Awadhi language in the context of "Ramlila"

Depending on the methods of counting, as many as three hundred versions of the Indian Hindu epic poem, the Ramayana, are known to exist. The oldest version is generally recognized to be the Sanskrit version attributed to sage Narada, the Mula Ramayana. Narada passed on the knowledge to Valmiki, who authored Valmiki Ramayana, the present oldest available version of Ramayana.

The Ramayana has spread to many Asian countries outside of India, including Burma, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam and China. The original Valmiki version has been adapted or translated into various regional languages, which have often been marked more or less by plot twists and thematic adaptations. Some of the important adaptations of the classic tale include the 12th-century Tamil language Ramavataram, 12th-century Kannada Ramachandra Charitapurana or Pampa Ramayana by Nagachandra, 13th-century Telugu language Sri Ranganatha Ramayanam, 14th or 15th-century Assamese Saptakanda Ramayana, 15th-century Bengali Krittivasi Ramayana, 16th-century Awadhi Ramcharitmanas, 17th-century Malayalam language Adhyathmaramayanam Kilippattu, the Khmer Reamker, the Old Javanese Kakawin Ramayana, and the Thai Ramakien, the Lao Phra Lak Phra Lam, and the Burmese Yama Zatdaw.

Varanasi (Hindi pronunciation: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi], also Benares, Banaras Hindustani pronunciation: [bəˈnaːrəs]), or Kashi, is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. The city has a syncretic tradition of Islamic artisanship that underpins its religious tourism. Located in the middle-Ganges valley in the southeastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi lies on the left bank of the river. It is 692 kilometres (430 mi) to the southeast of India's capital New Delhi and 320 kilometres (200 mi) to the southeast of the state capital, Lucknow. It lies 121 kilometres (75 mi) downstream of Prayagraj, where the confluence with the Yamuna river is another major Hindu pilgrimage site.

Varanasi is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities. Kashi, its ancient name, was associated with a kingdom of the same name in the first millenium BCE. The Lion capital of Ashoka at nearby Sarnath has been interpreted to be a commemoration of the Buddha's first sermon there in the fifth century BCE. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi. Tulsidas wrote his Awadhi language epic, the Ramcharitmanas, a Bhakti movement reworking of the Sanskrit Ramayana, in Varanasi. Several other major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir and Ravidas. In the 16th century, Rajput nobles in the service of the Mughal emperor Akbar, sponsored work on Hindu temples in the city in an empire-wide architectural style. In 1740, Benares Estate, a zamindari estate, was established in the vicinity of the city in the Mughal Empire's semi-autonomous province of Awadh. Under the Treaty of Faizabad, the East India Company acquired Benares city in 1775. The city became a part of the Benares Division of British India's Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1805, the North-Western Provinces in 1836, United Provinces in 1902, and of the Republic of India's state of Uttar Pradesh in 1950.

Hindustani classical music (also known as North Indian classical music or Shastriya Sangeet) is the classical music of the Indian subcontinent's northern regions. It is played on instruments like the veena, sitar and sarod. It diverged in the 12th-century from Carnatic music, the classical tradition of southern India. While Carnatic music largely uses compositions written in Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindustani music largely uses compositions written in Sanskrit, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), Braj, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Rajasthani and Punjabi.

Knowledge of Hindustani classical music is taught through a network of classical music schools, called gharana. Hindustani classical music is an integral part of the culture of North India and is performed across the country and internationally. Exponents of Hindustani classical music, including Ustad Bismillah Khan, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Ravi Shankar have been awarded the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India, for their contributions to the arts.

Ramcharitmanas (Devanagari: रामचरितमानस rāmacaritamānasa), is an epic poem in the Awadhi language, composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Tulsidas (c. 1511–1623). It has many inspirations, the primary being the Ramayana of Valmiki.

This work is also called, in popular parlance, Tulsi Ramayana, Tulsikrit Ramayana, Tulsidas Ramayana or simply Manas. The word Ramcharitmanas literally means "Lake of the deeds of Rama". It is considered one of the greatest works of Hindu literature. The work has variously been acclaimed as "the living sum of Indian culture", "the tallest tree in the magic garden of medieval Indian poetry", "the greatest book of all devotional literature" and "the best and most trustworthy guide to the popular living faith of the Indian people".

Rambola Dubey (Hindi pronunciation: [rɑːməboːlɑː d̪ubeː]; 11 August 1511 – 30 July 1623), popularly known as Goswami Tulsīdās (Sanskrit pronunciation: [tʊlsiːdaːsa]), was a Vaishnava (Ramanandi) Hindu saint, devotee (भक्त) and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit, Awadhi, and Braj Bhasha, but is best known as the author of the Hanuman Chalisa and of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana, based on Rama's life, in the vernacular Awadhi language.

Tulsidas spent most of his life in the cities of Banaras (modern Varanasi) and Ayodhya. The Tulsi Ghat on the Ganges in Varanasi is named after him. He founded the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple in Varanasi, believed to stand at the place where he had the sight of the deity. Tulsidas started the Ramlila plays, a folk-theatre adaptation of the Ramayana.

Kaithi (𑂍𑂶𑂟𑂲, IPA: [kəɪ̯t̪ʰiː]), also called Kayathi (𑂍𑂨𑂟𑂲), Kayasthi (𑂍𑂰𑂨𑂮𑂹𑂟𑂲, IPA: [kəjəst̪ʰiː]), Kayastani, or Kaite Lipi (काइते लिपि) in Nepali language, is a Brahmic script historically used across parts of Northern and Eastern India. It was prevalent in regions corresponding to modern-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand. The script was primarily utilized for legal, administrative, and private records and was adapted for a variety of Indo-Aryan languages, including Angika, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Hindustani, Maithili, Magahi, and Nagpuri.

Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: फ़िजी हिंदी; Kaithi: 𑂣𑂺𑂱𑂔𑂲⸱𑂯𑂱𑂁𑂠𑂲; Perso-Arabic: فجی ہندی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is the mother tongue and indigenous language of Indo-Fijians. It is also looked at as a Creole language based on Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by other languages and language families like Bhojpuri, Maithili, English, iTaukei, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Assamese, Punjabi, Urdu, Marathi and Malayalam. Many words unique to Fiji Hindi have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Fijians now live in. First-generation Indo-Fijians in Fiji, who used the language as a lingua franca in Fiji, referred to it as Fiji Baat, "Fiji talk". It is related to and intelligible with the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius, South Africa, Caribbean Hindustani but more closely related with Sarnami with the loan words being Dutch instead of iTaukei. It can be interpreted as Hindi-Urdu, but it differs a lot in phonetics and vocabulary from Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu.

Indo-Fijians (Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी के हिंदुस्तानी / فجی کے ہندوستانی) are Fijians of South Asian descent whose ancestors were indentured labourers. Indo-Fijians trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent.

Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through to the late 1980s, discrimination triggered immigration, resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) (2007 census) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji as of 2007. Although they hailed from various regions in the subcontinent, just about half of Indo-Fijians trace their origins to the Awadh and Bhojpur regions of the Hindi Belt in northern India. Indo-Fijians speak Fiji Hindi in Fiji also known as 'Fiji Baat' which is based on the Awadhi dialect with influence from Bhojpuri. It is a koiné language with its own grammatical features, distinct to the Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu spoken in South Asia. The major home districts of Fiji's North Indian labourers were Basti, Gonda, Lucknow, Kanpur, Faizabad, Ballia, Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Sultanpur, Siwan, Shahabad, Saran, and Azamgarh, in the present-day Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh and the present-day Bhojpur region of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. Others (in a smaller quantity) originated in West Bengal, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Telugu regions. A small contingent of indentured labourers came from Afghanistan and Nepal. Many of the Muslim Indo-Fijians also came from Sindh, West Punjab and various other parts of South Asia. Fiji's British colonial rulers brought South Asian people to the Colony of Fiji as indentured labourers between 1879 and 1916 to work on Fiji's sugar-cane plantations, with a small minority were also used in Rice farming.