Vol. 12 No. 2 (2004)

I recently realized that our prior issue on Råma goes back almost ten years—it was our Fall 1994 issue (Volume 2, Number 4). And so it is high time, I thought, to point our arrow-like attention toward the
famous green-skinned archer yet again. But in this issue we will target the implications of the Råma story more than Råma himself, and we shoot for an understanding of his colorful friends and associates as opposed to that of the divine son of DaΩaratha. It is not that we neglect the basic tale of
Råma. But here you will find that Hanumån, in particular, is highlighted—no less than four of our eleven papers take a deep look at his character and place in India’s religious thought—and Sita, too, is center stage in several of our papers.
Just as I was feeling the need for a new issue on Råma-kathå, I became aware of a Råmåya∫a conference sponsored by the Infinity Foundation and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, a conference supported by the International Ramayana Institute of North America and held on September 21-23, 2001 at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. The program was made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the Illinois General Assembly and, again, the Infinity Foundation.
I quickly contacted Newal K. Agnihotri, a central player in this conference, who, after a brief discussion, agreed to share the conference papers for this volume. Unfortunately, most of the presentations were extemporaneous, and others were committed to other publications. In the end, I only used two of these papers—the ones by Michael Sternfeld and Phyllis Herman, included here—and the others in this issue were secured by our usual “call for papers.”