STORIES
Two trees of stories
Every story the two epics tell inside themselves, and every story told about them — from the Sanskrit texts to Tamil street theatre, the songs of Mewat, the Ramakien of Thailand and the questions people still ask online. Each is labelled by where it comes from: in the text and checked, in the text but not yet checked, a variant where tellings disagree, or popular with no older source.
THE MAHĀBHĀRATA
The Banyan
340 stories on eighteen branches and a nineteenth for what lies beyond the text. Trunk: the frame of telling. Roots: the characters.
THE RĀMĀYAṆA
The Tree
150 stories on Valmiki's seven books and an eighth for the other Ramayanas.
On one map
Journeys, weapons and places — 31 journeys, 28 weapons and 47 places from both epics, each stop marked by how sure we are of it.
Regional retellings — the bushes below the trees. Every region and language has its own Mahabharata and Ramayana, with stories the Sanskrit texts never tell. The ones found so far grow as bushes beneath each tree, grouped by tradition, beside the traditions still to research.