Item Code: IDE811
D. K. Printworld (P) Ltd.
Size: 8.75" X 5.75"
Pages: 200 (Color Illus: 6, B & W Illus: 4)
Price: $22.50 Shipping Free
These essays, originally presented at an international conference, are in the forefront of the modern response to an ancient work that has gained a new critical and social relevance in contemporary scholarship. Approaching the Ramayana from several angles in an attempt to understand its aesthetic and ideological meaning, they examine the epic through the perspectives of textual criticism, art, architectural and film. Thereby they address critical issues such as the seminal status of Valmiki, the underlying problem of canonicity itself, the importance of other - so-called derivative - Ramayanas, the implications of gender representation, and the cultural manipulation of social ideals relating to the position of women and the idealisation of love that achieves its highest value in marriage.
Using the methods of rigorous textual and historical investigation, each essay seeks not only in uncover the layers of meaning in the complex structure of the epic in its varied forms but also to situate it critically in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia.
About the Author:
Dr. Mandakranta Bose, who has specialised in the Sanskrit tradition of dramaturgy and dance, teaches Religious Studies and Women's Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada where she is Director of the Centre for India and South Asia Research. She is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, London. Some of her recent works include Speaking of the Dance: The Indian Critique; Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval and Modern Indian: The Dance Vocabulary of Classical India; and movement and Mimesis: The Idea Dance in the Sanskritic Tradition.
|Preface to the Second and Revised Edition||vii|
|Preface to the First Edition||ix|
- Mandakranta Bose
|1.||The Ghost from the Anthill: Valmiki and the Destiny of the
Ramakatha in South and South-East Asia|
- Robert Goldman
|2.||Images of Women in the Prambanan Ramayana Reliefs|
- Alessandra Lopez y Royo
|3.||The Framing of the Shrew: Kaikeyi as Kalaha in the Ananda
- Vidyut Aklujkar
|4.||Three Ways of Falling in Love: Tulsidas's Phulvari episode
and the way it is portrayed in contemporary electronic media|
- Heidi Pauwels
|5.||Anklets Away: The Symbolism of Jewellery and Ornamentation in
- Sally Sutherland-Goldman
|List of Contributors||175|