The Thai text of the Ramakien is freely available here. To study an advanced foreign text, one of the best tools is a line-by-line translation. There's a wonderful online translation of certain episodes that shows precisely what I mean.

The most readily available "translation" of the whole Ramakien, due to Colonel Ray Olsson (1968), is in fact just a translation of Christian Velder's 1962 prose retelling (called Der Kampf der Götter und Dämonen) plus some input from the Colonel's "scholarly Thai friends", as the preface says. I love the Olsson-Velder story, and Olsson's prose is quite brilliant and flows smoothly. However, (1) is there any line-by-line translation of the whole Ramakien into a European language? If that cannot be found, (2) is there any dictionary into a European language that includes all Ramakien vocabulary? As anyone who tried looking these words up, many of them are not in most dictionaries, with perhaps the sole exception of Thai-language wiktionary.

For clarity, here's a comparison of the opening lines of the Ramakien and the opening of Olsson:

>มาจะกล่าวบทไป
>
>ถึงหิรันตยักษ์เเกล้วกล้า
>
>ห้าวหาญชาญณรงค์ฤทธา

>On top of Mount Djakrawan, whose peak rise into heaven, there lived a demon, Hiran the Golden. He was a very powerful ogre etc.

Obviously, Olsson/Velder doesn't even strive to capture the literary details such as the initial invocation (akin to the openings of Homer).

If someone knowledgeable is in Bangkok, I'd love to organise a little Ramakien meet-up and discuss these topics IRL.

Does anybody know of a bilingual Ramakien (face-to-face), either online or in print?

Anyone who has a little practice with Muay Boran will know that the names of the techniques are an essential part of the art, a student of Muay Boran in addition to mastering a technique must also learn its name in Thai, for many fascinating, and for many a real plague especially if you are not accustomed to the language.

The names of the Muay Boran techniques (of every style) can be divided into different groups:

• The techniques that refer to peoples who have come into contact with those of Siam, such as the Vietnamese, the Burmese, or the Mon.
• The names that refer to everyday actions such as "The Old Monk Olds Up the Gourd", "The Young Man Plays With His Legs", "To Extinguish the Lantern".
• Techniques related to the ascetic Ruesee
• Techniques related to the Buddhist culture
• Techniques related to nature
• Techniques that refer to animals, such as crocodiles, elephants, fish, monkeys, snakes, and birds.
• Techniques that refer to mythical animals such as Erawan, the Hayra, Nok Insee, and the Nakas.
• The techniques that refer to the characters of the epic Ramakien, and their actions (Hanuman, Phra Ram, Kumpakhan, Nang Montho).

I will particularly focus on the latter group because it is intrinsically linked to Muay Boran.

First of all, what is Ramakien?

The Ramakien (Thai: รามเกียรติ์ literally "Glory of Rama") is Thailand's national epic, derived from the Hindu epic Ramayana. It is a collection of tales, the most important of which is the tale of Phra Ram (Thai: พระราม)

Drawing of Phra Ram

The Mask of Phra Ram that was used in Khon Theatre (nowadays human characters no longer wear masks but wear makeup instead).

The work has had an important influence on Thai literature, art, and drama, with both the Khon and Nang dramas being derived from it.

As I mentioned before the Ramakien also had a great influence in Muay Thai Boran, as the names of some techniques derive from events told in the Ramakien, some examples are "Hanuman Hands the Ring" and "The Demon Kidnaps the Princess".

\"Hanuman Tawai Waen\" (Hanuman Hands the Ring)

Besides, some movements performed during the Wai Kru Ram Muay are inspired

I thought this was a pretty cool piece of writing and maybe a few others here might enjoy it also.

You get no points for guessing who the monkey general or the demon king are, but can someone confirm who the "big, fat, tired, flat-nosed old monkey who used to be a colonel in the monkey army" is?

p.s. sorry to the mod who will have to review this chunk of text, which will surely trigger the 112 alarm. The Chang Noi site has a very annoying Lazada app store redirect and is also not optimised for mobile.

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The mask-play behind the politics behind the mask-play - 26 may 2008

A smart fusion bar in Silom, just after sundown.

Chuck: I’ve only been here a short time and I’ve got a lot invested. I need to understand what’s going on but your politics have me flummoxed. You take three elections to form a parliament and then it does nothing. People want to dissolve political parties and write yet another constitution. The prime minister talks in riddles which the press wastes acres trying to interpret. And now he might fall because of a cooking programme. Is this serious?

Chai: Yes, it must be confusing. Maybe you have to know a bit about khon, the mask-play. It’s an old dance-drama with actors dressed in masks. Originally it came from a puppet play. The masks and costumes are modeled on puppets. And the actors move like puppets too.

Chuck: So the actors are imitating puppets. And puppets are devices mimicking people. And puppets are manipulated by people you can’t see….

Chai: You’re beginning to get it.

Chuck: So what’s the plot?

Chai: It’s the old Indian Ramayana, but we changed it a bit and call it Ramakian. It’s a long, long war between an army of monkeys and an army of demons. On one side is the monkey general. He’s a frisky fellow who fancies himself as handsome and has several wives. On the other side is the demon king who has magical powers but is greedy and ambitious. They fight an awful lot of battles.

Because they all wear masks, even an ageing cast who all retired or should have retired years ago can get away with it. Or almost get away with it. The fight scenes are a bit limp, but the actors make up for it by shouting even louder and waving their arms more.

Chuck: Fine, fine. I get the point. It’s a drama. So is politics everywhere. But what’s really happening? Who’s pulling the strings?

Chai: In the scene before l

I’m not a big mythology guy and the only major myths that I’ve read and learned about were the Greek myths but I’ve recently taken a liking to the Ramakien (the Thai version/adaptation/interpretation of the Indian Ramayana). I’ll even say that the Ramakien is probably my favorite myth since it’s so insane, crazy, and absolutely wack and ridiculous at times but it’s also really cool, fascinating, unique, and incredibly interesting. But I still do have a questions about the Ramakien that I would like cleared up:

• How was it that Thotsakan (Ravana) and his demon army were able to conquer Earth and the rest of the three realms, including Heaven? Wouldn’t Heaven have a strong army to defend against Thotsakan?

• When Thotsakan was conquering things, why didn’t Phra Isuan, Phra Narai, and Phra In directly intervene and say “okay my guy you had your fun but now you have to stop these crazy shenanigans, thanks”?

• Before Nontuk became Thotsakan, he was responsible for cleaning the feet of angels before the angels were granted an audience with Phra Isuan. While their feet were getting cleaned, they were assholes to Nontuk by hitting him, pulling out his hair, rubbing his head, etc. Why were they such major assholes and why didn’t Phra Isuan intervene and say “hey guys cut it out”?

• Why did Phra Isuan grant a diamond finger to Nontuk when Nontuk probably implied that he wasn’t gonna be a good person with it?

• When Nontuk went on a killing spree in Heaven and Phra Isuan ordered for Phra Narai to stop him, Phra Narai transformed himself into a beautiful girl and tricked Nontuk into dancing with him, which forced Nontuk to disable himself and allow Phra Narai to stand on top of Nontuk, gaining the advantage. After being forced into the ground, Nontuk proceeded to act like a little whiny bitch and make a stupid ass excuse about how it’s uNfAiR that he was tricked and that unlike Phra Narai, he only had two arms and how he would’ve still been able to defeat Phra Narai. My question is, why did Phra Narai prophesied that Nontuk would reborn as the powerful Totsakan while he himself would be reborn as a simple human mortal (Phra Ram)? Why not just tell Nontuk to shut his whiny little bitch “wOe iS Me” ass up, lop his head off, and end it at that?

• So just how strong is Phra Narai? When has he shown his strengths and powers as a god?

• I think that Phra Narai is a cool and badass god and I have complete trust in his powers a

Like the title says, i recently visited bangkok on a family vacation and had spent a good morning at the temple of the emerald buddha/grand(royal?) palace area.

I found the wall art depicting Ramakien to be particularly interesting, especially because of the giant demons and the three races constantly doing battle(man, demon and monkey), and would like to ask where i could read the full story online and in english?

This post is divided into 6 sections:

1. Introduction
2. Every Civilisation has a Cultural Base
3. What are the Ramayana and Mahabharata
4. Resources for Understanding the Mahabharata
5. Resources for Understanding the Ramayana
6. Conclusion

1. Introduction

I have previously written an essay titled “The Glue of Nusantara: Understanding the Javanese, Islam and the Minorities” in which I describe how Indonesia’s ethnic Javanese leaders have to carefully manage the interests of the various communities so that the country can function. To briefly summarise, the interests of the Islamists and the Pluralists (which includes the moderate Muslims and the ethno-religious minorities) must be harmonised and kept at balance, while the interests of Tanah Jawa are also worked on behind the scenes.

As you can imagine, maintaining the balance between these 3 communities is a complex and monumental task. To aid them, Javanese leaders often look to examples from the two Adikakawin (Great Epics: Ramayana and Mahabharata) in wayang for inspiration, which form an integral component of their culture and philosophy.

Generally, people are aware that Javanese culture affects many aspects of this country’s politics. The Economist noted it in their 2019 article “How the mores of Indonesia’s biggest ethnic group shape its politics”. Academic theses have been written which describe the influence of Javanese Philosophy on the Indonesian Military: (“Impact of Javanese culture on Indonesia's strategic outlook and on the Indonesian armed forces (TNI)” and “The Professionalisation of the Indonesian Military”. This is an interesting quote from the second thesis:

>The political wisdom contained in Javanese alphabet of Hanacaraka that tells a story about how to secure political power game was used by Soeharto to control the military. As summarised by Rinakit, [t]he moral of this story is that someone must create two balancing and powerful camps and plot to make them fight each other. The plotter will then emerge to pick up the spoils after they have destroyed each other’. By these means, the victor needs not to worry about a threat from below

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

In Thailand there are so many Isekai where country got send to another world similar to Nihonku no Shoukokan or even Isekai into Thai Literature from Ramakien to Kun Chang Kun Paen to escape death flag even generic Isekai

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Nothing, he was gladiator.

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

I’m not a big mythology guy and the only major myths that I’ve read and learned about were the Greek myths but I’ve recently taken a liking to the Ramakien (the Thai version/adaptation/interpretation of the Indian Ramayana). I’ll even say that the Ramakien is probably my favorite myth since it’s so insane, crazy, and absolutely wack and ridiculous at times but it’s also really cool, fascinating, unique, and incredibly interesting. But I still do have a questions about the Ramakien that I would like cleared up:

• How was it that Thotsakan (Ravana) and his demon army were able to conquer Earth and the rest of the three realms, including Heaven? Wouldn’t Heaven have a strong army to defend against Thotsakan?

• When Thotsakan was conquering things, why didn’t Phra Isuan, Phra Narai, and Phra In directly intervene and say “okay my guy you had your fun but now you have to stop these crazy shenanigans, thanks”?

• Before Nontuk became Thotsakan, he was responsible for cleaning the feet of angels before the angels were granted an audience with Phra Isuan. While their feet were getting cleaned, they were assholes to Nontuk by hitting him, pulling out his hair, rubbing his head, etc. Why were they such major assholes and why didn’t Phra Isuan intervene and say “hey guys cut it out”?

• Why did Phra Isuan grant a diamond finger to Nontuk when Nontuk probably implied that he wasn’t gonna be a good person with it?

• When Nontuk went on a killing spree in Heaven and Phra Isuan ordered for Phra Narai to stop him, Phra Narai transformed himself into a beautiful girl and tricked Nontuk into dancing with him, which forced Nontuk to disable himself and allow Phra Narai to stand on top of Nontuk, gaining the advantage. After being forced into the ground, Nontuk proceeded to act like a little whiny bitch and make a stupid ass excuse about how it’s uNfAiR that he was tricked and that unlike Phra Narai, he only had two arms and how he would’ve still been able to defeat Phra Narai. My question is, why did Phra Narai prophesied that Nontuk would reborn as the powerful Totsakan while he himself would be reborn as a simple human mortal (Phra Ram)? Why not just tell Nontuk to shut his whiny little bitch “wOe iS Me” ass up, lop his head off, and end it at that?

• So just how strong is Phra Narai? When has he shown his strengths and powers as a god?

• I think that Phra Narai is a cool and badass god and I have complete trust in his powers a

Do your worst!