ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the historical transmission and proliferation of the epic tale of Rama, Sita, and their companions—the Rāmāyaṇa—which has come to enjoy wide dissemination and often sacred status throughout much of South and Southeast Asia and constitutes one of the world’s most enduringly popular narratives. Its continuous retelling during more than two millennia through hundreds of texts and numerous performance genres exemplifies two distinct kinds of ‘translation’ in a religious context: the artful and often highly original recreation of a revered story, and also (more recently, and through the intervention of modern academic scholarship) the close linguistic transfer of a group of reified sacred texts.
