i hi i he h hole, Ramathaim-zophim is as likely to have been the Ramah of Benjamin .as any other.
Ra'mathem (PapaSeu v. r. 'PaSaueiv; Jose- phus, 'PauaSa [ Ant. xiii. 4, !> ] ; Vulg. Ramathan i, one of the three "governments" (vouoi and roirapxiai) which wire added to Judaea by king Demetrius Nica- tor out of the country of Samaria (1 Mace, xi, 34) ; the others were Apbserema and Lydda. It no doubt de- rived its name from a town of the name of Ramathaim, probably that renowned as the birthplace of Samuel the prophet. — Smith.
Ramayana is the name of one of the two great epic poems of ancient India (for the other, see YIaha- bharata). Its subject-matter is the history of Rama, one of the incarnations of Vishnu i q. v., and see K Lma), and its reputed author is Valmlki, who is said to have taught his poem to the two sons of Rama, the hero of tin hi tory; and. according to this legend, would have been a contemporary of llama himself. But though this latti r account is opi n i" much doubt, it seems cer- tain thai Valmlki unlike Vyasa (q. v.), the supposed compiler of the Makabhdrata was a real personage; and. moreover, thai the Ramayana was the work ol one
Bingle poet not like the Mahabhdraia. the creati f
various epochs and different minds. As a poetical com- position, the Ramayana is therefore far superior to the Mahdbkarata ; and ii may be called the best ureal poem of ancient India, fairly . laiming a rank in the lit- erature of the world equal to that of the epic poetry of Homer. Whereas the character ol the Mahabkarala
is cyclopsedical, its main subject-matter overgrown by episodes ol the Bl diversified nature, its diction dif- fering in merit, both from a poetical and grammatical point of view, according to the ages that worked at its completion -the Ramayana has but one object in view. the history of Kama. It- episodes are rare, and re- stricted to the early portion of the work, and it- poeti- cal diction betrays throughout the same finish and the same poetical genius, Nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to the relative ages of both poems, provided that we look upon the Mahabhdraia in the form in which it is preserved as a whole. Whether we apply as a test the aspect ol the religious life, or the geo- graphical and other knowledge displayed in the one and the other work, the Ramayana .appears as the older of the two. Since it is the chief source whence our in- formation of the Kama incarnation of Vishnu is derived, its contents may be gathered from that portion of the article Vishnu which relates to Ramachandra, The Ramayana contains (professed!) - 24,000 epic verses, or slokas, in seven honks, or kandas, called the Bdla-Ay-o- illiiju-. Annum-. Kishlrindhd-, Sundara-, Yuddha- (or Lankd-),m\d Uttara-kanda. The text which has come down to us exhibits, in different sets of manuscripts, Buch considerable discrepancies that it becomes neces- sary to speak ol two recensions in which it now exists. This remarkable facl was first made known by A.YV. von Schlegel, who, in Europe, was the first to attempt a critical edition of this poem; it is now fully corrob- orated l>y a comparison that may be made between the printed editions of both texts. The one is more concise in its diction, and has less tendency than the other to that kind of descriptive enlargement of facts and sentiments which characterizes the later.poetn - I India; it often also exhibits grammatical forms and pe- culiarities of an archaic stamp, where the other studi- ously avoids that which must have appeared to its edi- tors in the light of a grammatical difficulty. In short, there can be little doubt that the former is the older and more genuine, and the latter the more recent, and in some respects more spurious, text. A complete edi- tion of the older text, with two commentaries, was pub- lished at Madras in 1856 (in the Telugu character-, vol. i-iii); another edition of the same text, with a short commentary, appeared at Calcutta in two volumes (1860), ami a more careful and elegant one at Bombay (1861). Of the later edition, Gaspare Gorresio has edited the firsl six hook- (vol. i v. Paris, 1843 50) without a commentary, hut with an Italian, somewhat free, translation in poetical prose (vol. i x. Paris, 1847- 58). Former attempts at an edition and translation ol' the Ramayana remained unfortunately incomplete. The earliest was that made by William Carey and Joshua Marshroan, who edited the first two books, and added to the text a piose translation in English and ex- planatory notes (vol. i iii, Serampore, 1806-10; and vol. i. containing the firsl hook. Dunstable, 1808). An- other edition, of an eclectic nature, is that by A. W. von
Schlegel; it contains the lirst two 1 ks of ih, text,
and an excellent Latin translation of the firsl 1 k and
twenty chapters of the second (vol. i. pts. i and ii. and
vol. ii, pt. i. Bonn, 1846 I. Various episodes from the Ramayana, it may also he added, have at various times occupied sundrj editors and translators. - Chambers's Encyclop. s. v.
Rambach, August Jakob, was hom May 28, 1777, at Quedlinburg. Having completed hi- studies