Maharadia Lawana

Maharadia Lawana is a Maranao epic from the Lake Lanao area of Mindanao. It is the Maranao version of the Indian epic Ramayana. The hero in the title is a king with seven heads who cannot die, because the gods made him immortal. In the Maranao tale, he is a son of a sultan and sultana of a kingdom called Polo Bandiyarmasir (the place that matches Lanka).

The story keeps the pattern of the Indian epic but changes names and places. Two princely brothers, Radiya Mangandiri and Radiya Mangawarna, correspond to Rama and Lakshmana. An old woman called Kabayan, who lives by the sea, takes them in. The princess Potri Malayla Ganding matches Sita. A monkey named Laksamana helps them, as Hanuman does in the Indian tale. Ayodhya becomes Agama Niyog.

The scholar Juan R. Francisco thought the Ramayana reached the Philippines between the 1600s and 1800s, through Java and Malay lands. He first heard Maranao singers perform it in 1968. With Nagasura Madale, he later made an English translation. The link to the Darangen, another Maranao epic, is not clear in the sources.