Ramayana

In modern times many Indian girls and boys received an education much like ours. Even so, all of them will have learned, in school or at home, the tales and lessons from two long epic poems, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Both are legendary, which means that some traces of history are there.
The former tells of the noble life of Rama, a prince of ancient India, but the soul of the poem is the love and heroism of Sita, his wife. Even her husband fails her in the end, but Sita, like Joan of Arc, walks, head held high, into fire, to testify her purity. Captured and chained to a tree for years, in the island of the demon king Ravana (Ceylon), who covets her for his wife, Sita never once lets her heart waver from the thought of Rama, whose memory she cherishes day and night. The Ramayana is told by Valmiki in 24,000 couplets. Rama and his brother Laksmana enlist the help of a tribe of monkeys, chiefly Hanuman, in their battle with Ravana and his demons, to rescue Sita, Hanuman, the devoted monkey, proves to be one of the most lovable and admirable characters of Indian lore. Scholars suppose that "demons" and "monkeys" refer to aboriginal people the Aryans met as they spread over India.