Rama

====Ramlila and Dussehra====
[[File:Ramlila artists.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.85|In Northern, Central and Western states of India, the Ramlila play is enacted during Navratri by rural artists (above).]]
Rama's life is remembered and celebrated every year with dramatic plays and fireworks in autumn. This is called [[Ramlila]], and the play follows the ''[[Ramayana]]'' or more commonly the ''[[Ramcharitmanas]]''.{{sfn|James G. Lochtefeld|2002|p=389}} It is observed through thousands<ref name="SchechnerHess51" /> of Rama-related performance arts and dance events, that are staged during the festival of [[Navratri]] in [[India]].{{sfn|Encyclopedia Britannica|2015}} After the enactment of the legendary war between Good and Evil, the Ramlila celebrations climax in the [[Dussehra]] (Dasara, Vijayadashami) night festivities where the giant grotesque effigies of Evil such as of demon Ravana are burnt, typically with fireworks.<ref name="unescodussehra" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kasbekar |first=Asha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sv7Uk0UcdM8C&q=Jatra+bengal&pg=PA44 |title=Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle |date=2006 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-636-7 |language=en |access-date=8 March 2021 |archive-date=31 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131062704/https://books.google.com/books?id=Sv7Uk0UcdM8C&q=Jatra+bengal&pg=PA44 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Ramlila festivities were declared by UNESCO as one of the "Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity" in 2008. Ramlila is particularly notable in historically important Hindu cities of [[Ayodhya]], [[Varanasi]], [[Vrindavan]], [[Almora]], [[Satna]] and [[Madhubani district|Madhubani]] – cities in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.<ref name="unescodussehra" />{{sfn|James G. Lochtefeld|2002|pp=561–562}} The epic and its dramatic play migrated into southeast Asia in the 1st millennium CE, and ''Ramayana'' based ''Ramlila'' is a part of performance arts culture of Indonesia, particularly the Hindu society of [[Bali]], [[Myanmar]], [[Cambodia]] and [[Thailand]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Bose |first=Mandakranta |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Ar2Qfr-UeQC |title=The Ramayana Revisited |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-19-516832-7 |pages=342–350}}</ref>