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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.<br/><br/> 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 name Ramayana is a tatpurusha compound of Rāma and ayana (going, advancing), translating to ‘Rama's Journey’. The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven books (kāṇḍas) and 500 cantos (sargas), and tells the story of Rama (an Avatar of the Hindu preserver-God Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king of Lanka, Ravana.<br/><br/> The epic was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Indian life and culture. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India.<br/><br/> There are other versions of the Ramayana, notably Buddhist and Jain in India, as well as Indonesian, Philippine, Thai, Lao, Burmese, Cambodian and Malay versions of the tale.
During the 10th and 11th centuries CE the Chandella Kings of central India, scions of a powerful Rajput clan who claimed the moon as their direct ancestor, built a total of 85 temples to the glory of God, the creation, and the Hindu pantheon. The Chandellas were devout Hindus.<br/><br/> Eclipsed by the Mughal conquest, the rise of rival dynasties, and the passage of time, the temples languished in the harsh sun and monsoon rains of central India, gradually becoming lost in the jungle. At the time of their re-discovery in 1839, they were so completely overgrown that T. S. Burt, their founder, thought no more than seven temples had survived. Happily this proved far from the case, for when the undergrowth was hacked back and the complex restored, no fewer than twenty two of the original structures were revealed standing.
During the 10th and 11th centuries CE the Chandella Kings of central India, scions of a powerful Rajput clan who claimed the moon as their direct ancestor, built a total of 85 temples to the glory of God, the creation, and the Hindu pantheon. The Chandellas were devout Hindus.<br/><br/> Eclipsed by the Mughal conquest, the rise of rival dynasties, and the passage of time, the temples languished in the harsh sun and monsoon rains of central India, gradually becoming lost in the jungle. At the time of their re-discovery in 1839, they were so completely overgrown that T. S. Burt, their founder, thought no more than seven temples had survived. Happily this proved far from the case, for when the undergrowth was hacked back and the complex restored, no fewer than twenty two of the original structures were revealed standing.