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Yama Zatdaw (Burmese:ရာမဇာတ်တော်,pronounced[jàma̰zaʔtɔ̀]), unofficiallyMyanmar's national epic, is theBurmese version of theRamayana andDasaratha Jataka. There are nine known pieces of the Yama Zatdaw in Myanmar. The Burmese name for the story itself isYamayana, whilezatdaw refers to the acted play or being part ofjataka tales ofTheravada Buddhism.

The Yama Zatdaw was introduced by oral tradition duringKing Anawratha's reign although it was not known clearly whether the story was Valmiki's Sanskrit epic Ramayana or not. But, many say that it was stolen from the Valmiki's Epic Ramayana.

The earliest pictorial evidence of the Ramayana dates to the earlyBagan period.^[1]Bagan'sNathlaung Temple features two brick sculptures of Rama andParashurama, while the Hpetleik pagodas features terracotta plaques depicting the story of Rama (in theDasaratha Jataka), as part of a series depicting the BuddhistJataka tales.^[1]

The earliest literary reference to Ramayana is apyo entitledThuwunna-shan Thahte-khan Pyo, based on the Suvannasama Jataka, and written by Shin Aggathamadi in 1527.^[1]

The Burmese Ramayana was influenced greatly byAyutthaya, during which variousKonbaung dynasty kings invaded the kingdom. The invasions often brought back spoils of war, including elements ofRamakien (Thai version of Ramayana) into the epic. Rama thachin, one of the well-known literature in Burma, is believed to be composed in 1775 by U Aung Phyo which begins withBala kanda and ends atYudha kanda as inValmiki's Ramayana.^[1] There are also important Burmese literature and classical music related to the Ramayana which were developed in that era such asU Toe'sYama yakan (Rama's song,ရာမရကန်) andThida yakan (Sita's song,သီတာရကန်), both written in 1784;Yama pyazat (Ramayana ballet,ရာမပြဇာတ်) in 1789; andKalay Yama wuthtu (Young Rama's life,ကလေးရာမဝတ္ထု) in 1800.^[2]

Theethnic Mon adaptation of Ramayana is known as "Loik Samoing Ram" which was written in 1834 AD by a Buddhist monk named Uttama. It is evident that "Loik Samoing Ram" is mainly derived from Burmese version as the author of the Mon version stated in his preface that due to the popularity of Burmese version in the capital. However, Mon version also exhibits the connections with Thai, Javanese and Malay versions and has own unique episodes, not found in Thai, Burmese or Malay versions.^[3]

The characters of Yama Zatdaw share the same features and characteristics as those in the original story. However, in acting, the costumes are a mixture ofBamar andThai elements. The names of the characters, in general, are Burmese transliterations of the Sanskrit names.

• Rama is known as Yama (ရာမ).
• Sita is known as Thida (မယ်သီတာ).
• Lakshmana is known as Lakhana (လက္ခဏ).
• Hanuman is known as Hanuman (ဟနုမာန်).
• Parashurama is known as Pashuyama (ပသျှူးရာမ).
• Ravana is known as Yawana (ရာဝဏ) or Datha-giri (ဒဿဂီရိ).
• Vali is known as Bali (ဘာလီ).
• Maricha is known as Marizza(မာရဇ္ဇ).
• Vibhishana is known as Bibi-thana (ဘိဘိသန).

• "Ramayana in Myanmar's Heart"
• "Traduction du Maha Yama Zat Vatthu"

• Works based on the Ramayana
• Burmese literature
• 11th-century books
• Hinduism in Myanmar
• Burmese Buddhist texts

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