300 Ramayanas, one Rama

Amidst all the outrage that Delhi University’s decision about A.K. Ramanujan’s Ramayana essay has provoked, there is one question that does not appear to have figured very much. What does Rama mean to ordinary people? Not Hindu fundamentalists, not extremists, not the vandals and philistines who don’t understand art, but just ordinary people for whom Rama is a god. People like parents and grandparents who worship Rama in temples and homes. What would the issue mean to them? And do they matter in our debates at all?

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