Tulsidas Ramayana: Ram Charit Manas

Tulsidas (1574) tells the story of Ram, the prince of Ayodhya, in Awadhi, a dialect of Hindi spoken in Awadh in Uttar Pradesh. The work consists of about a thousand stanzas, each about 12 to 18 lines, set in elegant rhyme. Every village and town in the Hindi heartland has a troupe that gives a theatrical performance, called Ramlila, based on Tulsidas’ work. Ramlila is enacted as part of the Vijaya Dashami celebrations.