The Multivalence of An Epic-Retelling the Ramayana in South India and Southeast Asia

The Ramayana traditions of South India and Southeast Asia are examined at multiple levels in this volume. The research presented here offers in-depth investigations of chosen moments in the development of the epic tradition together with broader trends that help in understanding the epic's multivalence. The journey and localization of the Ramayana is explored in its manifold expressions from classical to folk, from temples and palaces to theatres and by-lanes in cities and villages, and from ancient to modern times.

Regional Ramayanas from different parts of South India and Southeast Asia are placed in deliberate juxtaposition to enable a historically informed discussion of their connected pasts across land and seas. The three parts of this volume, organized as visual, literary, and performance cultures, discuss the sculpted, painted, inscribed, written, recited, and performed Ramayanas. A related emphasis is on the way boundaries of medium and genre have been crossed in the visual, literary and performed representations of the Ramayana. These are rewarding directions of research that have thus far received little attention.

Bringing together 19 well-known scholars in Ramayana studies from Cambodia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, UK, and USA, this thought-provoking and elegantly illustrated volume engages with the inherent plurality, diversity, and adaptability of the Ramayana in changing socio political, religious, and cultural contexts and with shifting norms, tastes, traditions, and ideologies.

Parul Pandya Dhar is an art historian and professor in the Department of History, University of Delhi. She has authored The Terana in Indian and Southeast Asian Architecture (2010), edited Indian Art History: Changing Perspectives (2011), and co-edited Temple Architecture and Imagery of South and Southeast Asia (2016), Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories (2014), and Cultural Interface of India with Asia (2004), besides contributing several research articles. She is currently writing on issues relating to art and mobility, visuality and memory, and epic encounters across the Indian Ocean.

This volume explores the journey of the Ramayana in South India and Southeast Asia at multiple levels. It does not dwell upon issues of origins and antiquity or pretend to present a comprehensive account of all the Ramayanas that have inhabited the cultural, social, and political worlds of Southern Asia. The research presented here offers in depth investigations of chosen moments in the development of the Ramayana tradition together with broader trends that help in understanding the epic's multivalence from ancient to modern times, in different mediums of expression, and in varied socio cultural, political, and religious contexts.

**Contents and Sample Pages**