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Ramakien
In the classical theatre of Thailand dancing and acting are so intertwined that they must be treated as one rather than as separate arts.
Traditional Thai art contains several types of Thai drama.
One of these is called the Khon.
In the Khon the performers, originally all men, all wear masks, and the masks, costumes and music themes are used to identify the characters themselves.
Because the masks are full head masks it is difficult for the wearer to talk.
Consequently, the actors on the stage do not speak.
Their lines are read and sung by an offstage chorus and soloists who recite the story, speak the dialogue, and generally describe what is happening on stage.
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Hanuman Khon masks from the Ramakien
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The orchestra, too, performs a major role in a Khon performance, for the orchestra must set the mood of the play and the specific action, accompany the dancers on the stage, and accompany the offstage singers.
There is no such thing as incidental music in a Thai classical dance-drama presentation.
Music, acting, singing are all essential parts of the whole. Without any one of them the Khon cannot be performed.
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A second type of Thai drama is the Lakhon.
Like the Khon, the Lakhon is usually based upon the stories from the RAMAKIEN, although other classical tales are also told.
It differs from the Khon, however, in some major ways.
For one thing, Lakhon dancers are mostly women who dance both male and female roles.
Sometimes, both men and women appear in Lakhon, in which case women usually portray the heroes and heroines while men portray the demons and monkeys.
Masks are not worn by all the characters in the Lakhon.
Usually the non-human characters wear masks while human characters do not.
The latter keep their faces expressionless and allow their postures and gestures to indicate their actions and feelings.
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A Khon performance of the Ramakien
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Although some of the characters do not wear masks, none of the characters speak their own lines.
Again, as in Khon, all lines are said or sung by offstage singers.
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A Lakhon performance of the Ramakien
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Thai dance performers in both Khon and Lakhon must go through a long period of rigorous training to maintain discipline and flexible bodies to perform and hold the positions needed to depict the various characters in the drama and their actions.
The dancers who portray monkeys must also be skilled at acrobatics for performing a monkey role calls for unusual agility.
The monkeys are often the spectators’ favourite characters because of their acrobatics and general liveliness.
Even if the spectator cannot identify the monkeys from their costumes and masks, they can always tell who they are because the monkeys constantly scratch themselves in an easily observable, stylized way to rid themselves of persistent itching monkey fleas.
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The basic position for all Thai classical dancers, called "alphabet of dancing" must be learned early in the dancer’s career.
There are actually two alphabets, a short one of nineteen positions and a long one, incorporating the names.
In the short alphabet are such positions as ‘the stag’ ‘walking in the rain forest’ ‘the bee caressing the flower’ and ‘wedded love’.
The longer alphabet adds others such as ‘the blades of the windmill in motion’ ‘walking gracefully’ ‘lascivious dancing’ ‘the Chinese disembowels himself’ and ‘the lion plays with its tail’.
If a member of the audience has learned all the positions, he is better able to follow the story, but few outside the profession are in that enviable position, and it is not essential to an understanding of the play.
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Both Khon and Lakhon are based on stories mainly drawn from the Ramayana.
This Hindi epic poem in its Thai version, the Ramakien, is important to many fields of Thai art and is well known to most Thai.
The visitor will find scenes from it used in paintings, wood carvings, lacquer work, and other Thai decorative art.
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A painting depicting the Ramakien story
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If a visitor to Thailand has some knowledge of this old and impressive story, they will have a much easier and satisfying time in understanding the Thai art which they see.
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Ramakien dance
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The story has gone through many versions in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and other countries since it was first written by the Indian poet Valmiki many centuries ago.
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The central story begins when Brahma, creator of the world, is approached by many celestial beings who are troubled by a demon king named Ravana (in the Thai version he is called Thosakan) who lives in Lanka, an island kingdom which is usually identified with Ceylon.
Because of past events before the central story begins, Ravana cannot be killed by any god or other celestial being, but only by a human being.
After some thought and discussion Brahma decides to send Vishnu (Narayana or Narai in Thai) to earth reincarnated as a human prince named Rama who will have the task to destroy the demon.
At the same time, Vishnu’s consort, Lakshmi, is to be reincarnated as the human princess Sita.
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Rama is born to one of the wives of the king of Ayodhya, and Sita, who is not really born, springs from a ploughed furrow as the daughter of another Indian Raja.
Rama grows to be a great prince.
He learns everything there is to know and masters all the virtues which guide him in his daily life.
Of him it was said, for example, that he remembered a single kindness while forgetting a hundred injuries.
In time, Sita’s father holds a contest to see who can bend a magic bow; whoever does will win Sita for a bride.
Of course, Rama is the only one does and so he marries Sita and also gains the magic bow for his weapon.
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Thai painting depicting Rama with the magic bow
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Rama is so loved by almost everyone that his father decides to name him heir to the kingdom.
But one of the king’s other wives is jealous of Rama’s mother and Rama’s special position.
In an earlier episode this Queen had saved the king’s life and he had promised her a boon whenever she might claim it.
Now she claims it by asking the king to banish Rama to live as a hermit in the forest for fourteen years and to name her son, Bharata, heir instead.
Greatly grieved, the king tries to find a way out of this dilemma, but is not able to do so.
He must adhere to his promised word and carry out the jealous queen’s wishes.
Rama accepts the inevitable and with Sita and his younger brother, Lakshman, he goes to live in the forest.
Incidentally, Bharata is very angry with his mother.
He also loves Rama, like most other people in Ayodhya, and asks Rama to return.
When Rama replies that he must stay in the forest for fourteen years as their father has instructed him, Bharata pledges to rule only as viceroy for Rama when the time comes to succeed their father.
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While the three royal refugees are living in the forest, Ravana’s sister visits them.
She tries to seduce Rama away from Sita.
When the sister fails in this effort, she then tries to entice Lakshman away, but fails there too.
In fact, Lakshman attacks her with his sword and cuts her face and body.
The sister returns to Lanka and her brother Ravana; together they plot revenge.
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Rama & his brother, Lakshman, in the forest
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Ravana wants Sita for himself.
He persuades a magician to take the shape of a golden deer and pass near the hermitage of the three refugees.
Sita sees the deer and cajoles the reluctant Rama to go after it for her.
He finally does and the deer lures him deep into the forest.
When Rama does not return soon, Lakshman (who is guarding Sita on Rama’s orders while the latter is away) and Sita become worried.
Then they hear Rama’s voice (actually an imitation by the same magician) calling for help.
Sita begs Lakshman to go help his brother, but Lakshman refuses.
Finally Sita accuses him of wanting her for himself, and to protect his honour Lakshman must obey her and disobey Rama.
He goes in search of his brother.
Lakshman is barely gone, of course, when Ravana, the demon king, appears in disguise as a religious mendicant.
Sita, compassionate and unsuspecting, invites him into the lodge and he tries to persuade her to go with him to Lanka.
When she refuses, he returns ten headed demon shape and seizing Sita carries her off to his kingdom.
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When Rama and Lakshman return they begin a long search for Sita.
They learn from an ancient friendly vulture, who had tried to save Sita but failed when his aging strength faltered, that she has been kidnapped by Ravana.
The two brothers set out to rescue her, but they have no army.
On the way they meet some monkey leaders, including Surgiva and Hanuman.
Surgiva has been exiled by his brother who has usurped the monkey king’s throne from Surgiva.
Rama uses his magic weapons to help Surgiva recover his kingdom and, in turn, Surgiva calls forth a huge monkey army to help Rama rescue Sita.
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Hanuman the warrior monkey God
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Hanuman is a special monkey.
He is actually the son of the wind and can never die because he is always revived whenever a wind blows.
Furthermore, as son of the wind he can fly anywhere.
He does fly around and finds Sita a prisoner at Lanka.
He informs her of Rama’s plans to rescue her and then leaves to return to Rama with news of Sita.
Before going back to Rama, however, Hanuman flies around Lanka causing damage and gets captured.
After explaining truthfully who he is and why he is there, Hanuman is punished by Ravana.
The punishment is to have his tail set on fire.
Hanuman escapes and flies around setting fire with his tail to half the city before he douses the fire in his tail and returns to Rama.
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Ravana’s brother Vibhishana (Bhibek in Thai), a great astrologer and wizard, cautions the demon king and urges him to return Sita to Rama.
Ravana curses his brother, who flees Lanka and joins Rama’s forces.
The ocean gives Rama and his monkeys’ permission to build a bridge across the water to Lanka.
After the bridge is built and the army crosses there are a great many battles with Ravana calling on all his relatives to help him Rama and many of his forces are wounded, but they are healed by celestial intervention which comes by the Garuda (part man, part bird) and through other sources.
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The Garuda
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At one point impatient Hanuman dashes of to the Himalayas to find some healing herbs.
When it takes him too long to find the herbs, he uproots the whole mountain and carries it back.
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Finally, Ravana, who usually has tried to hide his ten heads from the beautiful Sita, brings all his heads to concentrate on the battles.
He sends his son, Indrajit, into the battle and the son is killed by Lakshman.
Then Ravana enters the battle himself and after much fighting is killed by Rama.
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The task which was set for Vishnu in his Rama reincarnation is completed.
Rama and Sita are reunited, but Rama renounces her because he suspects she may have submitted to Ravana.
She proves her purity by undergoing an ordeal by fire.
(Interestingly the Thai version, Rama does not renounce Sita, but she initiates the ordeal to prove her purity in case Rama has any doubts).
After fourteen years of this long epic, Rama, Sita, and Lakshman return to Ayodhya where all welcome them and Bharata happily turns the throne back to Rama.
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This is an appropriate place to end, but the Ramayana does not do so.
Later Rama suspects Sita again and sends Sita back to the forest alone.
There she gives birth to his twin sons and rears them to young manhood.
In time, Rama learns of his sons and forgives Sita.
She returns and swears to her innocence, but instead of resuming life she returns to the celestial world with all his family and monkey followers.
Presumably he is reunited with Sita, as Lakshmi, there.
One version has Sita returning from the forest and living happily with Rama, which seems more likely if she were really his celestial consort.
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With a story of this complexity one can easily see the immense possibilities for unusual variations available to the imaginative artist.
It seems almost needless to say that the Ramakien as drama is never performed in its entirety.
Usually a few scenes are done, and sometimes a general condensation using the main scenes is performed.
That, in itself, can often take several hours.
One traditional rule governing the length of any particular performance is that it can never end in tragedy for the hero.
That means, whenever Rama or Lakshman is wounded in one of the many battles the performance must continue until the hero or his brother is healed and heading his forces again.
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In adapting the drama to Thailand, not only have names of persons and the setting been changed, but episodes have been added and subtracted.
Thai costumes, masks, and music have been provided and Rama has been identified as a future Buddha.
The text most often used in Thailand is a version made by King Rama II, although the most complete version of the whole Ramakien is the one made by King Rama I.
You can see in Thailand the great influence of this epic on the names of places (e.g. the old capital of Ayutthaya is a version of Ayodhya) and the names of real persons today, including the general title of Rama given to the Chakri kings.
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In Mae Mai & Luk Mai techniques the influence of the Ramakien is present;
- Hanuman Tawaiwaen – Monkey god presents the ring,
- Prararm Naosurn – Rama pulls the bow string
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If you get the opportunity, go and see one of these epic performances of the Ramakien.
If visiting the Grand palace in Bangkok, you can see the Ramakien murals on the walls depicting the full legendary story.
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Ramakien mural – Grand Palace
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Researched and adapted from James Basche’s book
‘THAILAND – LAND OF THE FREE’ © 1971
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