The Life of a Text
Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas
1st Edition
Published on 23. July 1991
450 pages
978-0-520-90934-2 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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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07/1991
1st Edition
University of California Press
€76.88
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Person
Philip Lutgendorf is Assistant Professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Culture at the University of Iowa.
Content
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Transliteration
- 1. The Text and the Research Context
- Introduction
- Tulsidas and the Ramayan Tradition
- Metrical and Narrative Structure
- The Fathomless Lake: Tulsi's Narrative Framing
- The Manas and the Western Audience
- On Poetry and Performance
- Banaras: City of Tulsidas
- 2. The Text in Recitation and Song
- The Varieties of Recitation
- Spreading the Word: The Puranic Recitation Model
- The Rites of Recitation
- The "Great Sacrifice" of Manas Recitation
- The Pleasures of Manas Singing
- 3. The Text Expounded: The Development of Manas-Katha
- The Telling and Its Milieu
- Epic and Puranic Exegetical Traditions
- The Manas-Katha Tradition
- Changing Styles of Katha
- 4. The Art of Manas-Katha
- The Economics of Katha
- Qualifications of a Performer
- Performance Structure and Techniques
- Katha in Context: The Contemporary Performance Milieu
- The Performer and the Text
- The Nature of Katha: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
- The Palace of Mirrors
- 5. Words Made Flesh: The Text Enacted
- The Ramlila Tradition
- The "Sport" of Kings: Evolution of the Banaras Ramlila
- Three Contemporary Productions
- Ramlila and Devotional Practice
- The Ultimate Commentary
- 6. The Text in a Changing Society
- The Paradoxical Paradigm
- The Rise of the Eternal Religion
- The Politics of Ramraj
- Cracks in the Mirror
- People of the Book
- The Future of Manas Performance
- Glossary of Names with Transliteration
- A
- B
- C
- D
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- Y
- Bibliography
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
