Overview
Ramayan is an Indian Hindi-language television series based on the ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana, primarily following the version composed by Valmiki and the Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas. Produced and directed by Ramanand Sagar, the series originally aired on Doordarshan, the national public broadcaster of India, from 25 January 1987 to 31 July 1988. It became one of the most widely watched television programmes in Indian history and is considered a landmark in the development of Indian television.
Key facts
| Title | Ramayan |
|---|---|
| Genre | Mythological, religious drama |
| Based on | Ramayana by Valmiki; Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas |
| Created and directed by | Ramanand Sagar |
| Producer | Sagar Arts |
| Original network | Doordarshan (DD National) |
| Original run | 25 January 1987 – 31 July 1988 |
| Episodes | 78 (original run) |
| Language | Hindi |
| Slot | Sunday mornings, 9:30 am |
| Country | India |
Background
Through the early 1980s, Doordarshan was the sole television broadcaster in India and had begun commissioning long-form serialised dramas. After the success of B. R. Chopra's Mahabharat being planned and other mythological programming, filmmaker Ramanand Sagar, already an established Hindi cinema director, undertook a televised retelling of the Ramayana. Sagar drew principally on Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, while incorporating elements from Valmiki's Ramayana and other regional traditions including the Kamba Ramayanam and Adhyatma Ramayana.
Production was carried out by Sagar Arts, with much of the shooting completed at Vrindavan Studios in Umbergaon, Gujarat. The series used painted backdrops, chroma-key effects and stage-style lighting that defined the visual idiom of mythological television in India.
Cast
- Arun Govil as Rama
- Deepika Chikhalia as Sita
- Sunil Lahri as Lakshmana
- Dara Singh as Hanuman
- Arvind Trivedi as Ravana
- Lalita Pawar as Manthara
- Sanjay Jog as Bharata
- Vijay Arora as Indrajit (Meghnad)
- Mukesh Rawal as Vibhishana
- Bal Dhuri as Dasharatha
- Jayshree Gadkar as Kaushalya
Music and narration
The music was composed by Ravindra Jain, who also wrote many of the lyrics. The title song "Mangal bhavan amangal haari," drawn from the Ramcharitmanas, was rendered in a chorus style and became widely recognised. Narration in the series, including the framing verses from Tulsidas, was voiced by Ashok Kumar.
Broadcast and reception
The series aired weekly on Sunday mornings on Doordarshan. It quickly attracted a mass audience cutting across linguistic and regional lines, with reports of streets emptying during telecast hours. Viewership figures cited in contemporaneous reports placed the show among the most watched television broadcasts in the country, and it became a recurring point of reference in Indian popular culture.
Following the conclusion of the original 78 episodes covering the events up to Rama's coronation in Ayodhya, the production continued with sequel material, Luv Kush (also known as Uttar Ramayan), telecast in 1988–89, dramatising the later books of the epic.
Re-telecasts
The series has been re-broadcast several times. A notable re-telecast occurred in March–April 2020 on DD National during the nationwide lockdown imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The repeat telecast drew very high television ratings; the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) reported that Ramayan became one of the most watched Hindi general entertainment programmes in the country during that period.
Significance
The 1987 Ramayan is regarded as a turning point in Indian television, demonstrating the commercial and cultural potential of mythological serials and prompting a wave of similar productions through the late 1980s and 1990s, including B. R. Chopra's Mahabharat (1988–90) and Sagar's own Shri Krishna (1993). Scholars such as Philip Lutgendorf, Arvind Rajagopal and Purnima Mankekar have studied the series for its role in shaping public religious culture, the politics of representation on state television, and the relationship between mass media and Hindu nationalism in late twentieth-century India.
Several of its principal actors became closely identified with the roles they played, with Arun Govil and Deepika Chikhalia in particular becoming household figures associated with Rama and Sita.
Related topics
- Ramanand Sagar
- Ramayana
- Ramcharitmanas
- Doordarshan
- Mahabharat (1988 TV series)
- Shri Krishna (TV series)
- Uttar Ramayan
- Arun Govil
- Deepika Chikhalia
- Arvind Trivedi
- Ravindra Jain
References
- Lutgendorf, Philip. "Ramayan: The Video." The Drama Review, 1990.
- Rajagopal, Arvind. Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Mankekar, Purnima. Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood, and Nation in Postcolonial India. Duke University Press, 1999.
- Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India weekly ratings, March–April 2020.