A tale that travelled

Arguably the world's most popular story, the Ramayan is a binding element in the cultures of South-East Asia. ANJANA RAJAN leafs through "The Ramayana in Indonesia", a scholarly yet readable work by Malini Saran and Vinod C. Khanna.

WHAT CAN'T be missed when comparing and contrasting arts and literature across India and the entire Asian region is the prevalence of the Ramayan, the story of Ram, whose oldest extant version is the epic Sanskrit poem attributed to sage Valmiki. In the present climate, as looking East gains currency, and artistes from Asian countries increasingly share the common roots of their art forms, the release of "The Ramayana in Indonesia", published by Ravi Dayal and authored by Malini Saran and Vinod C. Khanna, would seem to have come at just the right time.

But this is no quickie publication slapped together in a jiffy in response to the intellectual winds of the present. Patiently researched, it has been worked on over 10 years by the authors as they delved into collections from libraries across the world and travelled around the Indonesian archipelago. An interesting example of the modern world helping to reconstruct the ancient, the authors remark in their preface that "... for most of this period, the two of us were rarely in the same country, leave alone in the same city... " remarking that "the distance was somewhat bridged by the internet".

The book, intended for the general reader, travels from the aptly titled "The Beginning", which provides an overview of the innumerable versions of the Ram katha in India, to Java, where a sculptural narration of the epic can be found at Prambanan and a literary version in Old Javanese. Besides, there are the interesting views of this immortal tale as found in the Islamic retellings that came about after the proliferation of Islam in Indonesia from the 13th Century. Part of the reason this most popular of all stories could be easily incorporated into the new religion of Indonesia, say the authors, is that, "The Sufis, proponents of a mystical Islam, played an important role in the Islamisation of Indonesia, as they had done in India." They go on to explain, "Their institution of saints, dead and living, merging into pre-Islamic ancestor worship, ensured a mass following, particularly as the tombs of local saints became shrines. At the same time, the perceived congruence between the mysticism and metaphysical speculations of the Sufis and that of some of the Hindu-Buddhist philosophies appealed to the sophisticated elite." The authors also show how the story of Ram was adapted over time to merge with Islamic thought. Thus some versions recount the birth of the prince not as an incarnation of God - or Wisnu, as Lord Vishnu is known over much of the region. With photographs showing sculptures and relief panels from temples as well as performances of the story through theatre arts like dance and puppetry, the book is a valuable reference volume not abstruse.

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