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Many hues of the Hindu legend
Ramayana has enchanted people across the world for years. From dance forms to critically acclaimed films, the epic has influenced art everywhere.
Yogyakarta is considered the cultural capital of Indonesia and you can tell that the city is devoutly Muslim from the neat (and fashionable) headscarves that most women wear when out on the streets. It’s also a city that loves the Ramayana. You can see the legend performed as a traditional ballet. Characters from the epic appear all over the city: on graffiti, in graphic novels and on T-shirts. Some are drawn in the old Javanese style as seen in shadow puppets and batik, with spindly limbs and elaborate headgear. Others reimagine beloved characters like Hanuman and Ravan’s son, Indrajit, as manga characters with glittering eyes and bulging muscles.
The Hindu legend of the Ramayana didn’t only travel across Asia in centuries past; it has been lovingly claimed and cherished by different cultures into the present. You can find versions of the Ramayana kept alive through stories, art and performance in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, Japan, China, Malaysia and, of course, Indonesia. The bare bones of the story remain the same as the one told by the sage Valmiki, but each culture has added elements to make the legend its own. In the Khmer retelling, Hanuman plays a bigger role and in the Ramakien of Thailand, Hanuman is a lot raunchier than in the Indian versions. The Malaysian Ramayana often gives Lakshmana more prominence and the stories of the vanar sena (army of monkeys) in battle inspired the Balinese dance form kecak, which was developed in the 1930s by Indonesian dancer, Wayan Limbak, and German painter, Walter Spies.
In the 20th century, the Ramayana has travelled with the Indian diaspora to America. Among the more exciting retellings of the Ramayana in recent times was cartoonist Nina Paley’s film, Sita Sings the Blues, in which Paley wove the story of a contemporary failed marriage with Sita’s trials. The soundtrack for the film includes songs by American jazz singer, Annette Hanshaw.
