The Epic That Arrived as Plunder

In 1767 a Burmese army destroyed Ayutthaya, the Thai capital, and burned its libraries. Among the things it carried home were the court's dancers and musicians.

They brought the Ramayana with them.

Before that

The story was not new to Burma. It had come overland and by sea, with Indian contact over many centuries.

There are Ramayana references in Burmese literature well before the eighteenth century. And depictions in temple art.

But the performance tradition, the elaborate court dance-drama that became Myanmar's national epic, is dated to the captives.

The Thai artists taken in 1767 were settled at the Burmese court, and formed into a troupe known as the Yodaya.

The name comes from Ayutthaya. The city they had been taken from. Burmese performers learned the Ramakien from them: the choreography, the music, the costume, the mode of staging.