The Radheshyam Ramayan in Text and Performance

Abstract A new Ramayan for a new age. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, a brahmin poet and singer-storyteller, Pandit Radheshyam Kathavachak (1890-1963), rewrote and published the classic story of the Ramayan with stunning success. Guided by Tulsidas’s sixteenth-century Rāmcaritmānas in Avadhi, immersed in the sociopolitical climate of Gandhi’s India, and shaped by technological advancements of the early twentieth century, Kathavachak composed his religious epic, the Radheshyam Ramayan, to update the story for modern audiences and to sing and explicate it in devotional concerts (kathā). To this end, he initially composed his Ramayan in the vernacular, a mixed register of Hindi-Urdu, a decision he would come to regret. Based on extensive literary, archival, and ethnographic research, and the observation of performances, The Radheshyam Ramayan in Text and Performance takes readers on a journey through Kathavachak’s hometown of Bareilly and his cosmopolitan world of Hindi letters and performance, unravelling the mysteries of why Kathavachak heavily revised his Ramayan over many years, how two other authors assisted him in writing it, and how the work quickly made its way onto Ramlila stages all over North India. The book also considers Kathavachak’s Ramayan in contrast to that of Tulsidas, and includes vignettes of actors who have recited verses from the Radheshyam Ramayan in the annual Ramlila festival. Ultimately, this book illustrates how Kathavachak contributed to the “epic modernity” of India.