The Life of a Text: Performing the Rāmcaritmānas of TulsidasThe Life of a Text offers a vivid portrait of one community's interaction with its favorite text--the epic Ramcaritmanas--and the way in which performances of the epic function as a flexible and evolving medium for cultural expression. Anthropologists, historians of religion, and readers interested in the culture of North India and the performance arts will find breadth of subject, careful scholarship, and engaging presentation in this unique and beautifully illustrated examination of Hindi culture. The most popular and influential text of Hindi-speaking North India, the epic Ramcaritmanas is a sixteenth century retelling of the Ramayana story by the poet Tulsidas. This masterpiece of pre-modern Hindi literature has always reached its largely illiterate audiences primarily through oral performance including ceremonial recitation, folksinging, oral exegesis, and theatrical representation. Drawing on fieldwork in Banaras, Lutgendorf breaks new ground by capturing the range of performance techniques in vivid detail and tracing the impact of the epic in its contemporary cultural context. |
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ārtī audience Ayodhya Banaras Banarsi Bharat Brahman brother century chant Chitrakut commentary context crowd culture cycle daily darśan deity Delhi devotees dharma divine editions epic epic's episode example exposition expounders festival Ganga genre Ghat groups Gyan Vapi Hanuman Hein Hindi Hindu Ibid India interpretation interview Kajli kāṇḍ Karpatri kathā Khojwan king Krishna Kshatriya Kumar Lakshman līlā listeners Lord Mahābhārata maharaja Mānas mance Marwari Muslim Narayan narrative noted oral Pandit passage Pathak patrons performance poet popular Puranas Ram's Ramayan Rāmāyaṇa Rāmcaritmānas Ramchandra Ramkinkar Ramkumar Rāmlīlā Ramnagar Ramnarayan Rāmrāj rasik Ravan recitation reflected religious ritual sacred sadhus Sankat Mochan Sanskrit satsang scripture Sharan Shiva Shrinath Mishra singers Singh singing Sita Sita's social Śrī stanza story style Swami Swami Karpatri temple term ṭīkā tion tradition Tripathi Tulsi's Tulsidas Udit Narayan Upadhyay Uttar Pradesh Vaishnava Valmiki Veda Vedic verses Vibhishan Vrindavan vyās word worship