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The Ramayana as Told by Aubrey Menen book cover
The Ramayana as Told by Aubrey Menen
1954
First Published
3.50
Average Rating
276
Number of Pages

A retelling of the Ramayana, a wondrous tale of cosmic adventure from India, immerses us in a world of heroes and gods and demons. Like another famous Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, it is both a teaching saga and an entertaining story of the eternal struggle between good and evil. Created over 2,000 years ago by the poet/sage Valmiki, the Ramayana has been recited over the centuries to hundreds of millions of listeners.

Avg Rating
3.50
Number of Ratings
115
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
32%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
5%
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Authors

Aubrey Menen
Aubrey Menen
Author · 4 books
Salvator Aubrey Clarence Menen was born in 1912 in London, of Irish and Indian parents. After attending University College, London he worked as a drama critic and a stage director. When World War II broke out, he was in India, where he organized pro-Allied radio broadcasts and edited film scripts for the Indian government. After the war ended, he returned to London to work with an advertising agency's film department, but the success of his first novel, The Prevalence of Witches (1947), induced him to take up writing full-time. Aubrey Menen’s writings, often satirical, explore the nature of nationalism and the cultural contrast between his own Irish–Indian ancestry and his traditional British upbringing. Apart from his novels and non-fiction works Menen wrote two autobiographies titled Dead Man in the Silver Market (1953) and The Space within the Heart (1970). He died in 1989 in Thiruvananthapuram.
Valmiki
Valmiki
Author · 15 books

Valmiki is celebrated as the poet harbinger in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself.He is revered as the Adi Kavi, which means First Poet, for he discovered the first śloka i.e. first verse, which set the base and defined the form to Sanskrit poetry. The Yoga Vasistha is attributed to him. A religious movement called Valmikism is based on Valmiki's teachings as presented in the Ramayana and the Yoga Vasistha. At least by the 1st century AD, Valmiki's reputation as the father of Sanskrit classical poetry seems to have been legendary. Ashvagosha writes in the Buddhacarita, "The voice of Valmiki uttered poetry which the great seer Chyavana could not compose." This particular verse has been speculated to indicate a familial relationship between Valmiki and Chyavana, as implied by the previous and subsequent verses.

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