This book, The Indian Epics Retold: The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Gods Demons and Others, contains three of R. K. Narayan's books in one volume. The Ramayana and The Mahabharata are an intrinsic part of the Indian minds. They form the foundation of the millennia old Hindu culture and tradition.
R. K. Narayan based his version of Ramayana on the Tamil version of Poet Kamban. Narayan's love for Rama's character and his admiration for Kamban's beautiful poetry is conveyed through this work. He was proficient in the Tamil language and so could read the original version of Kamba Ramayanam in Tamil.
For The Mahabharata and Gods, Demons and Others, Narayan referred to the original Sanskrit version of Mahabharata and other puranas. As he did not know Sanskrit, he had to learn the epics and puranas from a pundit. He did this diligently and then asked the pundit to go through his English version of the stories to verify that they followed the original versions as closely as possible.
While R. K. Narayan had deep rooted beliefs in the Hindu culture and tradition, he also had the average person's questions and conflicts over some situations in the epics.
