In the beginning, the video’s narrators state they will neither look at the Ramayana as a religious text nor attempt to devise any historical truth from it. This is highly problematic as it is a deeply ingrained religious text that is crucial for any analysis of Indian heritage, culture, and politics. Without looking at the religious implications, the video fails to display the interconnectedness of the Ramayana story with the caste system and use of the narrative to perpetuate political ends as we saw in the readings about the Ram temple.
The video attributes the Ramayana to Hindu and Buddhist religious scholarship, but it fails to mention Muslim scholarship as well. As the use of the story is important to Muslim safety in India, it cannot go without noting their involvement in Rama scholarship. This was a significant oversight.
I believe it is placed under mythology because they are not evaluating the story from a historical or religious context, and take their story from a “truncated version of the Ramayana located in Thury’s introduction to mythology textbook.” Because they pull the Ramayana from a mythology textbook instead of a stand alone Kamban or Valmiki bound work, their preconceived bias as to the narrative’s genre was set for them. They also apply Campbellian hero story analysis to the Ramayana, which in their truncated version applies quite well to something they conceive of as a myth.