Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, a collection of scholarly essays edited by an author named Paula Richman is available free-to-read online.
The book was published in 1991 and I’ve read it before as well as referred to it in my Author’s Introduction to the Indian edition of my Ramayana series. It’s a fascinating collection of diverse essays on the tradition of retelling the Ramayana over and over again, with drastic, often amusing variations, in various languages and cultures of South Asia.
If you have any interest in the Ramayana and this tradition of retelling, you’ll enjoy it very much.
Oh, and here’s an interesting footnote. Apparently, this book is on the curriculum of Delhi University and recently a political group took strong objection to the book, citing is as being offensive to majority sentiments. So if you like your books controversial as well, there’s another reason to check it out.
I personally think the controversy is more about the book being on the curriculum, and the fact that it’s edited by a foreigner, and has essays by several other foreigners, than about its actual contents.
It’s true that some essays, like the one by Ramanujan, have a somewhat ironic tone that could be misinterpreted as ‘offensive’, and that there is a very fine line between mockery and irony sometimes, and that epics like the Ramayana in particular and Hinduism in general seem to be favourite whipping boys of academics and mediapersons.
But I only mention these facts because it led me to find the text of the book online, and free-to-read, and that’s much too good an opportunity to be passed up!
So check it out at the link above or below, and read about the tradition of retelling the Ramayana by authors other than a certain AKB.
