The Life of a Text
Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas
A Philip E. Lilienthal Book in Asian Studies
$70.00, £40.95 hardcover
978-0-520-06690-8
Available Now
450 pages,
July 1991, Not available in South Asia
Categories: Religion; Hinduism; South Asia; Cultural Anthropology
July 1991, Not available in South Asia
Categories: Religion; Hinduism; South Asia; Cultural Anthropology
Free online edition (eScholarship)--available only to University of California faculty, staff, and students (List of public titles)
"The range of Manas performance traditions captured here is immense. What is wonderful and remarkable is that each is presented vividly, with careful ethnographic detail, so that they become living traditions to the reader."—Susan Wadley, Syracuse University
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.
1993 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize, The South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies