Readers interested in India’s sacred texts, poetic traditions, and conventions of Sanskrit poetry will find much to savor in The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: The Complete English Translation, Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman’s authoritative translation of the ancient sage Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa. As the first extant, full, literary telling of the story of Rama and Sita, one of Hindu tradition’s two preeminent epics, Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa has exerted tremendous influence in South Asia, and in parts of Southeast Asia as well. More than just a narrative of Rama and Sita’s lives, it encompasses edifying accounts of ideal behavior, a love story, philosophical debates, tales of heroic feats in war, and a depiction of a utopian society in which all live in harmony by adhering to their own prescribed behavior. This ancient story has spread across India in theatrical enactments, dance, temple art, songs, and more recently in comic books, film, television, and animation. Although abridged translations or summaries of Vālmīki’s text exist with varying degrees of brevity and selectivity, the translation under review is the only one that builds on and updates the critical edition of all seven-kāṇḍas (books).
This translation grew out of two major scholarly projects. From 1960 to 1975, a team of philologists produced The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa: Critical Edition, 7 vols. General editors, G.H. Bhatt and U. P. Shah. Baroda: Oriental Institute. Subsequently, between 1984 and 2017, a five-person team led by R. Goldman translated each kāṇḍa into English. Each volume in that seven-volume set contains three parts: essays that illuminate that kāṇḍa’s episodes, characters, and rhetorical design; the translation with its verses numbered for easy reference to the critical edition; and back matter that includes extensive annotations, glossaries, emendations, and corrections to the critical edition that reflect today’s knowledge. However, some annotations are quite technical; for example, the annotations in the final volume dwarf the space devoted to the translation. Although this set has been acquired by many college, university, and prominent metropolitan libraries, it is too long, costly, and detailed for most general readers and undergraduate students.
In contrast, the volume under review is aimed mainly at two bodies of readers. One audience comprises non-specialist readers who want to engage with the whole text in English to expand their understanding of Indian texts, epic literature, or storytelling more broadly. This translation is particularly well suited for motivated general readers who have sufficient time to dedicate to the text. For example, it would work well in a book group, adult education course, or for retired people who want to broaden their intellectual horizons by reading influential literature from various parts of the world. Then, if they want to read more on specific topics or themes of interest, they could consult relevant parts of the seven-volume set.
The editors also envision this book as aimed at “high school or collegiate students and faculty” (xi) and it would fit within the scope of a range of courses, including ones on Indian literature in translation, the Hindu tradition, and Indian civilization, or on world epics in general (an especially promising possibility, as I explain below). It might be too long for most high school students, but it could be valuable at the college level, especially if the instructor makes certain sections (especially in the long war kāṇḍa) optional. Moreover, instructors who are not scholars of India could themselves draw on the rich resources in the seven-volume set for historical, literary, and theological background, analysis of ambiguous passages, a genealogical chart of that sets out how various lineages of demons are related to each other, and even a glossary describing how ancient weapons worked.
Although the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa attributed to Vālmīki remains the most prestigious telling of the narrative, retellings and adaptations of the story of Rama and Sita have flourished in many Indian languages over the centuries: first orally, later in manuscript, and much later in print. Since the Sanskrit text is the oldest extant telling, it has a pan-Indian circulation, and those who know it well come mainly from the societal elite who know Sanskrit. Given the low levels of literacy in the past, many learned the epic by hearing its episodes recited in their local language, attending theatrical enactments, listening to women’s songs, or seeing its incidents in temple carvings. Thus, readers may also want to read the most widely known retelling of the text in India: the sixteenth century Rāmcaritmānas by Tulsidas in Awadhi, translated by Philip Lutgendorf and recently published (The Epic of Ram, vols. 1-7. Harvard University Press, 2016-2022). Some readers will enjoy reading the treatment of certain episodes by Tulsidas in comparison with those of Vālmīki. Translations of retellings in other languages are also in process and will soon be available.
The benefits of the translation under review are many compared to the abridged translations available. Reading the entire epic—rather than a condensed one, a few excerpts, or a synopsis—enables one to enter its narrative world and to experience the many ways in which the epic expresses ideals of manhood, womanhood, and efficacious spiritual paths, or contrasts settled and forest life. On the one hand, readers unfamiliar with the Rāmāyaṇa will experience through this complete translation a doubly new world: an ancient world and one about which they know very little. On the other hand, those already familiar with the narrative (virtually all Hindus become during childhood when they hear some episodes from an elderly relative, read a comic book treatment, or watch the televised serial) will see the episodes differently when set in the context of the epic’s overall arc. Further, some Hindus who learned popular episodes orally often find to their surprise that those episodes do not appear in Vālmīki’s text and became incorporated into the epic only many centuries later.
Thus, this translation would fit well into a course on world epics, a relatively new entrant in the curriculum of higher education. Such a course would broaden the study of comparative literature, by moving away from an exclusive focus on surveys of English literature toward thematic surveys of genres in various languages across the globe. Readers who encounter the translation under review in a world epics course will move beyond the reductionistic—yet still repeated—claim that the Rāmyaṇa and Mahābhārata are the Indian Odyssey and Iliad. Instead, reading either of these two Indian epics along with, for example, the Sumerian Gilgamesh, the Persian/Iranian Shahnameh, and the Italian Orlando Furioso, provides a refreshing sense of epic literature’s breadth, rather than privileging only the classical Greek epics.
Paula Richman is William Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions, Emerita at Oberlin College.
Paula Richman
Date Of Review:
February 26, 2023
