Its historical basis, almost lost in the innumerable episodes and
grotesque imaginings of the Hindu, is probably the conquest of southern
India and Ceylon by the Aryans.

The Ramayana is written in the Sanskrit language, is divided into seven
books, or sections, and contains fifty thousand lines, the English
translation of which, by Griffith, occupies five volumes.

The hero, Rama, is still an object of worship in India, the route of his
wanderings being, each year, trodden by devout pilgrims. The poem is not a
mere literary monument,--it is a part of the actual religion of the Hindu,
and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or
certain passages of it, is believed to free from sin and grant his every
desire to the reader or hearer.




BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE RAMAYANA.


G. W. Cox's Mythology and Folklore, 1881, p. 313;

John Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, Religion,
Geography, History, and Literature, 1879;

Sir William Jones on the Literature of the Hindus (in his Works, vol. iv.);

Maj.-Gen. Vans Kennedy's Researches into Hindu Mythology, 1831;