Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Rama: With Illustrations from a Sixteenth-Century Mughal Manuscript

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I met Milo Beach about 4 decades ago when he was in India studying local culture. This is one of his several books about India. It's targeted toward children, but this adult enjoyed it a lot. It ties together amazing illustrations from several centuries back with matching tales of Rama and how he was placed on the ground so he could (maybe) take over that community from his aging father, and later become the god Vishnu. With help from his crony brother, he finds romance and makes his way through many major struggles with a variety of strange characters, all well-illustrated. I kept going to the helpful list of character names, plus the original illustration sources shown at the book end. Enjoyable perusal.

Although based on Hindu religion and taken from the 500 B.C. Ramayana, this story book is really all about marvels. Lavishly illustrated with enlargements of miniatures painted during the reign of Akbar the Great. Ages7-12 will love the fanciful monsters and the unrealistic gore in some paintings. The armies of bears and monkeys were a big hit in my home. 62 pages.