The Girl Who Chose - Devdutt Pattanaik About a thousand years ago, a remarkable thing happened in India. We find a rapid rise of regional languages and scripts giving rise to the modern languages of India. And the first, and most popular piece of literature to be composed, and recomposed, by several peots in most of these languages, happens to be the epic, Ramayana. Here, the nayaka (ideal protagonist) of earlier Sanskrit plays, the avatar (abbreviated form of the infinite divine) of the Sanskrit Puranas, becomes bhagavan, or God.