 Imagine a figure who has been loved and worshipped by hundreds of millions of people in many countries for untold generations. A personality upon whom countless kings have modelled themselves. A story which has been central to the culture of many countries, cutting across a spectrum of religions. An epic which has shaped the lives and daily behaviour of millions and provided them an ethical framework on which to build their understanding of their duties in the world. We are speaking of the Ramayana, one of the great stories of the world. The story is fascinating and very simple. It centres on Rama, the prince of Ayodhya in India. He is exiled by his father and sent to the forest for 14 years. His faithful wife Sita and his loyal brother Lakshmana follow him to the forest where they live. Sita is tricked and abducted by the powerful and evil King Ravana. He takes her off to Lanka and keeps her in captivity there. Rama searches for her and becomes friends with the powerful monkey leader Hanuman. Ravana is killed and Sita is brought back. That is the essential outline of the story. Every character in the Ramayana is a role model. So these are role models whom we can ask our children to model themselves on. And I think that is what is a very important aspect of the Ramayana and that's what makes it eternal. Being in Asia, we all have inside ourselves Ma Bharata and Ramayana. So these are two fundamental epics for the Asian culture in general. The Ramayana story has gone all over Southeast Asia as well as South Asia. The stories are very, very well known and have been for a thousand years or more. So the characters and their situations and their personalities are well enough known that they can be used as a positive or a negative role model and people understand. We saw it as the most extraordinarily widespread and influential text in Asian literature and religious culture. When I give talks to Western audiences, I refer to the Ramayana as the greatest story never told in the West. The great majority of the human race has lived in Asia, not in Europe or the other continents. So it's obvious that this has been the most performed and the most impactful in terms of poetic, spiritual stories, what are called legend or mythology today. The extraordinary thing about the Ramayana is how many versions of it there are. In every Indian language, we have Ramayans. Of course the original Ramayana is written by the great sage Valmiki, the Adikave, the first great poet of India. The Ramayans spread far beyond the borders of India to all the countries of Asia in the first millennium CE. It continues as a shared culture in South and Southeast Asia till today. This film provides some glimpses of Ramayana performances across South and Southeast Asia. The focus is on four of the principal characters who continue to fascinate people till today. Rama, his beloved wife Sita, the great monkey warrior Hanuman and Ravan, the arrogant and ruthless king who abducts Sita. These are characters who dominate the imagination of vast populations. My own first memory is to go and watch the performance in the open air place. And because I was so small, they put me up behind Ravana. And I still remember how Ravana sweated in the hot weather while he was dancing. Even before elementary school, in Thai language subjects, we would study Ramayana again and again year by year in the different parts of the stories. If you are Thai and if you have enrolled in the educational system, you must have read Ramayana again. For how Thai people think about it. What's good, what's bad in terms of political, in terms of moral, when you face some kind of situation which is kind of similar to what we have studied from Ramayana again? Yes, now I am 72 years old already. But I know about the story when I was five years at the primary school in Luang Prabang. The character of Paramp is very important for the Lao people. Everybody Indonesian people know about Ramayana's story. Actually, especially in Java and Bali. But everybody knows about Ramayana's story. The Ramayana story tells about love and peaceful in the world. Now in schools and even in university and in general public, there is a lot of awareness about Ramayana and there are Ramayana debates and Ramayana festivals. We have plenty of Hanuman devotees and also Hanuman temples are plenty here. Ramayana has been part and parcel of Nepali cultural life. It has religious dimension obviously. More than that, Ramayana has been in Nepalese society since time immemorial. Even in folk tales and folk songs, they have stories from Ramayana. It is very hard for me to recall the exact juncture of time when I heard about Ramayana and Ram. Because I belong to traditional Brahmin family. So from the very beginning Ram, Sita and all these Hindu deities, these are part and parcel of our life. Maybe 2-3 years old from that on. I can remember my father deciding Ramayana, both Nepali version as well as Sanskrit version. Sita was born in Janakpur. So today also, Nepali women imitate her character. So in that way, Sita still represents a daughter in perfection, a mother in perfection, a queen in perfection and a knowledgeable person in perfection. And from the Nepal's point of view, she is someone who is always with us. The first first memory was my grandmother narrating the Riyam Kei. And this epic written 2000 years ago in India, I mean it's still going strong in all Asia. In Cambodia, everyone knows it. They all know Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Anuman is a superstar of Cambodia anyway. Southeast Asia, certainly in the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, Cambodia and Thailand, Rama is seen as an ideal king. And so kings have in Southeast Asia have always, and in India too of course, sought to model themselves on Rama. They've used the name Rama sometimes. And there's all kinds of symbolism and royal ceremonies and so on that are trying to associate the king with Rama. Rama being the ideal king of Dharma, of righteous behavior. This is a Buddhist country and yet the kings of Thailand took the name of Rama. See their kings are Rama I, Rama II, Rama III and so on. And they named their capital Ayutthaya, which is of course the Thai pronunciation of Ayudhya, which is the Rama's capital. And even further into the archipelago, which are Islamic states, you find texts like the Khykaya Thirama, where Rama is turned into an idealized Islamic ruler and so on and so forth. So you can see how the story, the characters can transcend even religious divides. It is obvious that the Siamese since antiquity embraced the Ramayana as the model of virtuous king. Siamese kings has two terms calling the names, including Dhammarasa, the king with great virtues and Ramatibhiti, the lords in the name of Rama. So the kings consider themselves as descendants or the reincarnation of Rama. It's a long time belief that the king should be the avatar of Visnu as he is a protector god. So sometimes he may come to the earth and help people and try to save people from dangerous. So that's why for a long time ago, many people still believed to the king as a Visnu god. The ethics of ideal king can be found in the Ramayana, in the Ramayana. And the king is not an absolute person who would follow his own inclination. He listened to the people, he is concerned with the welfare of the people and so on. And even in India Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Ram Raja as the model for modern India. Gandhiji was a great devotee of the Ramayana. He quoted it often and referred to it many times. Ram Raja exactly called this long period of ideal conditions where the great king, the great leader, has provided the basis and the foundation and the structure for society and also provided a model of behavior so that there's prosperity, there's good health, there's good education, there's happiness for everyone. This idea of the Ram Raja has always for centuries and centuries been an ideal to strive for. We have inscriptions in Thailand, several Sanskrit inscriptions in which one of the kings says that I want to rule this country as Rama ruled Ayodhya in ancient times. The Ramayana is the most popular story told to little children by grandparents. Puppets and shadow puppets have been used to tell this tale. Some of the finest paintings, sculptures and reliefs across Asia have been based upon the Ramayana. There's a ninth century temple in central Java that has very extensive stone reliefs of the Ramayana story. So already by a thousand years ago in Indonesia the Ramayana was so important that it was being represented at a scale and with artistic attention and creativity to rival what was going on in India itself at the time. The 12th century Angkor Bhat Temple of Cambodia has 1200 square meters of bar relief. This has the most extensive depiction of the Ramayana theme anywhere in the world. One of the most beautiful depictions of Ramayana in paintings is found in the palace, royal palace at Bangkok in Thailand. And these paintings are super painted in gold. The complete story of Rama is depicted. Well I think it speaks to and serves as an example of a certain kind of social culture that is foregrounded throughout the region. That is a kind of systems of truthfulness, ethical behavior, devotion to duty and deference to figures of authority, particularly one's parents, one's guru, to the priestly class and so on and so forth. So each of the central characters in the Rama story stands as a kind of shining example of how people either should or should not behave in this world. Rama is the ideal prince adhering to dharma, truth and righteousness, who gives up everything to maintain the truth of his father's word. Satyam, truth becomes a very central ethical principle. Rama is forced to abandon the throne, his wealth, power, everything, and go to live as a mendicant, homeless, penniless beggar in the wilderness for 14 long years. There is a constant discourse on the ethics of everything. For example, when Kaikei says Rama should go to the forest for 14 years and my son should become king, Rama doesn't just say, okay, I'm going bye-bye and doesn't go off. He comes to his rooms and there is a discussion. His brother Lakshmana says, no, stay here. Then Rama and Lakshmana discuss it, you know, and Rama says, no, I must go because my father has given his word to Kaikei and as a son, as a good son, I have to make sure that my father's words are upheld. I think the ethics part is very important. That's what makes a story immortal. Rama serves as a kind of idealized version of a kind of masculinity that is powerful, truthful, a great warrior, but also a vessel of compassion. So a person in command, not only of a nation, of a region, of a state, but in command of himself. Rama is an example of our living today. So I think it's kind of a knowledge we give the kids that what kind of life you should lead a Rama kind of life. Sita, his wife, the heroine of the story, although she suffers terribly through the story, is also held up as an example of the perfect wife, the pativrata, who follows her husband into penury, hardship, and so on, even though she doesn't have to. He tries to get her to stay at home. She argues against it. Vamiki describes Ravana as this kind of grand, almost glorious, imperial lord. When Hanuman first sees him while searching the palace, he describes him in great detail with wonder and amazement, and he says what beauty, what majesty, what grandeur. Ravana is that misappropriation of divine virtue that needs to be overcome. It does lead to arrogance and wrong action. However, it's not just a simple matter of a good guy versus a bad guy or a god versus a demon. Hanuman is, of course, the most interesting, daring, provocative, enchanting, attention-commanding figure in the entire Ramayana. Hanuman's devotion to Rama becomes an exemplary act of devotion to God, but a very, very popular figure. In fact, probably the most widely worshipped divinity in India today. The ancient story of the Ramayana continues till today, across South and Southeast Asia as the most popular story of the people. It is found in comic books and in the most watched TV serials of the region. This is one of the greatest works of human culture. And I'm stressing human because it's not something restricted just to one group, country, region or ethnicity. From what we witness at UNESCO, we know that Ramayana has a world significance. I mean, of course it's coming from India, but it has irrigated all Asia.