"Ramayan Gaan" or Singing the Ramayan in West Bengal, Assam, and Bangladesh

Abstract

The Indian epic, the Ramayan, has been kept alive in the popular imagination in India, through various textual, oral, visual, and performance forms. While Ramlila is the most popular live performance form to enact the Ramayan in the Hindi-speaking regions of North India, Ramayan Gaan is the form that prevails in the Bengali-speaking regions of West Bengal and Assam in India, and in Bangladesh where the event is also called "Kushan Gaan" or "Kush's Song." While Ramlila is based chiefly on Tulsidas's Rāmcaritmānas, Ramayan Gaan is indebted to Krittibas Ojha's slightly earlier Ramayan. This essay discusses salient features of Ramayan Gaan with occasional reference to Ramlila, illustrating some of their shared narrative and ideological elements as well as some of their critical disjunctures. It underscores the fact that in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, Ramayan Gaan is enthusiastically performed and appreciated by Hindus and Muslims alike. This essay also charts the transitional zone, ontologically and geographically, where Ramlila meets Durga Puja in the eastern regions. Significantly, in Ramayan Gaan, Ram invokes Mahashakti (Durga) before his battle with the ten-headed Ravan, and Sita, in the form of Bhadra Kali, defeats the thousandheaded Ravan. Together, these narrative elements help explain the conjunction of Ramayan Gaan and Durga Puja in the Bengali-speaking regions.