Why are there so many Ramayanas, from Bali to Thailand?

Because it is an oral epic, and, as in many oral epics, multiple versions of it survive. The Ramayana narrates the life and journey of Rama, the seventh avatar of Vishnu and prince of Ayodhya, in nearly 24,000 verses. It follows his fourteen-year exile with Sita and Lakshmana, and the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana, king of Lanka.

Even the "original" split early. Two major regional recensions, northern and southern, share a common oral source but evolved profound verbal differences because oral transmission continued along separate regional pathways before being fixed in writing.

Other traditions retold the story differently. In the Buddhist Dasaratha Jataka, Dasharatha is king of Benares, and there is no abduction of Sita, no Ravana and no war. In the Jain version, Lakshmana, not Rama, kills Ravana, and Rama renounces his kingdom, becomes a Jain monk and attains moksha. In the Adiya Ramayana, an oral version of the Adiya tribe of Wayanad, Sita is an Adiya woman, and Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman are tied to a tree and brought to trial in the tribal court.

The story also crossed the sea. It became popular in Southeast Asia from the 8th century onward, in literature, temple architecture, dance and theatre. In Thailand's Ramakien, Sita is the daughter of Ravana and Mandodari. The Malay Hikayat Seri Rama mixes Hindu and Islamic mythology. And the Javanese Kakawin Ramayana adds Javanese demigods who serve as the "clown servants" of the story.