Epic
Reamker
រាមកេរ្តិ៍
Anonymous · 1600
Synopsis
Preah Ream, who won the beautiful Neang Seda by passing the test imposed by her father, is sent into exile in the forest by one of the queens, who wants the throne for her own son; his wife and his brother Preah Lak follow him. The giantess Surpanakhar, rejected by the two brothers and mutilated by Preah Lak, urges her brother Krong Reap, the ten-headed demon who rules the island of Lanka, to take revenge. By the trick of a golden deer, Reap draws the two brothers away and abducts Neang Seda. To find her, Preah Ream allies himself with the king of the monkeys, who sends him the warrior Hanuman.
Context
A seventh-century inscription, at Veal Kantel, already mentions the gift of Ramayana manuscripts to a temple and their daily recitation, and the bas-reliefs of Banteay Srei and then of Angkor Wat depict its scenes. The surviving text, the work of several unknown authors, dates from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Khmer account adds episodes absent from the Indian texts, such as the love affair of Hanuman and the mermaid Sovann Maccha, and treats its heroes as men rather than gods. It feeds the repertoire of the royal ballet, almost all of whose masters perished under the Khmer Rouge and which resumed it as early as 1979, as well as the murals of the royal palace.
Who it is for
For readers who know the Indian Ramayana and want to discover the Khmer version, to be read in translation or seen danced.
Prizes and reception
The Royal Ballet of Cambodia, which draws its major roles from it, was proclaimed a masterpiece of the intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2003, then inscribed in 2008.