Help Find Puranas in Translation

[Robin Kornman]

Tom Coburn assures us that the Dimmit and van Buitenen text on the Puranas
is in print. Was my bookseller just making a mistake or is it indeed
out-of-print?

But to more serious things. Here is his most interesting proposition:

>  The problem is any Purana is eclectic and takes editing to
>be accessible, esp. to undergrads.  Here's an alternative tack.  Per-
>suade your colleagues that fixation on a classical text is an in-
>appropriate hermeneutic for India (there's some good bibligraphy on
>this) and that contemporary retellings are, in fact, part of what the
>tradition is.  The extreme case of this would be to use comic books
>(including one of the Gita!)to teach the tradition, but there are a
>number of less provocative alternatives.  Happy debating!
>Tom Coburn, St. Lawrence University

Many of us in comparative literature are interested in the propogation of
epic literature into popular media.  I have discussed this with colleagues
in anthropology and comp lit over the years and research in this area goes
forward.  I would be more than happy to have my classes read comic books
which use material drawn from the Mahaabhaarata, etc. but how I can purchase
them?  Where does my university bookstore write to get them and where can I
get catalogues of them?  I saw these comics when I was in India and have
often heard of the Indonesian ones which continue the Ramaayaana, but how
can I get aholt of enough copies to teach a class?

And there is a nice book on contemporary treatments of the Ramayana:
Richman, Paul  (ed.), Many Ramaayaanas: The Diversity of a Narrative
Tradition in South Asia, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).  

Robin Kornman