#hypthenated atheist

[nyxelestia]

Do you know where I could find some accessible and not overly ..bowlderdized? Colonialized?? Basically without the "they were just close friends"-ing that they do to most of the acessable summaries of other cultures? Or anything a layman could read about the ramayana that won't leave them with a horrifically racist aftertaste?

There are a lot of versions of the myth, so I can't promise any particular version, especially as translated into English, isn't "altered for the audience" so to speak. Overall, I think it's more helpful to look for summaries that are most accessible to you with awareness of their biases, than try to look for something free of biases.

I got a lot of my initial introduction to Hindu mythologies through Amar Chitra comics - a very popular comics producer in India focused on Indian history and Hindu mythology. That said, the comics are largely aimed at children, and the company/comics line is a bit on the nationalistic side. They have a U.S. distributor, and of course 🏴‍☠️ knows no borders.

There's also the 1992 anime Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, available for free on YouTube. It's also aimed at kids, but does a good job of covering all the major beats of the story. If you go in with the awareness that this was a somewhat politicized project (it was co-produced between Japan and India, and at a time of political controversy related to Rama in India), then it's also a pretty good introduction to the myth.

(Edit: rewatched the movie for the first time in like 25 years and I underestimated how much I forgot. 😅😓 I should clarify that it's good for the action "plot" of the myth, but the surrounding story and context, not so much. So it's a good intro to the overall beats of the legend and important symbols, imagery, etc., but the underlying philosophy, not so much. I'd compare it to how Disney movie can provide a decent intro to the imagery and main characters and plot beats of a story like Cinderella or Hercules, but the details and context are flattened or removed to make it palatable to child and international audiences.)