Studies in the Epics and Puranas c7.s2.13

c7.s2.13

Interpolations, alterations, etc. account for the different versions of the Rām, which has come down to us in three recensions, (i) northern and southern, (ii) north-western, and (iii) eastern, which differ very widely among themselves to the extent that about a third of the verses contained in each do not occur in the other two. It is thus very difficult to speak of the original text of the Rām. These variations are no doubt due to the divergent forms the popular tradition had assumed in different regions of India by the time the three recensions came to be written down. The Vishveshwarananda Vedic Research Institute of Hoshiarpur has brought out the critical edition of the North-Western recension, and the M. S. University of Baroda has undertaken the preparation of the critical edition of the Rāmāyaṇa on the lines of the critical edition of the Mahābhārata. Gorrossio had brought out the Eastern or Bengal recension, but from the Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Asiatic Society of Bengal it appears that there were several versions of the Bengal recension.⁵⁵