The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana.This is an abridged verse translation of the two longest epic poems in world literature, the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Ramayana is an important piece of Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman, and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of the South Asian nations of India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the South-East Asian countries of Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.