its story line, and both are very different from Valmiki’s. Then of course there is the Jain Ramayana, which other than following the rough outline of Valmiki’s is an entirely independent work. Some of the other versions of the R amayana are the so-called Southern, the Western, the Southern and the North-Western Recensions. Valmiki used an earlier Ramayana, perhaps several of them, as the basis of his own great work. But there is no good reason for doing this other than that Valmiki’s Ramayana is the most widely known version in northern India, that its contents are the most detailed and interesting and that its language is exceptional. This is considered the Ramayana, the standard one, the one by which all the others are judged. The most well-known is the one composed by Valmiki in 24,000 verses. What most people do not know is that there is no one texts called the Ramayana but many of them.
It tells the story of Rama and Sita, their exile and their triumphant return. Although they are unlikely to have ever read it, most people probably know that the Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics and is considered a sacred texts by Hindus.
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