Veerappa Moily's Tamil epic released

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Carefully avoiding any mention of the controversial Ram Sethu at a function centered on the epic Ramayana, Union corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily on Monday said India must move from innovations to making breakthroughs for it to occupy a rightful place in the world arena.

The Union government was functioning with this motto, said Mr Moily, delivering his acceptance speech at the release of Shri Ramayana Perunthaedal, a Tamil version of his original work Ramayana Mahanveshanam.

Treating it purely as a literary function, Mr Moily, who remarked in the national capital a few days back that “Ram Sethu is a scientific possibility”, said there was need to do capacity building for every citizen in the country.

Stating that India would soon emerge as the youngest country, he said the country was poised to dethrone even China and the United States as the most important economy in the world. However, he quickly added that such prosperity must be equitable.

Terming the book as a dream come true for him, the minister said he had tried not just to reproduce the thoughts of Valmiki but lend different interpretations besides dwelling in detail about the confluence of Lankan, Ayodhya and Kishkinta cultures in his original work Ramayana Mahanveshanam.

Defining Ramayana as a story where different cultures of the country found unity, Mr Moily highlighted the greatness of Ramayana for never becoming an expansionist work.

Thanking former vice-chancellor of Thanjavur Tamil University Avvai Natarajan and his team for translating the book into Tamil, Mr Moily said the Telugu version would be released in Hyderabad by late June or early July 2012. He was also authoring an epic poem on Draupadi. Releasing the book, Tamil Nadu governor K. Rosaiah called for translating India’s epics — Ramayana and Mahabharata — and said it would bring in art and cultural exchanges among states across the country.