Cette thèse étudie l’émergence du culte de Rāma à travers l’évolution de son iconographie dans les décors sculptés des temples de l’époque de Vijayanagar. À partir du XIIe siècle, Rāma qui, jusqu’ici, était un avatar de Viṣṇu, se détache de sa tutelle pour acquérir une autonomie de culte, avec ses propres dévots. Nous nous sommes demandé dans quelle mesure le changement de statut de Rāma était perceptible dans les reliefs qui le prennent pour sujet et comment l’étude de ces reliefs pouvait nous éclairer sur ce changement. Notre étude se fonde sur un corpus d’environ 2700 reliefs, relevés dans 47 temples sur tout le territoire de l’empire (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu). Trois catégories de reliefs se dégagent : les cycles narratifs, les séquences narratives et les reliefs iconiques. En comparant les modes de représentation au sein d’une même catégorie, puis entre catégories, nous avons observé l’importance prise par les images iconiques. Nous avons constaté le faible rôle du régionalisme, mais plutôt une homogénéité à travers l’empire, confirmée par le rapprochement que nous avons fait des reliefs avec six versions du Rāmāyaṇa, et qui démontre que les différentes régions ont toutes eu, de préférence, recours à la même version. Cette analyse s’inscrit dans un examen plus vaste de la place de Rāma dans la culture indienne et aboutit à des conclusions sur la relation entre arts visuels et littérature, les liens entre Rāma et la royauté de Vijayanagar et montre les différents moyens de signifier la divinité désormais accomplie de Rāma. / This thesis studies the emergence of the cult of Rāma through the development of his iconography in the sculpted decoration of temples from the Vijayanagara era. From the 12th century, Rāma, who until then had been an avatar of Viṣṇu, broke away and acquired a separate cult, with his own worshippers. We wondered to what extent the change in Rāma’s status could be observed in the reliefs in which he features and how studying these reliefs could shed light on this change. Our study is based on a corpus of around 2700 reliefs from 47 temples throughout the territory of the Empire (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu). Three categories of relief can be identified: narrative cycles, narrative sequences and iconic reliefs. When we compared the means of representation within each category, then between categories, we noted the increasingly important role of iconic images. We observed little difference between regions, but rather homogeneity throughout the Empire, confirmed by our comparison between the reliefs and six versions of the Rāmāyaṇa, which showed that the various regions all favoured the same version. This analysis forms part of a broader study of the role of Rāma in Indian culture and leads to conclusions on the relationship between visual arts and literature, the links between Rāma and the Vijayanagara royalty, and the different ways of representing the divine status that Rāma had, by then, acquired.

The present study is completely a literature study, where the limelight has been on Rāmāyaṇa. Focusing on the Rāmāyaṇa written by Valmiki and comparing it to the oral tradition (songs) from Andhra Pradesh, sung by Brahmin women presented in Paula Richman’s book Many Ramayanas (1991); The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Two female characters have been chosen to understand the polarities of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ in woman characters presented within the story of Rāmāyaṇa; Sitā is compared therefore to Śūrpanakhā. Two primary questions have led the study forward, the first being to understand characteristical similarities and differences between the female characters; Sitā and Śūrpanakhā. and the other being narrational differences found in Valmiki’s Rāmāyaṇa compared to Paula Richman’s description of oral traditions of Brahmin women of Andhra Pradesh. Qualitative content analysis is the method that runs through the veins of this study, content analysis which is a branch of textual analysis is a method used to study and describe characteristics of written messages, which in this study is Rāmāyaṇa. In the conclusion the research question was answered and the result was that it could be argued that Sitā and Śūrpanakhā are both different but also similar to each other within the characteristical framework and also that Sitā and Śūrpanakhā are portrayed as each other's alter egos. Where Sitā is portrayed as light, good, pure, auspicious and submissive, Śūrpanakhā is portrayed as her opposite; dark, evil, impure, inauspicious and independent. And within a narrational framework it was clear that there were many differences between Valmiki’s narration  to the oral traditions, where Valmiki narrated Rāmā in limelight the oral traditions had women’s aspects of Rāmāyaṇa in focus.