Ramayana

&

Mahabharata

The two great Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabarata, captured the imagination of nearly every culture in Southeast Asia which had contact with Indians. Both of these epics have been with the Javanese since the influence of India was first felt during the first century A.D.

Coming centuries ago from the snowcapped Himalayas to the warm plains and snowfree mountains of Indonesia, the original epic has of necessity undergone many drastic changes, affecting not only geographical and personal names, but also the story itself.

Both epics are the basis of the most important wayang kulit stories, now called wayang purwa. These lakon or stories number as many as two hundred. In the process of Javanese oral tradition, the stories serve as a bare outline and have been transformed into entirely Javanese versions. Now one often refer to these as Rama cycle for the Ramayana and Pendawa cycle for the Mahabarata.

 

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