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Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology. Edited by Paula Richman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. 258 pp.
Compiled and edited by Paula Richman, Ramayana Stories in Modern South Asia: An Anthology is a combination of primary texts and secondary criticism. Its aim is to present to the noninitiate the rich tradition of the Rama stories (Rama katha) in modern South India. The primary authence for the book is the North American classroom, where Richman sees her collection being used to introduce students to the narrative and religious diversity of India. In the pursuit of this objective, Richman presents canonical as well as counter-canonical tellings of Rama katha. A secondary objective seems to be to educate readers about the cultural milieu of South India. Accordingly, Richman's volume brings together versions of Rama katha in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam (the major languages of South India, excluding English) surrounded by scholarly material. In its objectives, the collection is successful, though with some qualifications.
The importance of Rama katha to India cannot be overstated. In India, Rama's images are everywhere - in little shrines in shops and homes, on calendars, and on television (where during the 1980s his story was told week after week on Sunday mornings to millions of rapt television viewers). In the political life of India, no god, in this land of many gods, casts a longer shadow than Rama. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of India's main political parties, and allied organizations of the Hindu right (commonly referred to as the Sangh Parivar) have successfully integrated Rama into a modern political movement based on hurt Hindu pride. Such is the company Rama has been forced to keep in recent years.
In contrast to BJP's exclusionary and...