| Tulsidas,
a Hindu poet of northern India, tells an ancient religious story
of duty and devotion.
Prince
Rama is exiled from his father's kingdom for 14 years. Devotion
to Rama leads his wife, Sita, and his brother Lakshmana to
go with him. But the ten-headed demon king Ravana kidnaps
Sita and carries her away to the island of Lanka. Rama allies
with the monkey people in a great war against Ravana. He kills
Ravana and rescues the faithful Sita. At the end of his exile,
Rama returns home in triumph to become king.
The
story of Rama, called the Ramayana,
was originally written in the ancient Sanskrit language of
India. Tulsidas's epic poem tells the deeply devotional tale
in a dialect of the Hindi language. Hindus believe Rama was
a human incarnation of the god Vishnu. The brave, devoted
Rama serves as a model for Hindu men; as the loyal, dutiful
Sita does for Hindu women.
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