Ramcharitmanas in the context of "Tulsidas"

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.

Sri Ranganatha Ramayanamu (Telugu: శ్రీ రంగనాథ రామాయణము) is a rendition of Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa in Telugu language. It was written by the poet Ranganatha—also known as Gona Budda Reddy—between 1300 and 1310 CE. It was composed in 17,290 couplets (in Dwipada metre). This metre is lyrical and can either be recited like the Valmiki Ramayana (written in Anustupa metre) or sung like the Ramcharitmanas (written in Doha-Chaupai).

Telugu has a very rich literary tradition, starting in the 11th century CE. Although there are more than forty adaptions of the Valmiki Ramayana which are partly or completely in Telugu, only four adaptions have covered the entire theme of the original epic. They are Ranganatha Ramayanam, Bhaskara Ramayanam, Molla Ramayanam, and Ramayana Kalpavruksham.

Awadhi, also known as Audhi, is an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh in northern India and in Terai region of western Nepal. The name Awadh is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city, which is regarded as the homeland of the Hindu deity Rama, the earthly avatar of Vishnu. Awadhi is also widely spoken, along with Bhojpuri, by the diaspora of Indians descended from those who left as indentured labourers during the colonial era. Along with Braj, it was used widely as a literary vehicle before being displaced by Hindi in the 19th century. Though distinct from standard Hindi, it continues to be spoken today in its unique form in many districts of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh.

The Indian government considers Awadhi to be a greater mother-tongue grouped under Eastern Hindi languages. Standard Hindi serves as the lingua franca of the region; Hindi, rather than Awadhi, is used for school instruction as well as administrative and official purposes and its literature falls within the scope of Hindi literature. Some of the most culturally significant works in Indian literature like the Ramcharitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa have been written in Awadhi.

Ramlila or Ramleela (Sanskrit: रामलीला, romanized: Rāmalīlā; literally 'Rama's lila or play') is any dramatic folk re-enactment of the life of Rama according to the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana or secondary literature based on it such as the Ramcharitmanas. It particularly refers to the thousands of the Hindu god Rama-related dramatic plays and dance events, that are staged during the annual autumn festival of Navaratri in India. After the enactment of the legendary war between good and evil, the Ramlila celebrations climax in the Vijayadashami (Dussehra) night festivities where the giant grotesque effigies of evil such as of the rakshasa (demon) Ravana are burnt, typically with fireworks.Rama is the seventh avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu and the central figure of the Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic that integrates performance arts with stories driven by ethical values. The epic text is dated to the 1st millennium BCE and Ramlila is an adaptation of those stories. Most Ramlilas in North India are based on the 16th-century secondary work on Ramayana, Ramcharitmanas a verse form composition in the regional vernacular language (Awadhi a dialect of Hindi), by Tulsidas. These verses are used as dialogues in traditional adaptations. Open-air productions are staged by local Ramlila committees (Samitis), and funded entirely by the villagers or local neighbourhoods in urban areas. The core team of performance artists train for the dance-drama, but the actual performance attracts impromptu participants from the audience and villagers. This art form is a part of the Hindu culture, found for many gods and goddesses, but those of Rama, Durga (as Durga Puja) and Krishna (as Rasalila) are the most popular and annual events in the Indian subcontinent.

The Ramlila festivities were declared by UNESCO as one of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" in 2008. Ramlila is particularly notable in historically important Hindu cities of Ayodhya, Varanasi, Vrindavan, Almora, Satna and Madhubani – cities in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. The epic and its dramatic play migrated into Southeast Asia in the 1st millennium CE, and Ramayana based Ramlila is a part of performance art culture of Indonesia particularly the Hindu society of Bali, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand. In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the movement of the Indian diaspora into European colonies as indentured laborers, the cultural celebration of Ramlila is now found in many parts of the world such as Fiji, Guyana, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. It is also found in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.