Customer Reviews

Prince of Ayodhya (The Ramayana, Book I)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Prince of Ayodhya is a wonderful story based on the Indian classic poem the Ramayana.

It's a re-telling of the tale made flesh by Ashok Bankers' lush imagination. Those that have studied the Ramayana will enjoy their favorite characters as they come to life and take on dimensions that the poem could never touch. However, no particular knowledge of Indian history and culture is needed to enjoy this book. Mr. Banker has written this story to be enjoyed with little or no background knowledge of its' history.

The Prince of Ayodhya is fantasy and high adventure set in a world that most westerners have never experienced. If you love fantasy, adventure and historical fiction, you'll love this book.

A new and original voice has stepped into the world of fantasy and adventure! Bravo Mr. Banker, I can hardly wait for the next installment!

i am an ABCD (ha, ha - indians will get it) but i am very familiar with the Ramayana, having read it in various editions that are true to the original sanskrit. i also watched the tv series as well (yuk, too histrionic).

all i have to say is this. the Ramayana was first spoken. i'm sure when the Ramayana was written down in Sanskrit, it was a sacrilege. when Tulsidas wrote the Ramayana in Hindi, that was considered a sacrilege. Then at some point it was translated into English. When it was made into a comic book, it was considered a sacrilege. When they made it into a tv show, egads! it was a mortifying sacrilege.

here's what a lot of the naysayers don't get. People aren't even reading the Ramayana anymore! so many of my friends here in the US are CLUELESS about it. they know nothing about it. they are real american-born-confused-desis.

Mr. Banker's retelling of this story does not hurt it. it is an excellent job and it will get more of our kids to read again. hopefully, creative artists will also create a video game for it and a movie, a la Harry Potter.

what people don't realize is that the Ramayana is a mixture of religion, mythology, and history. we have to get past the mythology, which can't be proven. we have to get past the history, which was 1000s of years ago. we have to aspire to the divinity. Let's understand that Rama had to make some incredibly difficult choices in his life. He is the most heroic, virtuous man who may have ever lived. Let's keep his glory alive.

People, get over it. Please! this is a great book.

Thank you, Mr. Banker

"In a masterwork as imaginative as the greatest creations of J. R. R. Tolkien..." Oh, how many times have we heard that one before? Our bookstore shelves are clogged with would-be epics churned out by talentless hacks who can barely assemble a sentence, much less a novel. Given this profusion of overhyped, underwhelming crap, it's understandable that many readers might be skeptical of a newcomer fantasy author touted as a grandmaster. This time, however, there's no need. The claims are true, the talent is real, the result is stunning.

"Prince of Ayodhya" is, of course, an epic fantasy set in ancient India. It follows Maharaja Dasaratha, ruler of the mighty Kingdom of Ayodhya, and his three wives and four sons as they receive disturbing news from the seer Vishwamitra: the Demon Lord Ravana has been gathering an army of hellish beings in preparation for an assault on the mortal plain. The cast here is huge, but Ashok Banker juggles his characters well. Virtually all of them take on the larger-than-life personalities of epic heroes and villains, leaving an unforgettable stamp on the story rather than just going through the motions. One reviewer complained that the characters were too simplistic. It may seem that way at the start, but new layers of complexity unfold as the story progresses.

The best way to describe this book is to say that Banker gives his tale the scope of an epic. This is a story not just about big characters, but about big cities, big journeys, big armies, big battles, and a promise of even bigger events to come. Here we actually see not just a few people, but instead an entire nation being drawn into an expanding battle. This author has also mastered the little details of writing. His ability to evoke setting and mood through little details of sight, sound, and smell matches the best in the genre. His handling of pacing matches his talent at writing. There's never a slow moment in this book, and character development scenes are woven into the narrative so well that they fit perfectly.

Is this book perfect? No. Banker does have a few problems, such as an obsession with putting somewhat cheesy cliffhangers at the end of every single chapter and some chapters that are too short and choppy. But these are minor mistakes that barely put a dent in such a tremendous accomplishment. Overall, I give "Prince of Ayodhya" a hearty recommendation, and I can't wait for "Siege of Mithila".

Adam and Ulysses are people that many of us grew up with as are the fairies and elves from British folklore thanks to Western writers and film-makers dabbling in Greek and Roman mythology, Biblical stories and myths and folklore to capture the imagination of modern readers and audiences. And in India, too, vernacular writers have turned to our very own epics, history and mythology to recreate them as popular writing. Now, it's the turn of Indian writers writing in English, who have already made their presence felt in world literature, to take our epics global to readers of fiction.

Ashok K Banker's Prince of Ayodhya, Book One of the Ramayana, which was recently released in India by Penguin is a journey in that direction. "The original Ramayana was written three thousand years ago by a reformed thief-turned-sage named Valmiki. Now, with breathtaking imagination and brilliant storytelling, Banker has recreated this epic tale for modern readers everywhere," says the book's cover. And the author himself is upbeat about this mammoth exercise that he has embarked on. "After I finish the seven books of the Ramayana, I intend to write the Mahabharata, the Book of Krishna and finally the book of Kalki and Ganesha, which in a sense will be coming back to the beginning of creation,'' he says. In fact, he has fin-ished writing the first four books of the Ramayana over the last four years and has sold the rights for all the seven books to Orbit publishers in UK.

Banker, however, stresses that it was not really a motivation to create popular fiction and take Indian epics global that has driven him. "For me there was no external motivation of money, social context or political circumstances. I was writing from personal obsession and a childhood love of epic story-telling. I wanted to take all the great leg-ends of Indian history and retell them. In the West history and my-thology has been told and retold millions of times. Even today popular fiction and films and even science fiction, TV are recreating them,'' he says.

Efforts to recreate history and mythology are obviously well re-ceived by historians and teachers of history in India. Feels Dr Samita Sen, Reader, Department of History, Calcutta University, a recipient of the prize fellowship at Trinity College (Cambridge University) in 1990-94: "Both mythology and history are cultural resources available to us for creative re-engagement. It is not only possible but even desirable that we draw on these resources and involve ourselves in a 'modern' engagement. The absence of such engagements have resulted in a near-monopoly of obscurantist and crassly commercial approaches. There is, of course, a long tradition of literary engagements with my-thology, rather more than history. Expectedly, however, these have been more in regional languages than in English. It is to be remem-bered that 'Indian writing in English' may have a long history but it is only very recently that it has leapt to prominence. This means that there is now a market and a relevance for such enterprises.''

But apart from the urge to retell the stories, it has also been a personal journey of discovery for Banker and a search for his roots. "My parents came from different religious backgrounds and split up when I was very young. My search for an identity has been very intense and I have often wondered whether I was really Scots, Goan, Gujarati, Dutch or Sri Lankan,'' he says.

And again from a historian's point of view, such a journey though personal, is viewed as a step in the right direction. "The issue here is not about knowing more mythology/epics as much as establishing an emotional relationship with our cultural past/present. In the latter sense, fictionalized accounts of myths/epics are a step in the right di-rection,'' says Dr Sen. And while Banker has borrowed heavily from all the available ver-sions of the Ramayana including Valmiki and Kamban to retell the story in today's idiom, he has also tried to explore more intensely and thoroughly than ever before the nuances of character.

Though the story so far has action as a central theme the author is not really looking at selling rights for a film script. "There's a story at the heart of it all. I'm not interested in film rights at all. And neither am I interested in creating a brand. I love writing and the book is cen-tral for me,'' says Banker. The book is already being distributed in 55 countries and 7 languages. "It is very exciting for me that 1000s of readers around the world are getting familiarised with the Ramayana for the first time through my book. I've got letters from readers in places like Cambria, UK, and Irvington, USA. saying they've never read an Indian tale before. Interestingly, apart from non-Indians there are many readers of Indian origin too who are buying the book,'' he says.

The book which was published first in UK earlier this year has already has two reprints and 30,000-40,000 copies have been sold.

Let's be clear. This is not a great novel. But it is a great pulp novel.

Especially if the Ramayan is new to you, this selection off the sword and sorcery shelf will live up to the hype of "freshly imagined", because it is just that: an update of an old tale for the 21st century. One that has not been over exploited.

For the English language fantasy genre, its action is reminiscent of E.R. Eddison's tales of heroes and lovers with sharp pointy black beards. (Liars: it is nothing like Tolkien's sexless Saxon toffee.) Instead, its style and empirical reality are more like David Drake's: plain slang, with TV fast-cut scenes and Dungeons-and-Dragons magical sensibility. In fact, it has almost the same formula ratio of parts exciting, annoying and pedantic as David Drake's fantasy trilogy, Lord of the Isles, which borrowed from Assyria, Virgil's Georgics, and D&D! For Prince of Ayodhya, it is the heroes' sentimental morals, fight choreography, and occasional love of singing, plus the weird demonic gore, that put an original tang in this yarn. Maybe that's why Banker's other book is _Bollywood_.

This book is a wonderful book. I first got this book from a friend who recommended it as a good read. I, being an American Baptist, had no idea that this story was actually a retelling of a great Indian Epic, full of bramin magic, horrible beast, proud Armies, and a great hero.

Because of this wonderful book I have learned a great deal about a culture that I would probably not even really take the time to research.

As for the actual story. It was an amazing story once you get past all of the Indian words that are used. Once you begin reading it is kind of slow in the first few chapters but once the story gets going you'll be amazed.

I can't wait to finish reading this entire series and I look forward to the completion of the 6th and final book.
I strongly recommed this book to anyone interested in a good read. Expecially to those who are not Indian as this book will open your eyes to different cultures and send you back begging for more.

First off, let me be quite clear: I'm reviewing this as a novel in its own right, and not as a re-telling of the Ramayana, and I also read only two-thirds of the book, since at that point I was just too bored and had to stop. Since I haven't read the Indian epic in its original form (or as close to 'original' as an English translation can be), the entire story is new to me.

Also, this review contains minor spoilers (no mind-blowing plot twists or anything, just little details).

As a novel, Prince of Ayodhya has several shortcomings. First off is the characterization. Rama's lack of faults may make for great mythology, and great legends, and I understand that, but it makes for an awfully flat character. The similar one-sidedness of the queens and of Dasaratha is more excusable, but the flatness of Rama's character is rather disconcerting, and the reading loses a lot of suspense because of this. If this had been an original novel, not knowingly based on any type of epic, the characterization would have been inexcusable, but I can give it some slack because of its origin.

Plotwise, Prince of Ayodhya moves rather slowly in the beginning. It's only until you read two-thirds into the book (where I stopped) and you realize that those entire two-thirds of the book have been a very, very short period, more or less a day. Some of the events, such as the scene with the guru Vishwamitra and Dasaratha when he enters Ayodhya are well-written, but some of the others are not. There is one excruciating chapter where two characters speak simply to provide information about the parade that is passing by, all the way down to the numbers of specific battalions. It gets rather obvious here that Banker is simply trying to throw a lot of information.

The use of Sanskrit words creates a mixed effect. On one hand, as a professional review says somewhere on the Web, it does create a lot of atmosphere the novel (which is one of its strong points, which is mentioned below). You don't see a lot of fantasy with 'paan' and 'yojana' in it. On the other hand, the use of these words is a bit excessive. Personally, I find it a little disconcerting when I have to keep flipping back to the glossary to discover what a word means. Perhaps this is simply my own problem. Lastly, sometimes it seems as if some of the Sanskrit words aren't really needed: 'naked', for example. I can understand 'yojana' (a measure of distance), but a Sanskrit words for 'naked' seems a bit superfluous.

Prince of Ayodhya is not without benefits, however. The lush setting and atmosphere probably make its strong points. I have only passing familiarity with Hindu mythology and religion (i.e., before I read this, I knew that there was a pantheon of gods and something about the caste system), but Banker makes it easy to understand the rakshasas, the complex interplay between the brahman and the kshatriya, etc. This is probably what I enjoyed the most about the book.

It is possible that Prince of Ayodhya works very well as a modernized myth. I don't feel qualified to say if it is, since I haven't read the Ramayana. However, as a pure fantasy epic novel, Prince of Ayodhya is short. As a reader, I personally welcome all types of multiculturally based fantasy aside from the stock Northern European epic, but Prince of Ayodhya simply is short in some essential qualities as a novel.

Yet another version of Ramayana, the great Indian epic, is well underway. The epic is now 3000 years old and has inspired different versions at different times in its long life. In Ashok K. Banker's rendering, the novelty is that the ancient tale gets a modernized version by someone who has passionately studied, researched and lived with the material for the past 20 years.

Banker's Prince Of Ayodhya is just the length of as it should be -- not abridged as some have been. Neatly divided into seven volumes, each comprising more than 500 pages, the epic is being published serially in UK, USA, Germany and many Commonwealth countries as well as in several languages.

What is it that has attracted publishers around the world? For one thing, the epic has a simple, long and intriguing storyline, which still resonates. It is permeated with fantasy material that is appealing and irresistible in its own way. It is perhaps this fantasy quotient which publishers readily reckon to be a perfect fit for the mass market. Then, of course, perhaps it's more simple than any of that: a great story is a great story in any language, at any time.

Prince of Ayodhya , the first volume in Ashok K. Banker's Ramayana -based series, opens with Rama, the prince, awakening after a bad dream on a moonlit night in his bedroom chamber. In just a few deft strokes, the author gives us a vivid idea of the prince -- his looks, education and attitude -- the state of Ayodhya, the soft-flowing Sarayu river, the peaceful ambiance in and around the state, and the unseen dangers looming over the country and its people.

With the atmosphere and tone perfectly set, the reader is led straight into the great tale. Preparations are underway for coronation of the young prince on his 16th birthday. Two sages at the gate of the palace, one following the other, each one claiming that he is Viswamitra, the seer-mage, a sage among sages, a seer that other seers look up to reverentially. The old king Dasaratha is puzzled, failing to recognize the real one.

The real Vishwamitra has to prove his bona fides and utters a mantra to change the impostor back into his true shape. The other one was a demon, a shape-shifting Asura, sent by Ravana, the king of demons, who wants to destroy Ayodhya. The grateful king offers to pay anything the great sage asks of him. Vishwamitra asks for the services of Ram to accompany him on a mission. The sage says that the mission is important, as it would save Ayodhya as well. After much dithering, the king agrees to send Rama along with the sage, but another of the king's four sons, being very much attached to his elder brother, follows them as well.

It's a difficult terrain with impassable roads. They have a harrowing time trudging their way first on foot and then on a kind of boat to reach the sages' place at Vayanak-van. The sage empowers the two princes and prepares them for the fight. The demons, being aware of Rama's presence, launch an all out attack to kill the two brothers. True to the sages' prescience, Ram fights valiantly and kills anybody and everybody that dares attack them.

Banker's Ramayana is an elegant, robust and highly textured account of Rama's heroic but checkered life, told with great taste, delicacy and imagination. The author's style has a sharp audio-visual character and that makes for a delectable read as well. The narrative never sags or comes across as hackneyed or trite.

Non-Indian readers shouldn't be dismayed at the free and rampant use of Indian words in the text. Though they might seem a bit indigestible at first, they ultimately contribute hugely to the ambiance of Banker's book.

I look forward to reading the next volumes of this modern Ramayana. If Prince Of Ayodhya is a good sampling, it seems likely that Banker's creation will become a classic.

Intro - Fortuitously, about a year and a half ago, it was at a dinner party that a friend of a friend just so happened to mention the name of a certain Ashok. K. Banker. He was described as a revolutionary author who had re-invented the wheel with his contemporary re-telling of the Ramayana. At the time this only mildly picqued my interest (as i had always considered The Ramayana to be the lesser of the 2 great Hindu epics), only when i heard that the very same author was currently in the process of giving a similar treatment to The Mahabharata (the epic of all epics) did i write his name in my diary, under the very exclusive section of "Books to buy".

The rest as they say is history , (AKB's) Ramayana has so far been the most pleasurable reading experience that i have ever enjoyed (5 down 1 to go). Personally speaking, with it's subtle and passive approach the Ramayana has given me more inspiration than any self- help/motivational book can ever hope to achieve ........... but more importantly it's one helluva read!

Prince of Ayodhya
Banker takes his readers on a magical journey to an age of wonders 3 millennia ago. As the first of a six part saga Prince of Ayodhya strikes the perfect balance by introducing us to a mix of fascinating multi-dimensional characters; whilst at the same time (through the experiences of Rama) scratches the surface to a plethora of rich tales from the Hindu Pantheon...... the result is a hugely entertaining read which transports you to a time and age that one simply does not want to leave.

At last, something that all followers of epic fantasy & world mythology can be proud of.

If you are reading my Ramayana series, then I gently urge and request you to please not buy the UK or US editions, even if they're available at bargain prices. Which they probably are, since the publishers there have more or less put the books out of print, due to a lack of interest by non-Indian readers.

The Indian editions are the definitive editions of my work, containing a lengthy Introduction by me titled 'Retelling the Ramayana', which provides an essential perspective on the work, the final versions of all the books--including some small but significant changes, particularly in some book endings--no glossary, thank God, and are generally the best-edited, designed and published versions, in my opinion at least. In short, they're the Author's Preferred Edition, particularly the new hardcover omnibus editions, which represent the story in the way I had originally intended and are truly sumptuous to hold (and behold). Also, significantly, they aren't packaged as 'Fantasy' or 'SF' like the firang ones, which is a ridiculously transparent attempt at cashing in on the commercial success of the fantasy genre a la LoTR and Harry Potter. Please, people, my Ramayana series is a retelling of an epic, and that's exactly what it should be called, 'Epic'. I'd venture to call it 'Itihasa', but even Mythology, which is the label Penguin uses for the books here in India, is acceptable. But certainly not Fantasy as in one of the ubiquitous Tolkien rip-offs that are churned out in droves by western publishers, or even SF, both genres that can sometimes be wonderful in their own right, but are totally inappropriate in the context of an epic that pre-dates Tolkien by some thousands of years, and the entire tradition of western literature as well!

Frankly, I feel so strongly about this that I'd even go so far as to say, if you can't get the Indian editions, then don't read the books! That's why I'm currently in the process of re-acquiring the rights to the US and UK editions and they will soon be out of print everywhere but India. Which is how it ought to be: this is a quintessentially Indian story, written by a contemporary Indian for other contemporary Indians to read. And the Indian editions are really the only way to go.

Ashok K. Banker
www.ashokbanker.com