Author: Paula Richman
Editor: Paula Richman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195650913
Description
This volume expands our understanding of Ramkatha by focusing upon telling that question aspects of such dominant texts.
Although the story of Rama (Ramkatha) has generated many tellings most people are familiar with a few dominant texts, such as those by Valmiki and Tulsidas, or the television serial by Ramanand Sagar. This volume expands our understanding of Ramkatha by focusing upon tellings that question aspects of such dominant texts.
Through analysis of oral and written narratives, exegesis, plays, songs and rituals, the contributors demonstrate the centrality of questioning within the Ramayana tradition and chart the many forms such interrogation takes. The book brings together eminent textual scholars, anthropologists, historians, poets, and activists to consider how certain literary resources foster questioning, why specific kinds of queries subvert normative social hierarchy, how people find ways to voice their challenges to restrictive ideals, and what happens when people apply lessons from Ramkatha to enhance freedom from repression. This rich, complex weave of essays on the Ramayana demonstrates how questioning safeguards the diversity and capaciousness of the Ramayana tradition.
Contents
Foreword
A Note on Transliteration
ONE
Questioning and Multiplicity within the Ramayana Tradition
FORMS OF QUESTIONING
TWO
Lovers’ Doubts: Questioning the Tulsi ‘Ramayan’
THREE
Bhavabhuti on Cruelty and Compassion
FOUR
Crying Dogs and Laughing Trees in Rama’s Kingdom: Self-reflexivity in ‘Ananda Ramayana’
FIVE
Ravana’s Kitchen: A Testimony of Desire and the other
ASSERTIONS OF SOCIAL RANK
SIX
Dining Out at Lake Pampa; The Shabari Episode in Multiple Ramayanas
SEVEN
"Grinding Miller But Singing of Sita:" Power and Domination in Awadhi and Bhojpuri Women’s Songs
EIGHT
The Politics of Teugu Ramayanas: Colonialism Print Culture, and Literary Movements
NINE
Thereupon Hangs a Tail; The Deification of Vali in the Teyyam Worship of Malabar
MODALITIES OF SAYING
TEN
The Voice of Sita in Valmiki’s Sundarakanda
ELEVEN
Two Poems on Sita
TWELVE
Krttibasa’s Apophatic Critique of Rama’s Kingship
THIRTEEN
The Ramayana and its Muslim Interpreters
APPLIED RAMAYANAS
FOURTEEN
Yes to Sita, No to Ram: The Continuing Hold of Sita on Popular Imagination in India
FIFTEEN
The Ramlila Migrates to Southall
SIXTEEN
Fiji’s Fifth Veda: Exile, Sanatan Dharm, and Countercolonial Initiatives in Diaspora
Appendix
Notes
Contributors
Copyright Statement
Index