A epic poem by the
Tulsidas.
This poem is part of the
Ramayana tradition. Written in the Avadhi dialect of
hindi it recounts the ramayana story through the use of four different narrators. The narrators are
Lava and Kusha, Ram's sons as they narrate the story to Ram,
Shiva narrating the story to his wife
Parvati, a
crow narrating the story to a
superiour bird and Tulsidas, narrating to the readers. The story is percieved as being told from four
ghats that enclose the "
The Sacred Lake of the Acts of Ram. " It is considered one of the masterpieces of medieval Hindu Literature.
On a personal note, if you type in "Ramcaritmanas" as the search on yahoo( and hotbot, and google... no wonder I'm afraid of the man), the search results includes a webpage about my professor.