RSS publishes books on Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana in a bid to acquaint kids with sacred Hindu texts

NEW DELHI: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has published 20 books including titles on the Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharat and Ramayana as part of its efforts to acquaint schoolchildren with sacred Hindu texts and India’s cultural heritage.

The Sangh, ideological mothership of the BJP, plans to soon make 20,000 copies of these books available at its stores as well as online on portals such as Amazon-.com. The titles are published by Suruchi Prakashan housed in RSS headquarters in Delhi.

They are part of the first set of books for school students under the series ‘Kathayein Puranon Se’ or abridged stories from the puranas presented as children’s literature.

RSS national Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya said this series comes after Bharat Bharati, a publication house affiliated to the Sangh brought out 510 books on Indian saints, reformers and kings in Kannada way back in 1972.


“Different publications affiliated to the Sangh across the country are now bringing out books for children in regional languages. This is happening because families and people want their children to know about our culture,” said Vaidya. Other titles in the series include Ganesha, Hanuman, Kalidasa, Nala and Damayanti, Vivekananda and Arjuna.

Suruchi Prakashan, which had so far ventured into just two titles for children, Panchatantra and motivational tales for children, spent about Rs 2.64 lakh in the past three months to get the first set of series published. “Many of the children’s books on Indian gods have little text and more graphics. We have made an attempt to add much more text so that students get the story right and don’t remember them as comics alone,” said Gautam Sapla, manager at Suruchi Prakashan.

The publisher roped in RSS pracharaks, who have been writing or translating books for children, to work on this series, he said. The books will also be available at libraries in schools across the country soon, according to Sapla, who said ten more titles are in the pipeline under this series.

The books have been designed by a group of swayamsevaks in Kerala who told ET that they analysed Amar Chitra Katha, cartoon Chhota Bheem and other comics on epics before coming out with their final draft. “The stories in the books are straight out of our fables. They are interesting stories. We have made sure the author understands the psychology of the children,” said Sapla.

The books, costing Rs 40 each, will be distributed in phases in 1.5 lakh schools across the country run by Sangh-affiliated organisations, people familiar with the matter said. The most popular book of the series till now seems to be ‘Ramayana for students’. Suruchi Prakashan officials said they have already got over 200 requests from school libraries. The book has chapters such as ‘Rama - the boy hero’ and ‘Sita - the embodiment of fireproof chastity’.

Another title, ‘Bhagavad Gita for students’ talks about ‘Karma yoga -the eternal duty’ and exhorts youngsters to focus on learning alone to excel in life. It also seeks to motivate students, as part of a chapter on ‘the science of self realisation’, to control their mind and senses to become successful. Suruchi Prakashan has seen a sharp increase in sales to Rs 1.5 crore since the beginning of 2015.

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More power to more re-tellings

Great epics and mythologies do not have one authoritative text, but are many tellings and retellings. Within the basic storylines of the Mahabharata and Ramayana or The Iliad and The Odyssey burst forth a multiplicity of narratives, many written, many waiting to be written. So there can be Valmiki's telling of the life of Rama as narrated by Tulsidas. And there can be others, such as Michael Madhushudhan Dutt's Meghnad Vyad Kabya (The Epic of Meghnad's Slaying) where Ravana's son, and not Ram, is the hero. In this multiverse of texts, the RSS's tellings of these glorious tales can — indeed, must — coexist.