8. An Open-Air Ramayana

Ramlila, the Audience Experience

linda hess

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This essay was published in an earlier form as “Ram Lila: The Audience Experience,” in Bhakti
in Current Research: 1979–1982, ed. Monika Thiel-Horstmann (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag,
1983), 171–90.

Ramlila is a generic name for the annual dramatic representations of the ancientRa-
mayanastory performed in hundreds of places throughout North India, usually in Sep-
tember and October.^1 These Ramlilas are generally based on the Hindi version of the
epic, theRamcharitmanas,composed by Tulsidas in the late sixteenth century. They go
on for multiple days—from three days to more than a month. This essay focuses on a
particular Ramlila, that of Ramnagar, just across the Ganga from Varanasi—the
largest in scale, the most famous, and, as many participants say, the most vibrant with
bhakti,or devotion. Its special grandeur and intensity are linked to the fact that for two
centuries it has been under the patronage of the Maharajas of Varanasi, who have given
it both lavish material support and formidable cultural importance. Although there are
dozens of Ramlilas in different Varanasi neighborhoods, many people cross the river
every day for a month to attend the Ramnagar performance. Often they say, “Once you
have seen Ramnagar, you don’t want to look at any other Ramlila.”
For three years in the late 1970s and again in 1983, I too crossed the river every
day for a month. I stayed in the midst of the Ramlila from its opening moment in
the early evening to its closing arati,or ritual of worship—usually a matter of about
five hours, but sometimes seven or eight, and, on one occasion each year, a full