page_title: Ramlila
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ramlila / History
caption_attribution_description: Frise de scènes sculptées du Ramayana sur la paroi nord du temple monolithe de Kailasha ou Kailâsanâtha (725-755) "La Kailasa (grotte 16) ou temple de Kailasha est un remarquable exemple de temple indien creusé dans la roche du fait de ses proportions impressionnantes, de la maîtrise des techniques architecturales dont elle témoigne et de son décor sculpté. La grotte 16, consacrée à Shiva, aurait été commencée par le roi rashtrakuta, Krishna Ier&#160;; elle tire son nom de la montagne dont celui-ci était originaire dans l'Himalaya, le pic neigeux de Kailasa. Le temple tout entier consiste en un sanctuaire avec lingam derrière une salle à shikhara dravidienne, un mandapa à toit plat soutenu par 16 piliers, avec un porche séparé pour Nandi entouré par une cour ouverte à laquelle on accède par un gopura peu élevé. La sculpture majestueuse représentant Ravana tentant de gravir le Kailasa, le séjour de Shiva, avec toute la puissance qui s'en dégage, est un point de référence pour tout l'art indien." extrait du site de l'UNESCO sur les grottes d'Ellora (patrimoine mondial) whc.unesco.org/fr/list/243/ Les grottes d'Ellora Trente-quatre monastères et temples ont été creusés en succession serrée dans la paroi d'une haute falaise basaltique, non loin d'Aurangabad, contribuant à faire revivre une brillante civilisation ancienne dans une séquence ininterrompue de monuments datables de 600 à 1000. L'ensemble d'Ellora est une réalisation artistique unique et un tour de force technique. Avec ses sanctuaires consacrés respectivement au bouddhisme, au brahmanisme et au jaïnisme, il illustre l'esprit de tolérance caractéristique de l'Inde ancienne. (site de l'UNESCO) Voir les temples monolithiques plus anciens de Mahabalipuram, (Inde du sud) www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/13924356674/in/set-72157644...
context_page_description: Ramlila is any dramatic folk re-enactment of the life of Rama according to the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana or secondary literature based on it such as the Ramcharitmanas. It particularly refers to the thousands of Hindu god Rama-related dramatic plays and dance events, that are staged during the annual autumn festival of Navratri in India. After the enactment of the legendary war between Good and Evil, the Ramlila celebrations climax in the Dussehra night festivities where the giant grotesque effigies of Evil such as of demon Ravana are burnt, typically with fireworks.
  Rama is the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu and the central figure of the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic that integrates performance arts with stories driven by ethical values. The epic text is dated to 1st millennium BCE, and Ramlila is an adaptation of those stories. Most Ramlilas in North India are based on the 16th century secondary work on Ramayana, Ramcharitmanas a verse form composition in the regional vernacular language, by Tulsidas. These verses are used as dialogues in traditional adaptations.
context_section_description: Performance arts are an ancient Indian tradition, with the Sanskrit Hindu text Natya Shastra explaining the importance of performing arts as follows:
  Let Nātya (drama and dance) be the fifth vedic scripture.
  
  Combined with an epic story, 
  
  tending to virtue, wealth, joy and spiritual freedom, 
  
  it must contain the significance of every scripture, 
  
  and forward every art.
  — Nātyaśāstra 1.14–15
  Ramlila is one of many performance arts-related festivities within Hinduism. Ramayana epic is dated to the 1st millennium BCE, and is one of the oldest Itihasa genre of Indian literature. It is unclear however as to when the first performances of Ramlila were held. The first enactment of Ramcharitmanas by 16th century Tulsidas is undocumented, but according to the tradition, his student Megha Bhagat started the Ramcharitmanas-based Ramlila in 1625. According to Norvin Hein, a professor of Divinity and of Religious Studies specialising on Indology, Ramlila were in vogue before 1625, at least in North India between 1200 and 1500 CE, but these were based on Valmiki's Ramayana. According to Richard Schechner, the contemporary Ramlila has deeper roots, as it incorporates both the teachings of ancient Sanskrit texts and modern theatre techniques.
  According to John Brockington, a professor of Sanskrit specialising on Indian epics, Ramlila is likely an ancient tradition of India because it is generally accepted by scholars that written manuscripts emerged later in Indian religions, and ancient texts were largely a product of oral tradition. Thus, not only Ramalila, but all ancient epics of India must very likely have been recited and transmitted by bards and students in Ramlila-like manner, verbally from one generation to another, and consistently preserved across a wide geographic region by rules of acting by many teams. Further, states Brockington, the Hindu epics are too vast, with the Ramayana containing 20,000 verses and the Mahabharata with 100,000 verses, to have been preserved over two thousand years without being written down and without reciting and acting out. It is therefore unlikely that the Ramlila tradition emerged only in the modern era.
  Some colonial era Indologists suggested, adds Brockington, that the Ramayana is a modern era text, but this hypothesis has since been abandoned because the existence of the Hindu Ramayana has been attested in Jainism literature, Ramayana reliefs in cave temples such as Ellora Caves, and southeast Asian temple carvings and culture by the 1st millennium CE.
  According to Norvin Hein, the contemporary Ramlila started once the Manas text of Tulsidas had been composed in the 16th century. However, states Hein, a dance-drama form of Ramayana enactment flourished at least in the Mathura region much earlier, possibly around the early centuries of the common era by the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. He traces the evidence for this in the Kathakali, Yaksagana, Kathak and other Indian classical dances which share segments, themes and styles with Ramlila.
  James Prinsep wrote an eyewitness description of Varanasi Ramlila festivities in 1825, while H. Niehus wrote another from Ghazipur in 1905. Norvin Hein described the Ramlila of 1949 and 1950, a period of socio-political turmoil in India after the British India partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Hein reported his observations from Ramilila in Mathura.
caption: The Ramayana relief artwork in 8th century Cave 16 of Ellora suggests its importance to Indian society by then.[21]
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