Reading Notes: Ramayana, The Divine Archer

Even just the opening is very different. I love the feel of the details of the celebration of the births. It also gave an age for all of them, the fact all 4 sons were born in the same week. Narayan's Ramayana didn't give those details. It's interesting to see even the differences in names. It's slight, but there, for example Bharat. Or some that are just spelled differently.

Rama and Sita's meeting in this was even more cute. Starting with the fact he said, before he even saw her, that he knew he would love her. Then they saw it each other, and it was true. This version definitely had a lot more imagery.

It almost seems to have omitted the mini-stories that gave a background to some trials they go through. It's a much more simplified version.

It makes me curious as to how they decide what to keep, and what to omit. I did like Narayan's version where it explained more in detail what lead to Sita's kidnapping. How Ravan was enamored with her, and din't want to face Rama. This version says he wanted to see who the better archer was, but then snuck around him to capture Sita.

What a weird random entrance for Jatayu. I think as I went through this I definitely preferred the other version. While it felt more difficult to read, to keep the other stories straight, I feel like it definitely helped give a greater understanding to the plot.

(Image from Flickr)

Gould, F. (2019). The divine archer, founded on the Indian epic of the Ramayana, with two stories from the Mahabharata, by F. J. Gould.. [online] HathiTrust. Available at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t0wp9vr87&view=2up&seq [Accessed 18 Sep. 2019].