The Konkaṇi Rāmāyaṇa

Konkaṇi Rāmāyaṇa as found in the codices 771 and 772 in the Arquivo Distrital de Braga, Portugal, two of the three manuscripts that have now become popular as the Braga Codices. Though known for the last 65 years and widely referred to, still not much study has been done of the texts, except for A K Priolkar’s work on ‘Shri Krishna Charitra Katha’ from codex 773 and Rocky Miranda’s on ‘Adiparva’ from codex 772. [Miranda, 2011 : The Old Konkani Bharata, Vol 1 : Introduction] That is understandable; pages of the codices are un-numbered, many are missing or illegible and those existing often not in order, not only within a codex, but even between the codices – one has to search the page of one codex in another codex; and the handwriting is difficult to read. The information given here and this excerpt are based on the meticulous work done by Lordino Rodrigues in the late eighties. [Rodrigues, 1988 : Ramayannantlem Konknni Parva, Konkan Times, Divalli Ank, 1988] Though the text has been traditionally ascribed to some writer or the other, there is no irrefutable internal evidence to that effect. The codices 771 and 772 contain three sets of Rāmāyaṇa texts : codex 771 contains 1 parva describing the fight between Bharata and Mulakasur; the codex 772 contains 14 parvas and separately the story of Rāma’s divine origin in 6 chapters. The excerpt below is from the chapter 5 of the last set.