1574 CE, Awadhi
Ramcharitmanas
Tulsidas's Awadhi retelling
Goswami Tulsidas's sixteenth-century retelling of Rama's story in Awadhi rather than Sanskrit, structured as seven kandas sung by Shiva to Parvati. Its devotional register — Rama as the Supreme reachable through bhakti — made it the Ramayana most recited in North India, especially in the yearly Ramlila and the daily Hanuman Chalisa.
Key episodes
Bala Kanda
Tulsidas frames the whole retelling as a conversation — Shiva narrating Rama's life to Parvati — setting a devotional register from the very first doha.
Ayodhya Kanda
The exile is retold in the same everyday Awadhi that made this version, unlike Valmiki's Sanskrit original, singable and reachable by anyone, in any village, without a scholar's training.
Sundara & Lanka Kanda
Hanuman's leap and the burning of Lanka are told with an intimacy that shaped the Ramlila performances and the Hanuman Chalisa still recited daily across North India.