The Indian Epics Retold: The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Gods Demons and Others

This book, The Indian Epics Retold: The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Gods Demons and Others, contains three of R. K. Narayan’s books in one volume. The Ramayana and The Mahabharata are an intrinsic part of the Indian minds. They form the foundation of the millennia old Hindu culture and tradition.

R. K. Narayan based his version of Ramayana on the Tamil version of Poet Kamban. Narayan’s love for Rama’s character and his admiration for Kamban’s beautiful poetry is conveyed through this work. He was proficient in the Tamil language and so could read the original version of Kamba Ramayanam in Tamil.

For The Mahabharata and Gods, Demons and Others, Narayan referred to the original Sanskrit version of Mahabharata and other puranas. As he did not know Sanskrit, he had to learn the epics and puranas from a pundit. He did this diligently and then asked the pundit to go through his English version of the stories to verify that they followed the original versions as closely as possible.

While R. K. Narayan had deep rooted beliefs in the Hindu culture and tradition, he also had the average person’s questions and conflicts over some situations in the epics.

This edition of The Indian Epics Retold: The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Gods Demons and Others was published by Penguin India in 2000 and is available in paperback.

Key Features:

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• Narayan used Kamban’s Ramayana as the base to honor the deathbed wish of an uncle who wanted him to continue his study of Kamban’s poetry.
• for the tales in Gods, Demons and Others, Narayan used various sources including Devi Bhagavatam, Siva Purana, the Tamil epic Silappathikaram and Kalidasa’s Abhigyan Shakuntalam.