The Adventures of Rama: With Illustrations from a Sixteenth-Century Mughal Manuscript

by Milo Cleveland Beach

Classic Indian folk tale brought to life with an exciting new story and wonderful illustrations

62 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1983

Reviews

[Anand Ganapathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 for the text . 4 for the rich illustrations

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

MIlo Cleveland Beach is the former Director of the Sackler & Freer Galleries, as part of the Smithsonian Museums. He writes on Indian and Mughal painting and has prepared many exhibits for the museums. This book includes incidents derived from the Ramayana, an oral tale told for centuries. The illustrations are from gorgeous painted texts by the Mughal ateliers who translated the stories into Persian. Twenty four of the original 130 are included in this book. These tales from India have Rama as the main character. He tries to rescue kidnapped Sita aided by Hanuman, leader of an army of monkeys. To see the illustrations enlarged as part of the text and then detailed in sequence at the end of the book is breathtaking. This lushly illustrated book is written for readers, ages 10+. Reading this book is a beautiful way to learn about Indian culture from its historical folk tale past! Highly recommended!

[Morgan Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ramayana is a beautiful epic about love, friendship, duty, and the struggle of good versus evil. It is also very, very long. Like any good childrens adaptations, this one hits all the high notes of the original epic while sparring us the tedium of spiritual enlightenment and godly intervention(ha!) and has some gorgeous Indian art work included.

Admittedly, the art is more for the adults than anything else. While it's been quite a few years since childrens books were my primary reading, that Rama looks ever so slightly different in every drawing - light skinned and dark skinned and green skinned depending on the picture - would have likely thrown me for a loop. Also, while I can appreciate a drawing of monkey king biting a demons nose off *now,* it might have freaked me out a wee little bit as a Tiny Maria.

[Zezee · Rating 2 out of 5]

...a children’s picture book that retells a condensed version of the Ramayana...The retelling hits all the major points in the story and are depicted by illustrations from a 16th-century Mughal manuscript.

See review over on Zezee with Books.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vibrant illustrations go with this Hindu tale. My introduction to this story came from an animated retelling with fabulous narration and music. Stream it online; just search for the title, Sita sings the blues by Nina Paley.