I just finished reading Ashok Banker's Prince of Ayodhya, and it was absolutely awesome. As some american dude mentioned in a letter to him here, J.R.R. Tolkein's work is childs play compared to this.
An unfair comparison since the Ramayana is a story that was in existence before, and Ashok is retelling it in a contemporary way, whereas Lord of the Rings was an original piece of work. However, having read the first piece of his work, I have to read the rest.
Perhaps in some strange, late attempt for me to connect with my hindu roots, (albeit in a pop way), I also bought the Mahabharata TV series when I was in India. The Mahabharata was badly produced then, and it looks terrible now, but I'm skimming past the quality of the production to absorb the story in a quick way (as I said - this is 21st century pop hinduism at its worst).
I can only hope Ashok Banker writes the Mahabharata soon....
I still have a question for Ashok and all other well versed folks. If we say and write राम and not रामा in Hindi, then why is it Rama everywhere? Same question for all the hindi other words that have an "a" at the end when written in English?
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I was thinking of the 'Ram' Vs 'Rama' logic and here is what I found .. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hindi.htm
The alphabet 'M' in hindi is written as 'Ma' in English ...guess that answers it!
Hi Hawkeye,
A mutual friend directed me here.
Sanskrit was an oral language, and a rhythmically spoken one as well. In fact, it is universally accepted as the first form of poetry as well, and the four-count Vedic beat (corresponding to the human heartbeat) may also be regarded as the basic of our musical system. The 'a' at the end of most words was to facilitate recitation (since all learning was by rote recitation) and to aid in a pleasing musical narration, as well as make it easier to combine words together in a run-on fashion. Therefore, Ram was expanded to 'Ram-a', 'Ashok' to 'Ashok-a' and so on. However, when saying only the single word, there was no need to add the 'a' at the end as one was not joining it to another word. Therefore even in Sanskrit, in the rare event that one was only saying that word, one could say simply 'Ram' or 'Ashok', etc.
However, roughly about 1,000 years ago (perhaps earlier or later, it's debatable) when Sanskrit gave way almost completely to Pali, Prakrit and other local languages, most words of Sanskrit origin were adapted to written forms and words and phrases were simplified rather than being the complex run-on constructions of Sanskrit grammar. This new form of splitting up words was called 'padapad' from which we may get the modern 'fatafat'.
In this modern form, we simply say 'Ashok' or 'Ram' or 'Mahabharat' and leave the final 'a' silent. However, if we are referring to a Sanskrit context (as I am in my Ramayana Series) then it's perfectly acceptable to use the 'a' at the end. When spoken as well, either is acceptable, but modern usage favours leaving the final 'a' silent.
Hope that helps! All the best, and glad you're enjoying the books. :~)
Ashok
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