Pha Lak Pha Lam (ພະລັກພະລາມ)

Laotian. Name of the local adaptation in Laos of the Indian epic Ramayana, i.e. the Laotian counterpart of the Thai Ramakien (fig.), and named after the protagonist Phra Ram (fig.) and his brother Phra Lak (fig.), known in Laotian as Pha Lam (pronounced Pha Laam) and Pha Lak (Lakshmana), respectively. Since Pha Lam or Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, is by Buddhists considered to be an earlier chaht of Siddhartha, i.e. the later Sakyamuni Buddha, the story is in Laos considered to be a jataka and its texts are commonly read during Buddhist sermons, where they are referred to as Pha Lam Sadok. The epic is by some believed to have arrived in Laos via Angkor, where a similar version of the story was known by the Khmer name Reamker (fig.), i.e. the ‘Glory of Rama’, which still goes by that name in present-day Cambodia and tells a narrative akin to the Ramakien of Thailand, i.e. the ‘Honour of Rama’, including incidents and details not found in the Sanskrit original. As in Thailand and Cambodia, the epic in Laos had –and still has– great importance and influence onto the local culture and arts, and the tales have been deeply interwoven into Lao folklore, myth and legend. 回