Velcheru Narayana Rao's contribution to understanding Indian cultural history, literary production, and intellectual life-specifically from the vantage of the Andhra region-has few parallels. He is one of the very rare scholars to be able to reflect magisterially on the precolonial and colonial periods. He moves easily between Sanskrit and the vernacular traditions, and between the worlds of orality and script. This is because of his mastery of the "classical" Telugu tradition. As Sanjay Subrahmanyam puts it in his Introduction, "To command nearly a thousand years of a literary tradition is no small feat, but more important still is VNR's ability constantly to offer fresh readings and provocative frameworks for interpretation."The essays and reflections in Text and Tradition in South India bring together the diverse and foundational contributions made by Narayana Rao to the rewriting of India's cultural and literary history. The book is for anyone interested in the history of Indian ideas, the social and cultural history of South India, and the massive intellectual traditions of the subcontinent.

Sources of Publication Preface and Acknowledgments Sanjay Subrahmanyam: VNR-Some Introductory Remarks 1. Multiple Literary Cultures in Telugu: Court, Temple,and Public 2. Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India 3. Puräa as Brahminic Ideology 4. Coconut and Honey: Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhra 5. Multiple Lives of a Text: The Sumati Satakamu in Colonial Andhra 6. When Does Sita Cease to be Sīa: Notes Toward a Cultural Grammar of Indian Narratives 7. A Ramāäa of Their Own: Women's Oral Tradition in Telugu 8. The Politics of Telugu Ramayanas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements 9. Epics and Ideologies: Six Telugu Folk Epics 10. Texture and Authority: Telugu Riddles and Enigmas 11. Buddhism in Modern Andhra: Literary Representations from Telugu 12. The Indigenous Modernity of Gurajada Apparao and Fakir Mohan Senapati 13. Puräa 14. A Day in the Life of a Housewife: "Sita Locked Out" 15. Urmila Sleeps: A Ramayana Song that Women in Andhra Sing