Legend of Ramayana across the world
1) RAMAYANA IN MoNGOLIA AND RUSSIA:
on 15th December 1972, on front page of Deccan Herald, there was the news of story similar to Ramayana published in capital city Elista, Kalmyk, Russia. The news further confirms the legends of Ramayana being popular among Kalmyk citizens with many versions of Ramayana stored across the various libraries of Kalmyk. The news further adds that characters of epic Ramayana were very famous since time unknown. Similarly, another Russian writer,Domodin Suren, mentioned various legendsof ramayana popular among Kalmyk and Mongolian people. Prof C F Glostunky`s book named Academy of Sciences is sitiuated in Erstwhile near Siberian,U.S.S.R. This book written in Kalmyk language describes various ramayana legends popular along the Coastal areas of Volga River. Lastly a huge compilation of books related to Ramayana are still preserved and availaible publicly in Mongolian and Russian languages in leningrad province.
Play of Ramayana in russia
2) RAMAYANA IN CHINA:-
In China, huge collection of Jatak tales(251 A.D), related to Ramayana events was compiled by Kang Seng Hua. Another book(742 AD) describes the plight of Rama father(Dasarath) after he was forced to outcast Rama for 14 years. Similarly, His-Yii-Chii wrote a novel in 1600 AD called Kapi(meaning monkey) which describes the events and stories of hanuman.
3) RAMAYANA IN SRILANKA:-
Kumardasa(originally Naresh Kumar Dhatusena), ruler of srilanka in 617 AD, compiled a book in sanskrit called Janakiharan. Till date, it has been regarded as the oldest Sanskrit literature of Sri Lanka. Later, John D`Silva and C. Don Bostean also wrote books on Ramayana. More than india, sri lankans adore the characters of ramayana including their own ravana
4) RAMAYANA IN KAMPUCHIA(COMBODIA):
Today also, many inscriptions on rocks belonging to khmer empire of 700 AD, can be found in Cambodia. These rock inscriptions depicts the events of Ramayana. still, walls of many temples built during the period of Khmer kingdom depicts the events and scenes of Ramayana. Premises of Angkor watt is famous for the events of Mahabharata and Ramayana. One surprising point to note in this temple is that pictues of Hanuman and othe Vanaras are shown without their tails. Cambodian still believes only their their face were like monkey and they didn't have tails.
Artists performing play of Ramayana in cambodia
5) RAMAYANA IN INDONESIA:
De Casperis mentions about a temple(9th century AD) called Chandi Loro Jongrong with pictures of Ramayana events engrossed on its walls.Indonesia have their own version of Ramayana called Kakavin which story is little different than that of Prambanan. Besides this, many other versions of Ramayana and its related events were described in times earlier than Christ. This goes on to prove the popularity of Ramayana among the masses of indonesia before the advent of Islam. surprisingly,few years back, Indonesia became the host of first international convention on Ramayana
Artists performing ramayan in indonesia
6) RAMAYANA IN LAOS:
Loas actually sounds like the name of rama son 'Luv', When pronounced in dialect of the local language. Walls of Vat-Pa-Kev and Vat- She-Fum temple depicts events of Ramayana. The temples of Vat-Sisket and Vat-Pra-Kev has the books containing epic of Ramayana.French traveler Lafont translated local story 'Palaka-Palama' in his book called Pommachak.stories of popular among the masses of loas also described in this book.
Loa version of ramayana
7) RAMAYANA IN THAILAND:-
Before christainity or budhism engulfed thailand, many ancient rulers of thailands had Rama as the suffix or prefix in their name. Dramatic folk plays of Ramayana is still organised and revered in Thailand.
Thai ramayana
RAMAYANA IN MALAYSIA:-
Even today, many dramatic plays(HIKAYAT SERI) based on ramayana is organised and revered. Every year, Dalang society conducts 200-300 plays(aprox) on Ramayana. Before the play starts, people praise and performs prayers to RAMA and SITA.
Yearly international Ramayana show in malaysia
9) RAMAYANA IN BURMA:-
King Kayanjhitha (1084 -1112 AD) declared himself as desecendant of Rama clan. Many books on events of ramayana, with some written as early as 1500 AD are still revered in Burma. Some of the books like Kavyadarsh Subhasit and Ratanidhi are quite popular. Author Taranath wrote a commentary on Ramayana called locally as Zhang-Zhungpa. Similar to other countries, many dramatic plays based on ramayana are conducted across the diffrent parts of burma.
Burmese version of ramayana
10) RAMAYANA IN NEPAL:-
Nepal has one of the Ramayana oldest version(1075 AD) which is still read by modern priests.
11) RAMAYANA IN PHILIPINES:-
Essence of Ramayana can easily be seen in many traditions and customs of phillipines. According to prof Juon R Francisco survey, legends of Ramayana is very popular among Marineo Muslims with majority of them believing him as Incarnation of God. Similarly Sulu folk and Magindanao Muslims also praise legends of Ramayana.
Philippines artist performing ramayana
12) RAMAYANA IN IRAN:
Capital of Andhra Pradesh,Hyderabad boast a museum named Salarjung. This musuem has apainting showing a monkey holding a very large stone in his hand which is commonly percieved as Hanuman holding Dronagiri. Similarly Marco Polo in his famous book(page no 302, vol II) wrote about a surprising belief among Muslims living in whole gulf region (from Afganistan to Algeria and Morocco). These Muslims had the belief that members living in imperial house (Trebizond) were gifted short tails while medieval continentals had whitish skins like Englishmen.
if someone starts digging in the belief of local muslims before advent of Christianity and Islam,than existence of Mahabharata and Ramayana can be proved in Arabic and European countries. Many historical and archaeological significant buildings were destroyed by dogmatic and barbaric rulers of the middle west.
13) RAMAYANA IN EUROPE:
In a recent excavation, peculiar type of paintings were found in various houses digged out of the remains of Astrocon civilization. On close investigation, these 7 century paintings were identified as the events of Ramayana. Paintings consisted of two mens(with bow and arrow in their shoulders) along with group of monkey type characters with a lady standing besides them. Once Astrocon civilization covered over 80 percent of Italy.
Sir Henry Yule who transled Marcopolo works has mentioned the belief of ancestors having small tails among people of medieval Europe. The same has been confimed by Maharishi Dayanand in his documentary research magnum opus(Satyarth Prakash). Swamiji mentions about medieval Europe citizens calling asians as Vanaras because of their similar appearance to characters of Ramayana etc. This can be considered as racist comment similar to australians referred as kangaroos.
This type of epithets were also used in many other situations like describing armies of different countries during world war or in our case, naming helicopter as cheetah. same sorts of epithets were used in the form of words like Vanaras.Rakshas, etc. All these facts clearly demonstrates the popularity of Ramayana and its charcters all across the world .
Ramayana show in great britain
14) RAMAYANA IN AFRICA(CONTINENT):
Ethiopians declare themselves as descendents of Cushites. Now this word Cushites is said to be the phonectic misnomer of Kush, the elder son of lord Rama. This fact is further verified by commentary of satpath Brahamans in various vedic mantras.
Commentary includes the reference of King Bharata (Predecessor of Pandavas) ruling Rhodesia.
Besides these, many africans communitites praise legends of Ramayana and they consistently refers to numerous activities of vanaras.
Name Egypt is derived from ajpati, Rama forefather name. Many other references of rama predecessor like dasratha can be found in ancient scriptures of Egypt, all verified by various Brahmans historical references.
15) RAMAYANA IN SOUTH AMERICAN AND NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENTS:
Before North American continent was discovered by Columbus, europeans were not awared of these continents however in a book(THE HUMAN SPECIES) written by DE QNATREFAGES, it is said that Chinese were not only aware of American continent but also had trade exchanges with them. Japanese called america as Fad-See while chinese called america as Fad-Sang. Similarly, america was frquently referred as paatal desh(Paatal means below foot) in india since it lied exactly opposite on the below side to india. Ramayana, mahabharata and other ancient scriptures are full of such references etc. For example:
a) Mayans are supposed to be civilization of mayasur who was blesed by lord krishna. Mexican tribal area called their beautiful womens as Ulopy. In mahabaharta, arjuna married a beautiful girl named Ulopy, daughter Patal Desh ruler.
b) In his book, famous author W H Prescott provides various similarities between mexicans(Mayans) and Indian(Aryan) civilization with many references to prove the trade links between these two civilizations.
Writer further talks about the legend quite popular in Aztec community. This legend is about a handsome person from the east called Quevtsal Katal, landed on west to teach on numeropus facets of advanced civilization. Later, he returned to his homeland due to oppression by some divine creature. Surprisingly, no exact reason of his return is mentioned.
Prescott further states that these legend and his stories is well documented in his homeland. Now, only in india there is a story similar to this. In Valmiki Ramayana, there is a mention of Rakshas(Demons) from lanka called Salkantak who was crucified by Vishnu. Due to his crucification, he ran away from Lanka to reach Patal Desh and met sumali, leader of this group. There they lived for a long time and returned back when the situation in his homeland became congenial. many such references from ramayana clearly indicates that ramayana is history and not a mythological epic.
Even today play based on ramayana called Ramasitotav is revered in various parts of Mexico. Even in Bible(new testament), there is a word called Rama. Eact sentence is "his voices was heard in RAMA" (ch 2/18). Rama was used as a proper noun. Instead of relating it directly to hindus rama, let us leave that to the biblical society to define the word Rama in bible.
Many amazing questions have been raised by indian and western historians like:
1) Why the month in which muslims fast is called Ramadhan ?
2) Why there is a place in Gazastrip called Ramallaha ?
3) what was the reason behind the place in London being named as Ramsgate?
4) Why Italy capital is called Rome( phonetically similar of Rama)
Similarly, Rama has been used as suffix and prefix in many such historical artifacts and places. There have been many answers to this questions but surprisingly, none of it gives a satisfactory conclusive answer.
Without hesitation one accepted that Alexander invaded India. But do we have any concrete proof beside some evidences. on one other hand, same historians straightly deny the historicity of Rama despite thousands of archaelogical and historical evidences.
In this article, i think that plenty of proof on lord rama has been provided. So, now it's upto the reader to decide what they think about it whether to be foolish to refute the historicity of Rama or be wise to research on to find out further truth on this.
I would conclude with the following points:
1) Rama was a legendary hero(Mahanayak) who lived a simple dharmic life and an ideal to all living humans.
2) Its doesn't matter if Ramaset is declared as man made bridge built by Rama or some natural formation of sea resources. Irrespective of whether Ramsetu is declared natural creation or manmade, historicity of Rama cannot be refuted.
3) Valmiki Ramayana is not a fiction but a true epic supported by historical evidences.
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