The Ramayana and Mahabharata

India's two great Sanskrit epics are both sacred stories and shared cultural treasures. The Ramayana, attributed to the poet Valmiki, tells of Prince Rama's exile, the abduction of his wife Sita by Ravana, king of Lanka, and her rescue with the help of the monkey devotee Hanuman. The Mahabharata, traditionally attributed to Vyasa and traditionally reckoned at about 100,000 couplets, recounts a war between two branches of a royal family, the Pandavas and Kauravas.

Both epics explore dharma through characters facing hard choices, and both are imperfect models: readers have long debated, for example, Rama's treatment of Sita. The stories spread across South and Southeast Asia, retold in Tamil, Hindi, Thai, Javanese and many other languages, and in dance, puppetry and film. Their reach shows how religious narrative can shape art, ethics and identity far beyond formal worship.