THE JOURNEY OF THE RAMAKATHA TRADITION (original) (raw)

No narrative thrives in isolation. From the moment a narrative is born, it does not remain settled in a cozy spot on the green grass outside the writer's window. Instead, begins the journey of the narrative, a journey set to transgress time and space. Oral narratives in particular are the oldest forms of narrative that ever saw the face of the earth. The versatility of these oral narratives lay in the way they evolve in almost every moment of their existence, of their being performed. Each time a storyteller or poet narrates the story, the narrative changes and evolves distinctly. One of the most significant forms of oral narratives that thrive in the Indian subcontinent is the Rāmakathā tradition. Each time the story of Rāma has been enunciated, something new has been added to it, in terms of form, literary style, theme, motif, or any other aspect. When one traces the story of Rāma in any of the Rāmakathā traditions, what one essentially looks for is the journey-the journey of the Raghu hero and even the journey of the narrative itself. The story of Rāma, be it The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, or The Irāmāvatāram of Kamban, brought something unique, something intrinsic to them, to the repertoire of this heroic narrative. Comparative Literature as a discipline can provide the necessary resources required to trace the evolution and journey of the narrative of the Rāmakathā tradition, across diverse cultures, linguistic settings, and time periods. It can help one understand how, for instance, a transcreation of Vālmīki's The Rāmāyaṇa took place in the medieval period, through the brilliance and might of Kamban's quill. Comparative Literature can provide us with the lens required to trace the journey of the Rāmakathā tradition through the pages of Vālmīki's epic, to those of Kamban. While single literature disciplines can only concentrate their studies on the evolution of a narrative within the realms of a given linguistic tradition, Comparative Literature can transgress the boundaries of language and trace the journey of the narrative across linguistic barriers, across time and space. In doing so, one can even have an understanding of the potential markers of each period that are hence reflected in the respective pieces of literary work. Through my paper, I hope to bring to light, how an understanding of the journey of indigenous narratives like the Rāmakathā tradition, and the subsequent evolution of the narrative in each epoch, helps us grasp the defining markers of each respective time period, which had certainly had a significant impact on the weaver of the narrative himself. Through a comparative study of Vālmīki’s, The Rāmāyaṇa and Kamban’s The Irāmāvatāram, I hope to delineate the same notion. Keywords: journey, narrative, Rāmakathā tradition, linguistic barrier, culture, evolution, transcreation.