Yama Zatdaw

Yama Zatdaw (Burmese: ရာမဇာတ်တော်, pronounced: [jàma̰ zaʔ tɔ̀]), unofficially Myanmar's national epic, is the Burmese version of the Ramayana. There are nine known pieces of the Yama Zatdaw in Myanmar. The Burmese name for the story itself is Yamayana, while zatdaw refers to the acted play or being part of jataka tales of Theravada Buddhism.

The Yama Zatdaw was introduced by oral tradition during King Anawratha's reign although it was not known clearly whether the story was Valmiki’s Sanskrit epic Ramayana or not. In the Nathlaung Temple, the Visnu temple, within the walls of old city Bagan, there are some stone sculptures, one of which is Ramachandra. Based on Burmese literature, at least, Hanuman has been known in Burma definitely before 1527 AD.

The Burmese Ramayana was influenced greatly by Ayutthaya Kingdom, during which various Konbaung Dynasty kings invaded the kingdom. The invasions often brought back spoils of war, including elements of Ramakien (Thai version of Ramayana) into the epic. Rama sā-khyan, one of the well known literature in Burma, is believed to be composed in 1775 by U Aung Phyo which begins with Bala kanda and ends at Yudha kanda as in Valmiki's Ramayana. There are also important Burmese literature and classical music related to the Ramayana which were developed in that era such as U Toe's Yama yakan (Rama's song, ရာမရကန် and Thida yakan (Sita's song, သီတာရကန်), both written in 1784; Yama pyazat (Ramayana ballet, ရာမပြဇာတ်) in 1789; and Kalay Yama wuthtu (Young Rama's life, ကလေးရာမဝတ္ထု) in 1800.

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