A reading of selections from Tulsidas's rendering of the many deeds of Ram

These selections from Tulsidas's rendering of the many deeds of Ram will arrest the trend of defining him as a unidimensional character

Reading Pavan K Varma’s selections from Tulsidas’s  Ramcharitmanas along with his commentary will almost inevitably remind you of what A K Ramanujan had expounded in his famous book-length essay — “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation”. Providing a masterly sweep of how the story of Ram was treated differently in different parts of India and Southeast Asia, Ramanujan had questioned the definitive portrayal of Ram only as a god.

But his thesis that there are many versions of Ram and the Ramayana became so controversial that the University of Delhi eventually succumbed to pressure from bigoted