Ramayan (TV series)
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| Ramayan | |
|---|---|
 Ramayan promotional poster |
|
| Genre | Religious drama |
| Creator(s) | Ramanand Sagar |
| Starring | Arun Govil Deepika Sunil Lahri Arvind Trivedi Dara Singh Vijay Arora Sameer Rajda Mulraj Rajda Lalita Pawar |
| Country of origin |  India |
| Language(s) | Hindi |
| No. of episodes | 78 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 35 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Doordarshan |
| Original run | January 25, 1987 – July 31, 1988 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Luv Kush |
| Links | |
| IMDb profile | |
Ramayan is a highly successful[1][2] Indian television series created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar. The 78-episode series originally aired weekly on Doordarshan from January 25,[3] 1987, to July 31,[4] 1988, on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. IST.
It is a television adaptation of the ancient Indian religious epic of the same name and is primarily based on Valmiki's Ramayan and Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas. It is also partly derived from portions of Kamban's Kambaramayanam and other works.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Arun Govil as Ram
- Deepika as Sita
- Sunil Lahri as Lakshman
- Arvind Trivedi as Ravan
- Dara Singh as Hanuman
- Vijay Arora as Indrajit
- Sameer Rajda as Shatrughna
- Mulraj Rajda as Janak
- Lalita Pawar as Manthara
[edit] Popularity and influence
During its original broadcast, Ramayan was enormously popular, drawing over 100 million viewers[5]. Its popularity reached a point where the entire nation of India "came to a virtual stop as nearly everyone who could gain access to a television stopped what they were doing to watch the televised adventures of Rama."[6] In a phenomenon that the newsmagazine India Today dubbed "Ramayan fever," religious services (Hindu and non-Hindu) were rescheduled to accommodate the show's broadcast; trains, buses, and inner-city trucks stopped running when the show was on; and, in villages, hundreds of people would gather around a single television set to watch the show.[7][8]
At the time, Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi stated, "Ramayan has stirred the imaginations of millions of viewers. It has imbibed the great Indian culture, tradition and normal values especially in the young."
While religious-themed films had been produced since the beginning of Indian cinema, Ramayan was the first Indian television series based on religious stories[9] and is widely credited with inspiring the production of many other religious television series, including Mahabharat, Vishwamitra, Buddha, and Sagar's own Luv Kush and Krishna, as well as inspiring the production of historical dramas such as Chanakya and Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj.
Ramayan was listed in the Limca Book of Records as the "most viewed mythological serial" until June 2003.[10]
[edit] References
- ^ Lutgendorf, Philip (1991). The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 12. ISBN 0-520-06690-1.
- ^ Lutgendorf, P., The Life of a Text, 412
- ^ Lutgendorf, Philip (1990). "Ramayan: The Video." The Drama Review 34, 127–176
- ^ Lutgendorf, P., "Ramayan: The Video"
- ^ Lutgendorf, P., The Life of a Text, 412
- ^ National Endowment for the Humanities. "Lessons of the Epics: The Ramayana". EdSITEment Lesson Plans. Available online from http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=599 (18 January, 2006).
- ^ Karp, Jonathan and Williams, Michael. "Reigning Hindu TV Gods of India Have Viewers Glued to Their Sets." The Wall Street Journal, 22 April 1998
- ^ Lutgendorf, P., The Life of a Text, 412
- ^ Lutgendorf, P., The Life of a Text, 411–412.
- ^ Limca Book of Records certificate on official website of Sagar Arts
[edit] See also
- Ramayana, the epic on which this series is based
- Luv Kush, a follow-up series to this one
- Ramanand Sagar
[edit] External links
- Ramayan at the Internet Movie Database
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