Ramayana Stories in Modern South India: An Anthology

Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pronunciation

Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pronunciation Because this anthology is designed to make modern South Indian retellings of the story of Rama and Sita accessible to English readers both in India and the United States, we have tried to translate Indian terms whenever possible, but have not done so when the Indian term is so dense with meaning that to translate it would be to drain it of complexity. Thus, we have kept, and italicized at first use, terms such as dharma, tapas, and shastra. Each such term also appears in the glossary. Since this anthology is aimed at a broad readership, we have eschewed diacritical marks whenever possible and employed the familiar Anglicized spellings of Indian names of characters, places, and concepts in order to avoid littering the reader’s page with terms in italics and markings that exoticize the translation. Instead, our method facilitates the process by which non-native readers come into contact with Indian terms regularly and, as a result, incorporate them into their intellectual framework and gain a sense of their meanings in multiple contexts. People in South India deal with such Anglicized spellings all the time without resorting to scholarly transliteration virtually unintelligible to most people.We have, however, been consistent in our use of Anglicized spellings. Hence we use Sita, not Seetha, and Kamban, rather than Kampan. For book titles, we have used instead the transliteration into English that appears on the back of the title pages of books published in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam, whenever possible. In addition to authors who wrote under their own names, two other kinds of author’s usage appear in this volume. If an author chose a nom de plume, we use it in the table of contents and throughout the anthology, but provide the author’s given name in the headnotes preceding the translation of the author’s literary work. In contrast, if an author’s name has been abbreviated to initials, as is common in South India, we have instead used the full name (e.g., K. V. Puttappa instead of Ku. Vem. Pu. or “Kuvempu”), but indicated the commonly used abbreviation in the headnotes preceding the translation. For practical reasons, most of the headnotes to individual selections were written by the anthology’s editor. In a few cases, the translator also wrote the headnotes; there the initials of the translator appear in brackets at the end of the headnotes (e.g., L. H. for Lakshmi Holmstrom). Approximate Pronunciations of Names of Ramayana Characters Note: a double vowel indicates the vowel is long, except for “oo” which is used to indicate a long “u” as in English “balloon.” royal family in ayodhya Kausalya Cow-SUL-ya (sul as in sulk) Rama RAA-ma RAA as in hurrah Kaikeyi Kuy-KAY-yee (kuy rhymes with guy) Bharata BA-ra-ta (Ba as in bargain) Sumitra Sue-MEE-traa Lakshmana LUCKSH-ma-na Shatrughna Sha-TRUE-gna (gna as g’night) Dasharatha Dush-a-RUT-ha (dush rhymes with rush, rut rhymes with mutt) Shanta SHAN-taa Rishyashringa RISH-yash-rin-ga (rish rhymes with swish) royal family in janakapura Sita SEE-taa Urmila OAR-mill-aa Janaka JUN-a-ka (Jun rhymes with sun) rakshasas and ogres Shurpanakha SURE-pun-a-khaa Ravana RAA-va-na (Raa as in hurrah) Indrajit IN-dra-jeet (jeet rhymes with beet) Mandodari MUN-doe-da-ree (mun rhymes with sun) Vibhishana Vi-BEE-sha-na (vi as in visit) Maricha Ma-REE-cha Tadaka TA-da-ka (Ta as in tug) allies of rama Hanuman Hun-oo-MUN (Hun and mun rhyme with sun) Sugriva Soo-GRIEVE-a Vali VAA-lee Angada ANG-a-da Jambuvan JUM-bu-vun (Jum as in jump, vun rhymes with sun) Jatayu Ja-TA-you xxii Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pronunciation sages and ashram-dwellers Vasishtha Va-SEESH-the (seesh as in seashell) Vishvamitra Vish-VAH-mee-tra Valmiki Vul-MEE-key (vul as in vulture) Lava LOVE-a Kusha COO-sha (coo as in coupe) previously marginalized characters Ahalya a-HULL-yah Gautama GOW-ta-ma (gow rhymes with cow) Sadananda Sud-AA-nan-da (sud as in suddenly) Shambuka Sham-BOO-ka (sham rhymes with some) Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Pronunciation xxiii Ramayana Stories in Modern South India Figure 1. Boy in Chennai dressed...