Customer Reviews

Rama the Steadfast: An Early Form of the Ramayana (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had a hard time finding out if this is an unabridged copy. It is not. In fact, it is their attempt at finding the "original" version within the oldest texts based on scholarly research into linguistics. Frankly, what is the point? This could have been accomplished with notes in an unabridged version. When will someone publish an affordable unabridged Rama? Minus one star for the poor communication.

In some excitement my hindu boyfriend ordered this book from our local bookshop. He was looking forward to introducing me to the Ramayana, epic story that he grew up with as a child, a story that has a massive influence on Indian thought and culture. He was terribly disappointed to discover to discover that it wasn't the real Ramayana, translated word for word from the sanskrit into english-a story that he regards as real, and equal to the Bible in its holiness. But an abridged tale that the translators believed to be the closest to earliest forms of the text. Making it not a translation of the Ramayana (a religious text) but a somewhat secular tale with a rather irritating hero and a very annoying heroine (who is the inspiration behind every silly, helpless annoying heroine in every Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood movie you will ever see). The characters also eat meat, which he accused of being a lie (many Indians believ that meat eating did not occur in India before the invasion of Islam) as no god (as Rama is a god in hinduism) would eat meat. For him this was a real disappointment-and from his discovery that it was not the Ramayana he knows and loves, but some abridged secular tale of murky origin (that because the translators say is an oral text originally, also challenges the Hindu view that Sanskrit is the worlds first language-written and spoken) he had as much interest in this story as a muslim has interest in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

As someone who is interested in languages generally I found the introduction very interesting-how the translators were able to ascertain that certain parts of the text come from different eras by the use of language and refrences to things that were invented in different eras (i have forgotten the name for that). Aside from that curiousity. What is the point of reading the story if not to read the sacred hindu epic? The plot is not interesting (merely a simple tale of man rescues wife from demon with aid of monkeys and then regaining his kingdom) and the characters are utterly one dimensional. I am not saying the real Ramayana would be any different-the feelings of hindus aside, from a literary perspective the simplistic Ramayana in no way equals the full blooded characters of the Bible. However the Ramayana is worth reading to know about Hinduism from a hindu perspective-not what western translators think maybe the earliest single authored version of the epic might be.

How hard can it be to produce a single, unabridged Ramayana translated accurately as possible into English?