Ramayana Project for Kids

This is a play, with parts for many children.

The Ramayana is an old Indian story, and in India it has been acted as a play for about 2000 years.

Your class could also produce a play of the Ramayana. This is the story. The class (or camp team) could write a script, or just improvise lines. There’s plenty of opportunity too to paint scenery or have fancy monkey costumes if you want.

Some points for discussion:

The Ramayana is partly about the Aryans trying to invade the people of southern India.  It’s an Aryan story, and they show the people of southern India as bad monkeys – not even human. How should we feel about this? Should we not perform the play? Should we try to show that Hanuman and the monkeys are people too? How could we rewrite the play from the point of view of the southern Indians?

Or, you might discuss why people would be interested in seeing the same play over and over for 2000 years. Is that true of any story Europeans tell? (It is true of the Iliad, and of the story of Jesus). What makes a story last?
Do these stories have anything in common?

As a geography lesson, you might show the kids where the Aryans invaded, and where Sri Lanka is, on a map. How far apart are they in miles? Kilometers? Would the people in the story really be able to travel there? How would they travel, without cars?

Other activities:

* Cotton, wool, hemp and silk
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More about the Ramayana
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