Krittivasi Ramayan

Kṛttivāsī Rāmāyaṇ,[a]; also called Śrīrām Pãcālī,[b] composed by the fifteenth-century Bengali poet Krittibas Ojha,[1] from whom it takes its name, is a rendition of the Rāmāyaṇa into Bengali. Written in the traditional Rāmāyaṇa Pā̃cālī form of Middle Bengali literature, the Kṛttivāsī Rāmāyaṇ is not just a rewording of the original Indian epic, but also a vivid reflection of the society and culture of Bengal across the period of its circulation, from the Middle Ages into the modern period.[2] It was characterised by Dinesh Chandra Sen in 1911 as 'by far the most popular book in Bengal' and 'the Bible of the people of the Gangetic Valley'.[3]


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  1. ^ Sukumar Sen, History of Bengali Literature (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1960), pp. 67–69.
  2. ^ Tapati Mukherjee, 'From Vālmikī to KRttivāsa; A Journey from Elitist to Popular Literature', in Critical Perspectives on the Rāmāyaṇa, ed. by Jaydipsinh Dodiya (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2001), pp. 45-51; ISBN 9788176252447.
  3. ^ Dinesh Chandra Sen, The History of the Bengali Language and Literature: A Series of Lectures Delivered as Reader to the Calcutta (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1911), p. 170.