Rivers in Tulsidas's Sri Ramcharitmanas and Ramanujan's A River: A Comparative Ecocritical Study

This paper examines ecological consciousness through comparative study in Tulsidas’s Sri Ramcharitmanas, and A K Ramanujan’s A River. The description of rivers in 16th century epic Sri Ramcharitmanas, and the river in 20th century poem A River is explored through ecocritical study that focuses on representation of nature, environmental degradation, and human interactions with ecological systems in literary text. The research aims to show how water bodies are portrayed in ancient time, and in Anthropocene. While Tulsidas presents natural rivers; Ganga, and Mandakini as an active, and conscious participants in the Ayodhya Kand of the grand bhakti epic, A K Ramanujan presents the river Vaigai in Madurai, with seasonal draughts, flood, and anthropocentric apathy. Though both the texts follow entirely different historical, ideological, and linguistic divergence, but both texts share ecocritical recognition. The rivers being non-human beings are treated by the poets as co-existing entities, and they are portrayed as they hold strength to humble the human hubris.