Lights from the Ramayana in Ranganathan’s Philosophy

S. R. Ranganathan (1892-1972) significantly contributed to the philosophical foundations of the discipline of Library and Information Science not only for India but for the whole world. He had a deep understanding of Indian scriptures, like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana. He frequently referred to these sources in his writing and works. He was an avid reader of Valmiki’s Ramayana, which is often referred to as the Adikavya, or the first poem authored by a human in the Sanskrit language, just as its author is known as Adikavi, or the first poet. Ranganathan used to keep this sacred source always with him and read it every day as a devotional exercise. Ranganathan describes various situations of the Ramayana depicting how, during a demanding situation, one strong character emerges and takes on the role of a librarian and resolves various functional challenges. He used this source as a motivation to foster good work and commitment and used characters from the Ramayana as heroes and guides in developing a vision of the righteous path for the work of librarianship. This paper surveys analogies and examples from various episodes of the Ramayana in Ranganathan's writing, and discusses the holistic vision that emerges from them. It also highlights other important sutras he took from the Ramayana for describing and prescribing professional virtues important for libraries in his works and reviews previous scholarly discussions of his love of this great epic poem.