RAMCHARITMANAS - ART AND CULTURE
News: FIR
against Swami Prasad Maurya for comments on ‘RAMCHARITMANAS’
What's in the news?
● An
First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Samajwadi Party (SP)
leader and former Minister Swami Prasad Maurya at the Hazratganj Police station
in Lucknow over his controversial remarks on the ‘RAMCHARITMANAS’.
RAMCHARITMANAS:
● The
Ramcharitmanas is based on the Ramayana,
sage Valmiki’s great epic.
● It
is the holiest book of the Indo-Gangetic
region, and among the world’s most read holy books.
● Goswami Tulsidas
composed the Ramcharitmanas on the bank of the Ganga in Varanasi.
● Across
the Hindi heartland, a reference to “Ramayan” often actually means
Ramcharitmanas.
Features:
● The
poem was written in the 16th century in
the Awadhi dialect that is mainly spoken in the areas that are today’s Lucknow,
Prayagraj, and Ayodhya districts.
● It
is divided into seven chapters (Kand)
that tell the story of Lord Ram from birth to his becoming King of Ayodhya.
Tulsidas:
● Tulsidas lived in the
time of Emperor Akbar (16th century)
and some believe that he was in touch with Abdurrahim Khan-e-Khanan, the son of
Akbar’s commander Bairam Khan.
● Tulsidas
made the story of Lord Ram popular among the masses because he wrote in the
regional dialect that most people understood.
● Tulsidas
started the Ramlila plays, a
folk-theater adaption of the Ramayana
● Other works of Tulsidas
include: Dohavali, Sahitya ratna or Ratna Ramayan, Gitavali , Krishna Gitavali
or Krishnavali and Vinaya Patrika.