RAMADAN, rä′mȧ-dän′ (Ar. Ramaḍȧn, from ramiḍa, to be burning hot). The ninth month in the Mohammedan year. Mohammed is said to have had his first revelation in Ramadan, and every Moslem is therefore enjoined to keep a strict fast during this month from dawn to sunset of every day, and to abstain from eating, driving, smoking, bathing, smelling perfumes, and other bodily enjoyments. During the night, however, the most necessary wants may be satisfied, and this permission leads to nightly indulgences in all sorts of enjoyments. As the Mohammedan year is a lunar one, the months rotate through the different seasons, and the fast of Ramadan becomes a severe affliction upon the faithful when the month happens to fall in the hot days of the summer. The sick, travelers, and soldiers in time of war are temporarily released from this duty, though it must subsequently be performed during an equal number of days. Nursing and pregnant women, and those to whom it might prove really injurious, are exempted from fasting. During this month twenty additional prayers are said after the night prayer. Very pious believers seclude themselves and devote their time to the reading of the Koran. The fast is followed by the feast of Beiram (q.v.). In establishing this fast Mohammed seems to have been guided by the Christian institution of Lent, which in the early Church varied in length from four to six weeks. The principal passages treating of the fast of Ramadan are found in the Koran, sura ii. 179-184. Consult: Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums (Berlin, 1897); D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque orientale (Paris, 1781); and the commentaries on the Koran.
RAMAKA, rȧ-mä′kȧ. Another name for the Egyptian princess Hatasu (q.v.).
RAMAKRISHNA, rä′mȧ-krĭsh′nȧ (1833-86). A celebrated Hindu yogi or ascetic. He was born at Kamarpukar, near Jahanabad, in Bengal, and was the youngest son of a poor Brahmanic family. At sixteen years of age he attended the school of his eldest brother, Ramkumar Chattopadhyaya, at Calcutta, and followed him when he was appointed priest to the temple of the goddess Kali, founded in 1853 at Dakshinesvara. He became a devotee of Kali, and began a course of twelve years of asceticism. The fame of his humility, sanctity, and wonderful teachings spread, and crowds of people of all classes, including Keshub Chunder Sen, fell under his spell. His conduct was characterized by great tenderness and humility, and his teachings were distinguished by simplicity and purity of language. Consult Müller, Ramakrishna, His Life and Sayings (New York, 1899).
RĀMĀYANA, rȧ-mä′yȧ-nȧ (Skt., story of Rama). The second of the two great epic poems of mediæval India. It is in the main the work of a single author, Valmiki. Herein lies the important distinction between it and the Mahābhārata (q.v.). Though all its parts are not from the same hand, and though it is not entirely free from digressions or episodes, the poem tells a connected story of great interest in epic diction of the highest order; it ranks with the great epics of the world, and is even to this day the favorite poem of the Hindus.
The central figures in the epic are Rama and his devoted wife, Sita; the main event, the conquest of Lanka (probably Ceylon). Daśaratha, the mighty King of Oudh (Ayōdhyā), having grown old, announces in open assembly that he has decided to consecrate his oldest son, Rama, as his successor, and Rama is accordingly acclaimed joyously. But the intriguing second Queen of Daśaratha, Kaikeyi by name, induces her husband to change his resolution in favor of her son Bharata and to banish Rama for fourteen years. Rama accepts his fate with great dignity, and retires with Sita to the forest Dandaka. When King Daśaratha dies, his son Bharata is called to the succession, but he refuses to usurp Rama's throne, and seeks him out in the wilderness in order to conduct him back to the throne in his capital city. Rama in his turn refuses to cross his father's decision; he removes his gold-embroidered shoes, and presents them to Bharata as an outer token of his resignation of the throne. But Bharata on returning places Rama's shoes upon the throne and holds over them the yellow parasol, the sign of royalty; he himself stands by and acts as the King's plenipotentiary. Now Rama continues in the wilderness, and makes it his mission to fight the demons who molest the ascetics of the forest in their holy practices. Ravana, the king of the demons, who lives in Lanka, plans revenge. One of his demons, in the guise of a golden gazelle, places himself in sight of Sita, who, eager to possess it, sends Rama to hunt it. During his absence Ravana, in the garb of an ascetic, is admitted to Rama's dwelling, and kidnaps Sita. On returning Rama gives himself over to despair, until a mysterious voice tells him the way to overcome his enemies and to rescue Sita. He allies himself with Hanuman (q.v.) and Sugriva, kings of the monkeys. Hanuman succeeds in finding Sita in Lanka, and the monkeys build a wonderful bridge from the mainland. Rama leads his army across, slays Ravana, and is reunited with Sita. They return home, and Rama, conjointly with Bharata, rules his happy people, so that the golden age has again come upon the earth.
The Ramayana consists of seven books in about 24,000 verses. Notwithstanding the essential unity of the entire epic, the first and last books are in a certain sense secondary. The first deals with Rama's youth up to his marriage with Sita; the last with Rama's life from his restoration to his death. In these Rama is apotheosized and identified with the god Vishnu (q.v.) as one of his incarnations. The main body of the epic (books ii.-vi.) deals with Rama as a national hero, the embodiment especially of the ethical ideals of the people. But the Rama-Sita story itself, notwithstanding that it presents itself outwardly as an heroic legend, is justly under the suspicion of containing one or more mythic roots, though the exact formulation and explanation of them is perplexing. In the Veda Sita (q.v.) is the personified furrow of the plowed field, the beautiful wife of Indra or Parjanya. Hence Rama has been identified with Indra (q.v.), the slayer of demons, especially of the demon Vritra. In the epos Ravana is supposed to have taken the place of Vritra. According to another interpretation, the legend is a mixture of culture and nature myth, typifying the spread southward toward Ceylon of Brahmanical civilization. The demons who disturb the ascetics in their holy practices are the barbarous tribes
