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Film & Myth StudiesArticle 4 · Vol. 1, Issue 5, September 2026 · pp. 31–40
From Sacred Narrative to Cinematic Sign-System: Reconfiguring the Rāmāyaṇa in Contemporary Indian Cinema
Akanksha Rudra Tripathi
Research Scholar, DIT University, Dehradun, India
Dr. Sakshi Semwal
Associate Professor, DIT University, Dehradun, India
Abstract
The long-standing presence of the Rāmāyaṇa in modern Indian film suggests that myths are preserved through transformation, through ongoing acts of reinterpretation, mediation, and cultural re-signification. This study explores how contemporary Indian films alter recognized elements of the Rāmāyaṇa from an identified mythic epic into a malleable cinematic sign system, capable of being employed in new genres and technologies while addressing different cultural contexts and ideologies. Using Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotic theory, Roland Barthes’ idea of myth, Linda Hutcheon’s adaptation theories, Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarization and Michel Foucault’s understanding of discourse, this study compares the films RRR (2022), Hanu-Man (2024), Sita Ramam (2022), Ram Setu (2022), Adipurush (2023), and Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva (2022); rather than viewing each as adaptations based on fidelity to one source, they are viewed here as different types of mythological transformation. RRR translates Rama-like heroic symbolism into anti-colonial nationalism; Hanu-Man transforms Hanuman devotion into superheroic embodiment; Sita Ramam relocates Rāmāyaṇa ethical structures into romantic melodrama; Ram Setu negotiates myth through archaeology, science, and civilizational memory; Adipurush reconstructs the epic through digitally intensified spectacle; and Brahmāstra incorporates mythological cosmology into a transnational fantasy grammar. The article argues that the Rāmāyaṇa has continued to transform and has sparked contest over what is culturally familiar, filmically innovative, sacredly remembered, or ideologically stated. Indian cinema today does not merely preserve the epic but continuously creates new contexts for it to be signified.
Keywords:
RāmāyaṇaIndian CinemaMythologySemioticsAdaptationDefamiliarizationSpectacleDiscourseCultural Identity
How to Cite
Tripathi, A. R., & Semwal, S. (2026). From Sacred Narrative to Cinematic Sign-System: Reconfiguring the Rāmāyaṇa in Contemporary Indian Cinema. Veritas: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 1(5), 31–40. https://doi.org/10.67788/veritas.2026.1.5.004
DOI: https://doi.org/10.67788/veritas.2026.1.5.004
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