The Ramayana, one of the two pre-eminent Hindu epics, has played a foundational role in many aspects of India's arts and social norms. For centuries, people learned this narrative by watching, listening, and participating in enactments of it. Although the Ramayana's first extant telling in Sanskrit dates back to ancient times, the story has continued to be retold and rethought through the centuries in many of India's regional languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. The narrative has provided the basis for enactments of its episodes in recitation, musical renditions, dance, and avant-garde performances. This volume introduces non-specialists to the Ramayana's major themes and complexities, as well as to the highly nuanced terms in Indian languages used to represent theater and performance. Two introductions orient readers to the history of Ramayana texts by Tulsidas, Valmiki, Kamban, Sankaradeva, and others, as well as to the dramaturgy and aesthetics of their enactments. The contributed essays provide context-specific analyses of diverse Ramayana performance traditions and the narratives from which they draw. The essays are clustered around the shared themes of the politics of caste and gender; the representation of the anti-hero; contemporary re-interpretations of traditional narratives; and the presence of Ramayana discourse in daily life.

About the Author
Paula Richman is William H. Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions, Emerita, at Oberlin College, in Ohio. She has edited three volumes and published more than thirty articles on the diversity of the Indian Ramayana tradition. Rustom Bharucha retired as Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Author of several books on performance, he has also worked as a dramaturg worldwide and was involved in the curation of three Ramayana Festivals at the Adishakti Theatre Laboratory in Puducherry, India.

Reviews
Richman and Bharucha's collaboration on this volume of edited essays represents simultaneously a culmination of these research directions, and a corrective, steering towards a more balanced representation beyond the more extensively studied Sanskrit and Hindi Ramayanas...Apart from the masterful introductions and conclusion, there are several further features that render this reader friendly volume perfect for teaching. The inclusion of translations of several dramas makes scripts available for students to perform or draw inspiration from for creative writing. The parts on caste and gender are important for integrating diversity into the curriculum. * Reading Religion *
Paula Richman and Rustom Bharucha are the perfect combination to explore the ideas that are brought together [in this book] -- Richman with her vast and varied knowledge of the many Ramayana stories that dot the sub-continent and beyond, and Bharucha, with his lifelong commitment to dramaturgy and the diverse performance traditions that animate some of our best known and most loved stories ... The book's greatest importance lies in the feeling of security it generates -- that the traditions of subversive and contentious narratives that we fear losing are, in fact, robust and strong. * Arshia Sattar, The Hindu *
The book's most significant contribution to studies of the Ramayana would be its context-specific analyses of the case studies, the range of performance traditions engaged, and the multiplicity of voices. This breadth and diversity - of texts, examples and issues - are counterpointed by the editors' and contributors' meticulous attention to environments and conditions... [The book] performs its message of pluralism, in its mode, form and concerns. * Theatre Research International *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197552513
Author Paula Richman
Format Paperback
Page Count 392
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 522g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 155mm * 25mm