Now, read Ramayana on your cellphone!

Cochin: Reading epics have always looked a Herculean task for almost everybody and usually priests are taken help to study the huge compilations.

But who would have thought that the epic of Ramayana could be read on cellular phone one day!

A selection grade lecturer in Malayalam Professor at Sree Shankara University, in Kalady near Cochin, P R Harikumar, has developed a method by which it is possible to download entire Ramayana on cellular phone.

Hailing from Perumbavoor near Kerala's Cochin District, Harikumar has uploaded three Kandas (or, cantos) of the Ramayana in Malayalam font in his mobile. All the Kandas in the Ramayana can be fed into your mobile phone, and anyone can browse through it without any hassle.

According to Harikumar, he always enjoyed Malayalam articles and poems on his mobile phone. Once, while browsing Internet that he came across an e-book reader software, which was useful to download Internet files, pages or text files to a Java-enabled mobile set.

Motivated with the e-book reader software, Harikumar tried to upload Ramayana onto his mobile. Harikumar set about the task and finally converted the Balakandam, Aranyakandam and Kizhkindakandam from Ezhuthachan's Aadyathmaramayanam into text files and uploaded them on his mobile.

Following Harikumar's methodology, it is now possible to download the entire Ramayana on a cellular phone. The downloaded text takes just a space of only 800Kb (kilobyte) while an MP 3 song would occupy 4Mb (Megabyte) space.

Harikumar feels that Malayalam language would find a new avenue through such usage and it will not be long when short messages in Malayalam would become popular.

The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven Kandas.

Valmiki Ramayana has been traditionally classified into seven books, dealing with the life of Lord Rama from his birth to his death. The seven books have been classified as Bala Kanda, Ayodhya Kanda, Aranya Kanda, Kishkinda Kanda, Sundara Kanda, Yuddha Kanda, Uttara Kanda.

In Kerala, in almost all Malayali Hindu families, one will read the holy Ramayana while other members will listen to it during the holy month of Karkidakam that begins from the mid July to the mid August.

On this occasion, elaborate arrangements are done in temples to read out and preach about the divine life of Lord Rama and his message to lead an ideal life.