The Life of a Text: Performing the 'Ramcaritmanas' of Tulsidas by Philip Lutgendorf

by Philip Lutgendorf

The 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.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Philip Lutgendorf is Professor Emeritus of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies at the University of Iowa.

Reviews

[Aditya Raghav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skipped some sections of Chapter 5