Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: The Return of the Epic
- Part I Epics and Ancient History
- Part II Epic Aesthetics and Genre
- Part III Epic Films and the Canon
- 9 Pass the Ammunition: A Short Etymology of ‘Blockbuster’
- 10 Epic Stumbling Blocks
- 11 The Greatest Epic of the Twenty-First Century?
- 12 The Ramayana and Sita in Films and Popular Media: The Repositioning of a Globalised Version
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
12 - The Ramayana and Sita in Films and Popular Media: The Repositioning of a Globalised Version
from Part III - Epic Films and the Canon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: The Return of the Epic
- Part I Epics and Ancient History
- Part II Epic Aesthetics and Genre
- Part III Epic Films and the Canon
- 9 Pass the Ammunition: A Short Etymology of ‘Blockbuster’
- 10 Epic Stumbling Blocks
- 11 The Greatest Epic of the Twenty-First Century?
- 12 The Ramayana and Sita in Films and Popular Media: The Repositioning of a Globalised Version
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
All our mythology may vanish ever, our Vedas may depart and our Sanskrit language may vanish forever, even if speaking the most vulgar patois, there will be the story of Sita present … Sita has gone into the very vitals of our race. She is there in the blood of every Hindu man and woman.
The Indian epic Ramayana has its place among the greatest epics of the world. It is omnipresent, found in language, art, culture, literature, ethics, festivals and ceremonies. It is not just an epic but a tradition. Sita-Ram is not just the epic couple; Ram is the ultimate male, and representations of Indian womanhood are grounded firmly in Sita, making Sita-Ram together integral to the Indian subconscious. It is impossible to conjecture its origin, as it existed in an oral form for an unknowable period of time and evolved as an environmental and socio-cultural process, as not just a homogenised work but one having many voices with a basic unity as well as amazing diversity. The poet Valmiki documented the Ramayana for the first time in Sanskrit, inspiring the next thousand years of the literary tradition of Ramkathas, which were rewritten in all Indian languages, with each contributing local colour, and contemporary historical, regional, cultural and political dynamics; such a rich and varied tradition encouraged its perpetuation through texts and theatrical performances as well as pictorial and oral traditions. It also travelled outside India with labourers, immigrants and missionaries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Return of the Epic FilmGenre, Aesthetics and History in the 21st Century, pp. 201 - 215Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2014