Epics

Manuscript illustration of the Battle of Kurukshetra.

The Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata are the oldest preserved and well-known epics of India. Versions have been adopted as the epics of Southeast Asian countries like Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven books (kāṇḍas) and 500 cantos (sargas),^[110] and tells the story of Rama (an incarnation or Avatar of the Hindu preserver-god Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana. This epic played a pivotal role in establishing the role of dhárma as a principal ideal guiding force for Hindu way of life.^[111] The earliest parts of the Mahabharata text date to 400 BC^[112]and is estimated to have reached its final form by the early Gupta period (c. 4th century AD).^[113] Other regional variations of these, as well as unrelated epics include the Tamil Ramavataram, Kannada Pampa Bharata, Hindi Ramacharitamanasa, and Malayalam Adhyathmaramayanam. In addition to these two great Indian epics, there are five major epics in the classical Tamil language — Silappatikaram, Manimekalai, Cīvaka Cintāmaṇi and Valayapathi-kundalakesi.