200 scholars and how RAMAYANA changed for the world forever in a 1998 conference

When over 200 scholars from across the globe converged at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in April 1998 for the International Ramayana Conference, few anticipated how this three-day academic gathering would fundamentally reshape modern understanding of one of the world's oldest epics.

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The conference, organized by the International Ramayana Institute in collaboration with SOAS, aimed to do something unprecedented: bring together Eastern and Western scholarly perspectives on the ancient Sanskrit text in a sustained, structured dialogue.

"What made the 1998 conference revolutionary was its rejection of the colonial framework that had dominated Ramayana studies for centuries," explains Dr. Mandakini Sharma, who as a young doctoral student attended the conference and now serves as Professor of South Asian Literature at Columbia University. "It was the first major international platform where indigenous interpretations were given equal scholarly weight to Western academic approaches."

The conference featured 72 presentations across eight thematic panels, ranging from textual analysis to performance traditions. But it was the heated exchanges during the "Interpretative Methodologies" panel that would prove most consequential for the field.

Professor Robert Williams of Oxford University caused a stir when presenting his paper "Deconstructing Divinity: Rama as Political Construct," arguing that the deification of Rama represented a later interpolation designed to legitimize certain power structures.

His presentation was immediately challenged by Professor Rajagopalan Krishnan from Delhi University, who countered, "The Western tendency to secularize sacred texts and strip them of their spiritual dimensions fundamentally misunderstands their essence." The subsequent debate stretched well beyond the allotted time, with audience members joining the increasingly passionate exchange.

"It wasn't just academic disagreement," recalls Dr. Ellen Thompson, conference coordinator. "It was a watershed moment when Western scholars began seriously questioning their own methodological assumptions about how to approach non-Western texts."

The conference also marked the first major international academic event to extensively discuss the hundreds of regional variations of the Ramayana across South and Southeast Asia.

Professor Suparna Das presented findings from her groundbreaking five-year field study documenting 217 distinct versions of the epic. "Each telling reflects the unique cultural context in which it evolved," she noted in her keynote address. "The Ramayana is not a single text but a living, breathing tradition that has been continuously reinterpreted across time and space."

The conference produced a seminal 580-page volume of proceedings titled "Ramayana Across Borders: Text, Context and Performance," which has since become a foundational text in Ramayana studies, cited in over 1,200 academic papers.

Perhaps most significantly, the conference sparked a renaissance in Ramayana scholarship. In the five years following the event, research publications on the Ramayana increased by 73%, according to citation database figures.

The conference's impact extended beyond academia. It coincided with the height of the controversial television adaptation of the epic, which had drawn unprecedented viewership across India. Several conference panels addressed the series' cultural impact, with papers analyzing how visual representation was reshaping popular understanding of the text.

"Before the 1998 conference, Ramayana scholarship was largely siloed," notes Professor James Chen of Harvard University. "Western scholars focused on philological aspects, while Eastern approaches often emphasized theological dimensions. The conference created a new paradigm of integrated study that has defined the field ever since."

The conference wasn't without controversy. Some traditionalists criticized it for subjecting sacred text to secular analysis, while some postcolonial scholars argued it didn't go far enough in decentering Western perspectives.

"What's remarkable about the 1998 conference is that we're still unpacking its implications," says Dr. Sharma. "It forced a reckoning with questions about who has the authority to interpret cultural texts and how different interpretative frameworks can coexist."

Today, the conference is widely recognized as having inaugurated the modern era of Ramayana studies—one characterized by methodological diversity, cross-cultural dialogue, and a more nuanced understanding of how this ancient epic continues to shape contemporary identities across multiple societies.

As the Ramayana Institute prepares for its 26th anniversary conference next year, scholars agree that the intellectual foundations laid in 1998 continue to guide how we approach not just the Ramayana, but the study of all ancient texts in our increasingly interconnected world.