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Indonesia / Java: Illuminated pages from the Serat Rama Keling, a modern Javanese version of the Ramayana,1814

Indonesia / Java: Illuminated pages from the Serat Rama Keling, a modern Javanese version of the Ramayana,1814

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon, considered to be based on historical events. The Ramayana depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king.

The Ramayana was already well known in Java by the end of the ninth century CE.

The late 18th-century renaissance of literature at the central Javanese courts of Surakarta and Yogyakarta saw the rewriting of the Ramayana Kakawin in modern Javanese.

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