Vortrag: "Pothi (Script) of the Ramlila at Ramnagar: Recitation and Performance" Dr. Dharmendra Yadav (20.6.)

Dr. Dharmendra Yadav (Varanasi)
Baden-Württemberg Fellow at the SAI, Heidelberg

Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh started the Ramlila in Ramnagar in the early decades of the 19th century. Its script or the book of dialogues (pothi) was finalized during the time of his son Ishwari Narayan Singh in 1840.

It is mostly based on the Ramcharitmanas of Gosvami Tulsidas. However, numerous quatrains, couplets and rhymes are inserted in it from other texts. Verses have been included from Kavitavali and Gitavali of Gosvami Tulsidas; Ramsudha, Devaramayan, Devaratna by Kashtha Jihva Swami; Manasapiyush by Anjani Saran; Manash Paricharcha by Hari Prasad; and Ram Swayamvar by Raghuraj Singh. It was on the insistence of Kashtha Jihva Swami that the dialogues were composed in Awadhi.

This lecture will introduce the pothi or the script of the Ramlila of Ramnagar with live demonstrations of the style and techniques of dialogue and text recitation.