Kakawin Ramayana

Kakawin Ramayana is an Old Javanese rendering of the Sanskrit Ramayana in kakawin meter.

It is believed to have been written in Central Java (modern Indonesia) in approximately 870 AD during the era of Medang Kingdom under the reign of Mpu Sindok.Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa is a kakawin, the Javanese form of kāvya, a poem modeled on traditional Sanskrit meters.

Among the Javanese, Kakawin Ramayana has always been considered the pinnacle of artistic expression. The large number of preserved manuscripts attest to it popularity and adaptation. It is the lengthiest of all the Old Javanese kakawins of the Hindu-Buddhist period of Java.

The Javanese Ramayana differs markedly from the original Hindu prototype. The first half of this Ramayana Jawa is similar to the original Sanskrit version, while the latter half is divergent to the point of being unrecognizable by Indian scholars of the original Ramayana. One of the many major changes is the inclusion of the all-powerful Javanese indigenous deity dhayana Guardian God of Java Semar (in Balinese literature known as Twalen) and his misshapen sons, Gareng, Petruk, and Bagong who make up the numerically significant four Punokawan or "clown servants". This latter, altered half of the original tale is the most popular, and it is performed in all wayang performances.

Literary scholars hold that the textual source of the Old Javanese kakawin Rāmâyaṇa might have been the Sanskrit poem Rāvaṇavadha or Bhaṭṭi-kāvya by the Indian poet Bhaṭṭi, between the 6th and 7th century AD. The first half of the Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa is more or less an exact rendering of Bhaṭṭi-kāvya.

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