Dear  Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the fourth update of our material on the Oxford Research Archive, first deposited in January 2016; this update is identified as March 2020. We do so in order that it can be available for others to consult even in its present, unfinished state.  It can be accessed at the same location <http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8df9647a-8002-45ff-b37e-7effb669768b> or you can find it via the Bodleian Libraries website, under ORA, by looking for either our surname or its title, "Development and spread of the Rāma narrative (pre-modern)".

There are additions, revisions and corrections to the material throughout.  However, areas which have seen the greatest degree of updating or enlargement are:

o   further re-organisation of folders (and ordering of them by letter): introducing a new Preliminaries folder, containing the Guidance notes (updated to reflect these changes), an abstract and abbreviations, and merging Lectures and papers (unpublished) and Notes towards publications within Ancillary material into a new Publications and lectures folder,

o   inclusion within this new Publications and lectures folder of  a number of our older or less accessible published articles (in folders labelled JLB publications and MB publications), addition of a further unpublished paper by MB in the Lectures and papers (unpublished) document, and transferring into this new folder the updated list of our publications formerly placed in the Bibliographic inventory folder,

o   further revision and correction in all areas of Narrative Elements and additional material particularly in categories 7. (Instructional texts), 8. (vernacular N Indian) and 9. (vernacular S Indian)

o   additions to the data within 10. visual (India) in particular within the Bibliographic inventories,

o   inclusion in the Further Notes (visual) document of a long list of sculptural representations of the Rāma story organised by episode.

If you are aware of colleagues in other fields (for example Southeast Asian languages or visual culture) who might be interested, do please pass the information on to them – and similarly, if any of you have access to suitable academic lists on which it could be posted, we would be grateful if you would send it to them. 

As usual, we should be grateful for any comments from anyone who has used the material.

With all good wishes

John and Mary

John Brockington

Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit, University of Edinburgh
Vice President, International Association of Sanskrit Studies

Mary Brockington
Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
Research Fellow, International Association of Sanskrit Studies