AK Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Rāmāyaṇas’, followed by the Paula Richman edited volume Many Rāmāyaṇas, introduced a new approach in Rāmāyaṇa Studies. In-depth analysis of the Sanskrit epic attributed to Vālmīki was supplemented by studying the multiple versions of the story of Rāma (Rāmakathā) in various languages and mediums, among various regional and religious communities. A wider tradition was appreciated rather than privileging just one text read by a few. Many Mahābhāratas, with a Preface by Paula Richman, approaches the Mahābhārata similarly.
Like the Rāmāyaṇa,the Mahābhārata is widely popular and has inspired literary and performative retellings in multiple languages, formats, and religious traditions. People of South Asia (and beyond) are acquainted with the story and characters even without reading the Sanskrit Mahābhārata attributed to Vyāsa. Also, both the texts have a similar history, possibly originating from bardic oral traditions which, after centuries of revisions, interpolations, Brahmanization, and Vaiṣṇavization, received their familiar written forms by the early centuries CE. Both became crucial to nascent Vaiṣṇava, and subsequent Hindu, religiosity, as their major protagonists, Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, were considered incarnations of Viṣṇu.