Note 41 — II POST-VEDIC LITERATURE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA

The part of Rāma in the growth of drama was certainly not less important than that of Kṛṣṇa himself, for the recitation of the Rāmāyaṇa was popular throughout the country, and has persisted in vogue. The popularity of the story is proved to the full by the effect of the Rām-Līlā or Daçārha festival, at which the story is presented in dumb show, children taking the places of Rāma, Sītā, and Lakṣmaṇa before a vast concourse of pilgrims and others. No effort is made to speak the parts, but a series of tableaux recalls to the minds of the devotees, to whom the whole tale is familiar, the course of the history of the hero, his banishment, his search for Sītā, and his final triumph. In Rāma’s case the influence of the epic on the drama appears in its full development.41