Reading Notes: Narayan's Ramayana Part D

Hanuman searched for Sita in Lanka and mistook her for Ravana's wife, Mandodari. When he mistook her, he lamented how Rama was going through hardships to find Sita and it looked as if Sita was living in luxury instead. It seems that Mandodari was beautiful as well, but lacked Sita's grace. I think it would also be interesting to write a story in Mandodari's point of view where she was angry at Ravana for falling for Sita.

Sita was strong and did not accept Ravana's advances even though it seems he both threatened and sweet-talked her. Ravana even went far enough to make the other rakshasas torment poor little Sita. After Hanuman was captured, Ravana's brother Vibishana saved him instead. Hanuman kind of reminds of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. I just looked it up and it seems that Sun Wukong might have been the Chinese incarnate of Hanuman! What a cool little parallel!

When Ravana was in counsel, his commander in chief reiterated what his uncle told him: that abducting another man's wife was not the work of a hero. It seems that although they are demons, they know what is right and what is wrong sometimes. Vibishana once again warns Ravana about a curse put upon him to die by the hands of monkey. He was also cursed by Vedavathi, who he tried to molest. Vedavathi swore she would be reborn again to kill him and end his reign. A quick search in Wikipedia also indicates that Sita is the reincarnation of Vedvathi. Ravana ended up pushing away Vibishana. Vibishana sought asylum with Rama instead.

War broke out. Ravana tried to scare Sita by showing her the "dead" bodies of Rama and Lakshmana but one of Ravana's women helped her and told her it was a faint. Ravana ended up fighting Rama and was defeated. Once he was defeated, Rama's arrows turned him from an evil person into a pure person.

On a side note... I thought it was extremely weird that Sita had to prove her integrity to Rama... If he really loved her, he would have believed her.

"Sita's Test by Fire"

Image posted by Laura Gibbs. Source: Indian Epics Reading Guide.

Bibliography: Narayan, R. K. The Ramayana. New Delhi: Vision, 1987. Print.