Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Prehistory of Ram Katha Region/J.N. Pal. 2. The Ramayana Tradition in the Gupta period: some reflections on the Antiquity of the Epic/Ashvini Agrawal. 3. A study of Boats in Ramayana Tradition/Alok Tripathi. 4. Some early Terracottas of Hanuman/D.C. Handa. 5. Image of Rama: from human to Divine/S.P. Shukla. 6. The Ramayana Tradition in Modern India/S.R. Mehrotra. 7. Recent trends in the Historiography of Ramayana studies/Dinesh Saklani and Anita Badoni. 8. Ramayana Tradition as a Historical source material/J.C. Dua. 9. Rama Tradation with special reference to Uttaranchal/M.C. Joshi. 10. Rama in the folk performances of Garhwal Himalaya/D.R. Purohit. 11. Ramayana Tradition in the wall paintings of the Doon/B.P. Kamboj. 12. Ramayana Tradition  in the Temples of Western Himalaya/O.C. Handa. 13. Sibling rivalry in the Phra Lak Phra Lam: a Laotian version of Ramayana/Bachhan Kumar. 14. The Ramayana in the Thai Tradition/C.M. Agrawal. 15. The Rama Katha: contact and adjustment in Southeast Asia/Pranvanand Jash. 16. The Rama story versions in the Maranao language of the Mindanao Island of Southern Philippines, in the context of early Indo-Philippine contact/Ratna Lahri. 17. Lesser known women in Ramayana/Sanghmitra. Index. (6 articles are in Hindi).

"The present volume is an edited volume of papers presented at the National Seminar on Ramayana Tradition in Historical Perspective organized by History & Archaeology department of H.N.B. Garhwal University on November 4-5, 2003.

The volume comprises interesting and scholarly papers on different themes of the Ramayana Tradition including history, literature and art. This is an attempt by scholars to explore further the possibility of studying a historically popular tradition in order to bring into light some new researches related to the Tradition." (jacket)