Ramadan
the ninth month in the Mohammedan year. In it Mohammed received his first revelation, and every believer is therefore enjoined to keep a strict fast throughout its entire course, when a white thread can be distinguished from a black thread -to sunset.
During the night, however, the most necessary wants may be satisfied-a permission which, practically, is interpreted by a profuse indulgence in all sorts of enjoyments. The sick, travelers, and soldiers in time of war are temporarily released from this duty, but they have to fast an equal number of ber of days at a subsequent period when removed. Nurses, pregnant women, and those to whom it might prove really injurious are exfasting.
RÁMÁYANA, the name of one of the two great epie poems of ancient India (the other, see MAHABHARATA). Its great epic poems of ancient India (the other, see subject matter is the history of Ráma, MAHABHARATA). Its and its reputed author is Valmiki, who is said to have taught his poem to the . But though this latter account is open to doubt, bt, it seems certain that Valmiki was a real personage, and, moreover , that the Ramayana was the work of one single poet-not, like the Mahabharata , the creation of various epochs an and different minds. As a poetical composition the Råmáyana is therefore far superior to the Mahabhárata; and it may be called the best great poem of ancient India. Whereas the character of the Mahábhárata is cyclopædic, its main subject matter overgrown by episodes of the most diversified nature, the fied nature, the Rámáyana has but one object in view, the history of Ráma. Its restricted to the early portion of the work, and its the same finish and the Whether we apply as the test the aspect of the religious life, or the geographical and other knowledge displayed in the the older. It is the chief source whence our same poetical genius. information of the Ráma incarnation of Vishnu is derived. The Rámáyana con- 24,000 epic verses, or "Slokas," in seven books-some 48,000 lines of 16 syllables. The text which has come down to us exhibits, in different sets of manuscripts, such considerable there are practically two recensions. The one is more concise in its diction, and has less tendency than the other to that kind of descriptive ensentiments which characterizes the later poetry of India; it often also exhibits grammatical forms and peculiarities of an archaic stamp.
RAMESES where the other studiously avoids that which must have appeared to its editors in the light of grammatical difficulty. is the older and more genuine text.
There can be little doubt that the former