1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996247942903316

Autore

Lutgendorf Philip

Titolo

The life of a text : performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas / / Philip Lutgendorf

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [1991]

©1991

ISBN

1-282-35553-8

0-520-90934-8

9786612355530

0-585-13107-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (486 p.)

Disciplina

891/.4312

Soggetti

Criticism, Textual

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 449-460) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustration -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration -- 1. The Text and the Research Context -- 2. The Text in Recitation and Song -- 3. The Text Expounded: The Development of Mānas-Kathā -- 4. The Art of Mānas-Kathā -- 5. Words Made Flesh: The Text Enacted -- 6. The Text in a Changing Society -- Glossary of Names with Transliteration -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The Life of a Text offers a vivid portrait of one community's interaction with its favorite text-the epic Ramcaritmanas-and the way in which performances of the epic function as a flexible and evolving medium for cultural expression. Anthropologists, historians of religion, and readers interested in the culture of North India and the performance arts will find breadth of subject, careful scholarship, and engaging presentation in this unique and beautifully illustrated examination of Hindi culture. The most popular and influential text of Hindi-speaking North India, the epic Ramcaritmanas is a sixteenth century retelling of the Ramayana story by the poet Tulsidas. This masterpiece of pre-modern Hindi literature has always reached its largely illiterate audiences primarily through oral performance including ceremonial



recitation, folksinging, oral exegesis, and theatrical representation. Drawing on fieldwork in Banaras, Lutgendorf breaks new ground by capturing the range of performance techniques in vivid detail and tracing the impact of the epic in its contemporary cultural context.