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El Rāmāyaṇa fue una de las primeras obras de la literatura clásica de India que llamó la atención del orientalismo europeo. Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, este interés alcanzó también a los círculos intelectuales hispanos, como dan cuenta traducciones indirectas, reseñas, notas periodísticas y otros documentos publicados de manera casi simultánea en España, Argentina y México. Este trabajo reúne y estudia por primera vez esos materiales y reconstruye el proceso de recepción del Rāmāyaṇa en el mundo de habla hispana durante los años 1860-1880, identificando tres variantes de representación asociadas con tres figuras: en España, Manuel de la Revilla, cuyo acercamiento al Rāmāyaṇa se adhiere a la interpretación racial en boga en países como Alemania, Francia e Italia; en Argentina, Lucio Vicente López, quien da muestras de un sutil distanciamiento respecto a dicha interpretación; en México, José González de la Torre, quien da un paso más allá y ofrece una lectura abiertamente nacionalista del Rāmāyaṇa. Juntos, estos testimonios ponen de manifiesto un episodio fundamental, pero a la fecha ignorado, del orientalismo hispanohablante por el que India adquirió una función simbólica bien delineada.

The comics Ramayan 3392 AD are the only major futuristic adaptation of the Indian epic Rāmāyaṇa. Scholars have stated that the Indian element in the comics has been effaced so that the series could cater for international audiences versed on American pop culture. However, global concepts have often been appropriated by contemporary Indian nationalistic discourses. I analyse Ramayan 3392 AD through discourse analysis and the frameworks of Orientalism and re-Orientalism to conclude that, even though globalised, the elements in Ramayan 3392 AD create antithetical representations of India and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several English‐language adaptations of the Indian epic Rāmāyaṇa have been published since the beginning of the 21st century. The epic has been regarded and recreated as a metonym for the Indian nation. Contemporary versions have often referred to Indian geography and have tried to poetically or literally associate mythic spaces with real ones. In this paper, I use discourse analysis in order to study some of the most influential 21st‐century English‐language retellings of the Rāmāyaṇa. I conclude that these and other versions of the epic describe India as a regionally divided nation which can ultimately be united through national geography, its association with mythology and the contrast between the geography of India and that of foreign nations. In this sense, I regard these contemporary versions as a 'literary pilgrimage' through which Indian readers can get to know the geography of their nation and regard it as sacred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ramayana penned by Valmiki around 200 BCE is regarded as his magnum opus and is held in esteem as one of the greatest epics in history. Consisting of 24,000 shlokas or verses, it has served as a basis for moral conduct and gallantry for humans around the world. However, in recent times, there have been concerns about its supposed promotion of patriarchy. With feminists feeling that the epic has suppressed the voices of its female characters, numerous adaptations have emerged. The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is one such work, which aims to advocate the suffering of its female lead, Sita. The aim of this article is to analyse instances of feminism, gynocentrism and misogyny in the above-mentioned work and also to argue and support the claims that the condition of women since all those years ago has not changed. It critically examines the actions and thought processes of the author's myriad characters, extracts the values from them and endeavours to relate it with the condition of women in the twenty-first century. The article does not make a comment on the original epic written by the revered Valmiki, all conclusions drawn are based on The Forest of Enchantments alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional interpretations of the Ramayana have been critiqued for preserving and promoting patriarchal gender structures by emphasising masculine heroism and often portraying female characters as unidimensional symbols of selflessness, purity, and honour. This paper analyses how Samhita Arni and Chitrakar's graphic novel Sita's Ramayana offers a retelling that foregrounds Sita's perspective to question and reinterpret the social constructs. By analysing the text through a feminist literary lens, this paper examines how the novel adapts the traditional narrative to provide centre stage to Sita's various encounters with instances of oppression. The findings reveal how Arni's retelling employs unique aesthetics that combine texts and Chitrakar's patua art illustrations to question the traditional male-centred versions, making this novel a part of a broader structure of feminist reinterpretations that aim to highlight female agency in cultural canons. This paper examines Sita's stance against societal expectations for women, such as self-sacrifice, while also tracking her personal growth, which is symbolically represented by her reunion with Mother Earth. The novel contributes to the ongoing tradition of literary revisionism by offering a nuanced critique of the patriarchal foundations within classical myths. This is underscored by the novel's reinterpretation of the epic in a way that points out the plasticity of the Ramayana, which can be reshaped to support more progressive views, encouraging discourse on existing gender norms present in contemporary societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perhaps among the ancient literary works of India, the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata are more significant and are the main pillars of the country’s epic literature. This epic narrates Rama’s life, the beloved Dasaratha’s son, Kosala land’s king, in exile with his wife Sita. These two paintings are recalled as symbols of purity and happiness in Hindu tradition. Rajasthani artists have depicted a painting of the wedding ceremony of Rama and Sita, which possesses the main characteristics of Hindu art, namely an emphasv is on the symbolic use of colors. This study aims to analyze the symbols and features used in this painting. The study was conducted using a descriptive-analytical method. The painters of the present work used colors to enhance the clarity of the images and have shown special attention to their symbolism. Each color has been used according to its identity, and elements such as building architecture and the arrangement of figures have been precisely positioned in the painting. The decorations and other components presented in this painting have adhered to specific principles for proper composition, guiding the viewer’s eye, and maintaining the positions of the characters. The overall composition of the painting is designed to reflect the customs and traditions of wedding ceremonies in India.

The essay explores the positive aspects of exile in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, in both of which the exiled heroes experience magical adventures quite different from those that we know from the exploits of exiles in Greek and Latin classics and European children's literature. These heroes also vividly encounter ancient Indian mythology and philosophy, and in the end undergo a transformation that prepares them for their ultimate entrance into heaven. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The right-wing extremists, BJP and RSS, have a long-term mission to construct a Hindu nation bound by Ramrajya, a political model derived from the epic Ramayana. In its nationalistic project, the Hindutva desires to incorporate Dalits. For achieving the same, it usurps Dalits by appropriating Ambedkar – through strategically eroding his radicalism. Additionally, it uses Ramayana as a cultural tool to de-ideologize Dalits. It promotes Ramayana as an egalitarian epic to Dalits – for subsuming them within the Ramrajya politics. Dalits are losing political consciousness and they are disoriented by the Hindutva. In this article, I explore how a Tamil film named Kaala, directed by Pa. Ranjith, has countered these efforts of the Hindutva in the popular culture. In Kaala, Ranjith challenges the Hindutva's appropriation of Dalits by re-creating Ambedkar's radical legacy on the big screens. In the film, he re-narrates the epic from an Ambedkarite perspective to counter the Hindutva's efforts in de-ideologizing Dalits. Ranjith is a radical director who makes various transformations in Tamil cinema. His vision is to carry forward Ambedkarite politics in the popular culture. In this article, I explore how he effectively counters the Hindutva. To accomplish the objectives of the study, I use Ambedkarite framework as an analytical tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RumeliDE Journal of Language & Literature Research / RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of RumeliDE Uluslararasi Hakemli Dil & Edebiyat Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We report an innovative technique for closure of a large secondary donor-site defect (in a post-electric-burn primary defect in cervico-occipital area, reconstructed with Trapezius myo-cutaneous flap) by using a double set of sequential bilateral bipedicled flaps which resembled "Jatayu", the holy bird with clipped wings as per the epic "Ramayana". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"What good is anthropology?" Rather than accepting a predetermined notion of the good, I ask, What ancestral spirits animate anthropology as a vocation? In pursuing this question, I turn to the inaugural issue of American Ethnologist, which, I suggest, expresses an anthropological spirit readable via Lévi‐Strauss and Rousseau. I examine how this spirit was expressed in other parts of the world, such as the first generation of postcolonial anthropologists in India, as they confronted the question whether India may be seen as a settler colony. How was such a spirit born? As one possible beginning, I offer a creation myth for the birth of anthropological sensibility, located in a key moment of the Ramayana, when its tribal/lower‐caste poet‐author, Valmiki, begins to enunciate differently, after witnessing an act of human, settler violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Ramayana Department Store Salatiga has implemented training management using the five stages of the ADDIE model: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. An exploratory qualitative method was employed in this investigation. Interviews with many Ramayana Department Store resource people were done. Five individuals served as the study's resources: the head office, the store manager, the HR supervisor, the consignment team, and the employees. Based on the study's findings, Ramayana has implemented training management using ADDIE in line with many stages, including analysis, planning, development, implementation, and assessment. In order to ensure that this training supports Ramayana's vision and goal, it is necessary to design a few stages, namely the implementation and assessment stages. Ramayana has performed training to the fullest extent possible at each level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay talks about the emergence of feminist views from as far back as when Gods roamed the Earth. It hypothesizes that feminism not only originated in but is promoted by the entire body of work - mythology - that is often considered propagator of the word of God. With examples from Hindi mythological stories like Ramayana and Mahabharatha, the essay analyzes the treatment of Feminism and the interpretation of the same in modern culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is no longer a novelty in Religious Studies that translations play an integral role in questions of (inter-)cultural contact, comparison, and identity. But the question of what translation means, how it relates to interpretation, and the role of text, language, and practice has not been adequately addressed. In recent years, feminist historical research has published some ground-breaking work addressing this very question. This article uses a cross-disciplinary (literature studies, feminist translation studies and religious studies) approach to examine four different Ramayana versions in late colonial Ceylon and India (1900–1930) written by the Theosophists Annie Besant, Marie Musaeus Higgins and Leelawathy Ramanathan for the purpose of girls' education. The differing portrayals of Sita as the "perfect wife" will be used to highlight the importance of theories of translation for the study of global religious history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ramayana, a mythological tale passed down in oral folkloric traditions with the earliest discovered written version dating between the 4th and 6th centuries BC, continues to hold dominant cultural sway in India and many south Asian countries. To the many millions of people in South Asia, Surpanakha, the female character in Ramayana who instigated the great war between good and evil, continues to be upheld as the embodiment of all things women should not be--vocal of her lustful desires, fearless to proposition a man, violent and selfish. However, her role as a villainess is being questioned. In contemporary re-imagined narrative, she is portrayed as a misunderstood and oppressed female in a patriarchal system. Through qualitative analysis of online user generated content (UGC), this study explores how modern readers perceive Surpanakha's characterization in Kavita Kane's novel The Lanka's Princess. Findings suggest readers' willingness to accept Surpanakha's villainous traits as expressions protesting mainstream expectations of the female ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional interpretations of the Ramayana have been critiqued for preserving and promoting patriarchal gender structures by emphasising masculine heroism and often portraying female characters as unidimensional symbols of selflessness, purity, and honour. This paper analyses how Samhita Arni and Chitrakar’s graphic novel Sita’s Ramayana offers a retelling that foregrounds Sita’s perspective to question and reinterpret the social constructs. By analysing the text through a feminist literary lens, this paper examines how the novel adapts the traditional narrative to provide centre stage to Sita’s various encounters with instances of oppression. The findings reveal how Arni’s retelling employs unique aesthetics that combine texts and Chitrakar’s patua art illustrations to question the traditional male-centred versions, making this novel a part of a broader structure of feminist reinterpretations that aim to highlight female agency in cultural canons. This paper examines Sita’s stance against societal expectations for women, such as self-sacrifice, while also tracking her personal growth, which is symbolically represented by her reunion with Mother Earth. The novel contributes to the ongoing tradition of literary revisionism by offering a nuanced critique of the patriarchal foundations within classical myths. This is underscored by the novel’s reinterpretation of the epic in a way that points out the plasticity of the Ramayana, which can be reshaped to support more progressive views, encouraging discourse on existing gender norms present in contemporary societies.

Indian Lakṣmī or Śrī Lakṣmī is the goddess of fortune, abundance and agricultural affluence. Lakṣmī is also the Universal Mother goddess as indicated by her designation Mā or Śrī-Mā. Later, she came to be considered by the Hindus as a consort of Viṣṇu and was inspired by the Ardhanārīśvara images. In the first place, Vedic literature testifies that Śrī or Lakṣmī was an abstract idea symbolizing beauty; but later on, we find her as a beautiful goddess absorbing in her personality some of the attributes of the mother goddess common to all ancient civilizations from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Śrī or Lakṣmī the Goddess of Fortune and abundance has been regarded as a popular divinity with the masses, who belonged to the Brāhmanical pantheon from the very ancient days and various Dhyānas and systems of worshipping her have gradually evolved from the late Vedic period onwards. As fortune and abundance of wealth were and still are closely associated with every man, the worshipping of this deity began to be widespread first amongst the Hindu community and even now she is worshipped in every house for the prosperity and welfare of the whole family.

The story of Rama has been known on Java and mainland Southeast Asia since before the 9th century. The strong divergences in West Java and Malaysian puppet versions from Valmiki show patterns of intensification and localization that make the narrative at home in the region. In the 1960s, the Ramayana was not seen as bearing overt religious or political implications for Muslim performers, and its trans-Southeast Asian popularity boosted its currency. In 1965 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held a pan-Southeast Asian Ramayana festival – spurring countries where this epic, preserved in puppetry/mask performance, was only modestly popular (e.g., Indonesia and Philippines) to increase attention to this central narrative for traditional Southeast Asian mainland puppetry. Since the 1990s, however, transnational religio-political forces, including the Hindu revival in India (which sees Rama as proto-ruler of a Hindu realm) and the Islamic revival in the Muslim world (which sees the story as shirk, worshipping a god other than Allah), may problematize the narrative in Indonesian and Malaysian puppetry.

Anurupa Roy, director of a troupe of puppeteers in Delhi, India, discusses with Paula Richman, emerita professor at Oberlin College (USA), various facets in the creation of her puppet play About Ram. Roy wanted the audience to experience the diversity of the Ramayana tradition as a tragic love story about a hero (first a prince and later a king) who feels duty-bound to banish his wife with the result that he remains alone for the rest of his life. The play is filled with images of the hero’s past life through animation of his memories and weapons on a screen mounted on stage and music with no words but with a percussion emphasis that draws upon different musical instruments from various regions. Over the period of improvisation by which the performance developed, Roy made the war scenes very stylized and the animator contemporized the weapons to include jet propulsion and machine guns. As part of her goal to develop an embodied language for contemporary puppet practice in India, Roy incorporated dances based on martial arts, which led to a grammar of movement for the puppet performance that was contemporary and engaging.

Traditions of wayang puppetry in Indonesia realize what Philippe Descola refers to as an «animist ontology». Not only human figures, but also what Tim Ingold calls «nonhuman persons», including personal possessions, landforms, and animals, possess consciousness and interiority. Among wayang’s diverse story sources, the Ramayana stands out for its animistic qualities. Episodes depict interactions between humans, ogres, monkeys, deities, and other nonhuman persons, activating the potential of the medium for representing transformation and theatrically mining the suspension of natural laws. This essay, based on ongoing research into the wayang collection of Yale University Art Gallery, examines how the characters of the Ramayana reflect shifting theatrical styles and animistic beliefs. Analysis of these historical puppets is followed by an exploration of an experimental 2023 Ramayana production originated at the University of Con-necticut hybridizing wayang with the tholpavakoothu shadow puppet tradition of Kerala, India, in which the epic is retold from the perspective of the trees and wood inhabiting it.

This essay explores possible paths after postcolonial theory, with the after understood not as a negation, but as a form of inheritance and the creation of routes, such that an aftermath need not have a resentful or self-hating relation and nor simply an acceptance of given pictures of 'western' thought. The route explored here is neither fully secular nor religious, and nor from a radically alternative ontology, but rather prompted by three enduring concerns within the global humanities, explored in three sections of this paper. The first section 'Political Theologies as an Alternative to the Dichotomy of Religion and Secularism', asks what the difference and proximity between theology and theory may be, if we acknowledge the at times less visible theological genealogies of 'secular' social and critical theory. Rather than taking such genealogies only to be an effect of Eurocentrism, or as the lasting hegemony of Protestant Christian assumptions, we examine other ways of navigating tentative movements across ontological borders. The second section, 'Theory as Darsan (Pilgrimage/Path/School)' suggests that rather than thinking of concepts as anchored entirely to given territories or identities or as tools of 'generalization', we might place the word theory in relation to its genealogical kin, theos and theoria/darsan, as the formation of contemplative styles that emerge through forms of recurrent journeying within and across territories, following the tracks of others. As an instance of such journeying, we focus on a particular thinker, Stanley Cavell, whose writing suggests ways of remapping geographies of thought, in ways that could be significant for global thought, across so-called western and non-western territories. How might such journeys be continued? Section 3: 'A Darsan: the Killing of Birds, Some Centuries Apart' offers one such journey, three minor coordinates of a world map, located in three poetically enshrined bird killings, in Valmiki's Ramayana, in Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and in Richard Power's The Echo Maker, each of which incants a curse of unsettlement, and a fault line in relation to being human. This article hopes to contribute to debates on decolonization, currently underway in universities across the world, and seeks to offer a possible alternative to static conceptions of west and non-west. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sikh relationship with pilgrimage models is ambivalent and complicated; however, this relationship has been revived and reinvented because of several historical, cultural, and political transitions: the extensive Sikh diaspora; familiarity of pilgrimage in the Indian subcontinent; the effects of Partition and Sikh independence initiatives; and the secular and tourist components of pilgrimage. The shift from adherence to the wisdom of the Guru as the focus of the pious life to a physical journey involving geographical sites is a phenomenon that partly resulted from the partition of the Punjab in 1947; thus, the personal, social, and spiritual intersect intriguingly with political motivations. While pilgrimage narratives therefore have a limited place in Sikhism, diasporic writers can create a fictional response and rewriting of the pattern I have identified in previous studies. Balli Kaur Jaswal's most recent novel, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, focuses on a pilgrimage undertaken by three sisters after their mother's death. This novel is an uncomfortable interweaving of Western concepts of the 'dying wish' and engages the ongoing controversy about the purpose of pilgrimage in Sikhism. It also revisits the paradigm of pilgrimage in the Indian epic Ramayana from a feminist perspective. This article engages with both the author's critical exegesis related to the novel, and her personal reflection on pilgrimage to the ancestral geography of the subcontinent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rama legends are present, in some form or other, in many Asian countries: China, Tibet, East Turkestan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaya, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma. Scholars have considered them an "instrument of historical contact and cultural transmission between India and Asia" (S.N. Desai, 1970). Valmiki's Ramayana can be interpreted in many ways, from a religious point of view, as a perfect embodiment of the values of dharma in Hindu society, to the historicist interpretation of Romila Thapar who sees Ramayana as proof of the victory of kingship (Ayodhya) over clan society (Romila Thapar, 2013). As a Japanologist familiarized with the influence of Confucianism in Asia, I am inclined to point out the similarity between the pivotal concepts of the Indian and Chinese worldviews: the concept of dharma with all its moral ramifications, and the ethical principles and concepts of Confucianism, which had the same role of legitimizing and regulating kingship and power in ancient China, Japan, Korea and other places in Asia. Moreover, the fact that this pan-Indian story of Rama is found both in the Dravidian speaking south and the Sanskrit north, in both folk and high literary culture, may be pointing to a reality that is obscured by our present view of history: the educational value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study accounts for disparate portrayals of divine destroyer Śiva in the normative Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata as opposed to Kālidāsa's amatory Kumārasaṃbhava and Raghuvaṃśa by contrasting the primary and secondary Sanskrit epic authors' respective reliances on the Mānavadharmaśāstra and the Kāmasūtra. By arguing, per Richard Johnson's postpoststructuralism, that these mythological and philosophical differences deliberately reflect those poets' specific sociohistorical contexts, this inquiry accounts more accurately for Śiva's classical-epic depictions than do Stella Kramrisch's and Wendy Doniger [O'Flaherty]'s investigations informed by Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism and Don Handelman and David Shulman's researches influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's poststructuralism. The present work, in revising such prevailing Indological notions as Romila Thapar's traditional construal of the "classical," Donald R. Davis Jr.'s anthropocentric definition of puruṣārtha (human aim), and Sheldon Pollock's unvarying characterization of śāstras (treatises), models a historically aware approach that appreciates the interrelationship of mythological philosophy and philosophical mythology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a book review of "Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below" by Justin W. Henry. The book explores the adaptations and revisions of the Ramayana epic in Sri Lanka from the fourteenth century to the present day. It highlights the sympathetic view of Ravana's character among both Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus and Sinhalese Buddhists and examines the subversive local narratives that challenge established accounts of the island's history. The book also discusses the contemporary relevance of Ravana's kingdom in relation to popular movements, sovereignty discourses, and alternative media. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the similarities between the TV show "The Real Housewives" and the story of Sita in the Ramayana. Both narratives portray women navigating through challenges and evolving in their personal journeys, often shedding victimhood and embracing empowerment. Additionally, the passage highlights how storytelling plays a role in liberating Sita and enabling different perspectives on her experiences.

The corpus of Indian women's literature has the power to define the borders of community, class, and gender. Challenging the existing patriarchal set-up, writers from all corners of the nation speak not only to subvert the patriarchy but also to claim their authority and bring subdued voices to the fore. In Volga's gynocentric retellings of the ancient epic "Ramayana," Volga's The Liberation of Sita and Yashodhara deconstruct the traditional epic by recentering female characters that were marginalized in the original. The Liberation of Sita and Yashodhara tell the story of Buddha's wife after his unexpected departure, and they exemplify an active remaking of the past, a revision, and a reinvention of tradition. Thus, the author creates a female collective by representing ancient tradition from alternative points of view and networking with women across ages and generations. This paper interprets the depiction of the female characters in the select texts not merely as exalted figures but as bold voices. The female characters of the epic are victims of patriarchy, yet they are not depicted as mere sufferers. The author has given them a strong voice and dignity, narrating words of wisdom which are the result of their experiences of struggle with pain. Hence, the study shows Volga's evolved understanding of feminism as more than a simple conflict between men and women, but a larger issue that cannot simply be reduced to binaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes to propose inclusion of the great epics of the world -- Greek and Indian--in the curriculum of Higher Education to highlight the ethical and human values imparted by them and to ingrain and inseminate in today's youth high code of conduct and cross-cultural sensitivity. This is invariably vital for the students of arts, humanities, social sciences and other sciences to understand and come to terms with human predicament and also to unearth the underlying subtexts such as the sacred Bhagavat Gita which directs one to right living and the pejorative ones which reveal denial of poetic justice to the biologically and emotionally vulnerable. This lends space for the students to imbibe the standards of right living and at the same time critically interrogate the inherent autocracy under the pretext of virtue and to evolve not only cultural but a moral sensitivity that strikes a balance between absolutism and relativism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Sanskrit and Pali conceptions of contempt, and explores how they work in a number of ancient Indian genres, with a sustained focus on the Rāmāyaṇa. The article argues that while Indian texts often analyze emotion words and concepts systematically and with intricate granularity, contempt was not seen as an interior state to be theorized or managed therapeutically or morally. Rather, words for contempt are used to describe behaviors, etiquette, and social relationships, and are principally concerned with stipulating social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It would be beautiful for any poet to compose the greatest epic “Ramayana” in any language. Professor Subbu Reddiar wrote the story as good as the great Valmiki who sang the “Ramayana.” The epic “Ramakatha” tells the story of Rama and his wife Sita, a prince of the Isvaku dynasty from Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala. This story covers many aspects such as duty, heroism, love, femininity, marriage, relationships between relationships, war etc. Everyone born on this earth is indebted to someone in some way. According to Rama, the son must go into exile for 14 years without saying a word. He fulfilled it. It is the duty of the husband to rescue his wife when she is seduced by another man. Love is also beyond many senses. From one sense to the other, this feeling will appear in some way in the epics. Many Sangam literature songs are about love and war. Sangam literature and ancient Tamil grammar tell us about love and heroism. The heroism of Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, Ravana, Kumbha Karna, Indrajith and Vali are still talked about by the people today. Marriage is the formation of a bond between the couple. This bond will continue till the end of life. Life thrives on the exchange of love for one another. No one has the power to make love because it is immortal. Professor Subbu Reddiar has seen all such glimpses of Tamil culture in the epic “Ramayana”. So, he wanted to elicit to his reading audience, he had written many articles on “Ramayana” with startling comments analyzing the characters. Hence, this article focuses to bring forth the perspectives of Professor Subbu Reddiar to the present-day admirers of Subbu Reddiar and the Tamil academic world.

Myths and mythological figures serve as cultural symbols that people live by and emulate. Śravaṇ Kumār is one such mythological figure. He carried his blind parents on his shoulders and, with great hardships, tried to fulfil their wish for a pilgrimage. However, before he could complete the journey, he met a tragic end at the hands of Prince Daśrath. Due to his devotion to his parents, he is revered as an ideal youth in the Indian Hindu context. One wonders what values are conveyed about a society that has, for centuries now, idealised the tragic mythical figure of Śravaṇ Kumār? What could be the underlying fascination with the tragic story of Śravaṇ Kumār, his parents, and the guilt-ridden prince responsible for their tragic deaths and the subsequent ordeal the prince's son Rām had to endure in accordance with a curse? This paper reinterprets this myth and examines its relevance in contemporary times. The reinterpretation of the myth is further discussed in connection with the relevant psychoanalytic identity development theories, keeping in view the adolescents in the urban metropolitan context in India. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of having relevant mythical and cultural ideals for the identity development of youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assigning a date to Kumārila is notoriously difficult. Kumārila's dates are usually assigned through a relative chronology of Brahmanical and Buddhist philosophers with whom Kumārila engages or is engaged. This is a precarious method because the dates of these interlocutors are equally unstable. But what if in considering systematic dialogues (śāstra) to be the primary medium for interreligious philosophical debate we have missed a source that does engage with Kumārila, and that can be reliably dated? In this article, I turn to a religious group whom, it has been previously thought, did not respond to Kumārila until the eighth century—Jainas—as well as to a genre that is not typically viewed as a site of systematic philosophical dialogue—narrative. I argue that the Padmacarita, a Jaina Rāmāyaṇa composed by a Digambara writer called Raviṣeṇa, contains a narrative refutation of Kumārila's commentary to Mīmāṃsāsūtra 1.1.2. By bringing to light this refutation, and explaining how Raviṣeṇa's Padmacarita can be reliably dated, I assign Kumārila's terminus ante quem to the date of the Padmacarita's composition, 676 CE. Finally, I suggest that Raviṣeṇa's Padmacarita is the earliest extant Jaina text to discuss Kumārila's claims, and that Jainas used narrative to reflect on Mīmāṃsā before they turned to śāstra as another medium for this dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on several conferences, exhibitions and announcements. Topics include "The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours" at Cleveland, Ohio from August 26, 2022–July 30, 2023; "Religion in Motion: Between Borders and Belonging" conference which is scheduled at Netherlands from November 1–3, 2023.

The Sikh relationship with pilgrimage models is ambivalent and complicated; however, this relationship has been revived and reinvented because of several historical, cultural, and political transitions: the extensive Sikh diaspora; familiarity of pilgrimage in the Indian subcontinent; the effects of Partition and Sikh independence initiatives; and the secular and tourist components of pilgrimage. The shift from adherence to the wisdom of the Guru as the focus of the pious life to a physical journey involving geographical sites is a phenomenon that partly resulted from the partition of the Punjab in 1947; thus, the personal, social, and spiritual intersect intriguingly with political motivations. While pilgrimage narratives therefore have a limited place in Sikhism, diasporic writers can create a fictional response and rewriting of the pattern I have identified in previous studies. Balli Kaur Jaswal’s most recent novel, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, focuses on a pilgrimage undertaken by three sisters after their mother’s death. This novel is an uncomfortable interweaving of Western concepts of the ‘dying wish’ and engages the ongoing controversy about the purpose of pilgrimage in Sikhism. It also revisits the paradigm of pilgrimage in the Indian epic Ramayana from a feminist perspective. This article engages with both the author’s critical exegesis related to the novel, and her personal reflection on pilgrimage to the ancestral geography of the subcontinent.