Sita’s Voice in the Assamese Rāmāyaṇa

Sita’s Voice in the Assamese Rāmāyaṇa is a translation of select verses from the Assamese Saptakāṇḍa Rāmāyaṇa of Mādhava Kandalī, Śaṅkaradeva and Madhavdeva, written between the 14^th-15^th centuries CE. This vernacular rendition of the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa has been translated with a scholarly introduction by Tilottoma Misra. The selected verses represent a distinctive creative rendition of the Vālmīki text from the region of Assam by adding new emotional and philosophic dimensions to it. Especially in the Uttarakāṇḍa ascribed to Śaṅkaradeva, Sita’s voice acquires a unique quality in her final rejection of Rāma thereby expressing her ultimate disillusionment with him, the much-acclaimed paragon of all virtues.

“Others may praise him for all his deeds. But Death incarnate is Rāma for me.”

“I have never heard of a husband more unkind than he. O how can I look upon him again with love and pride?”

—Uttarakāṇḍa of Śaṅkaradeva

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TILOTTOMA MISRA writes on literatures from Northeast India, particularly Assam, and on gender and the nationality question. She is author of Swarnalata (1991, English translation 2012, Zubaan), Louhitya Sindhu (1997), Kameikhar Ghar (2013, English translation High Wind, 2020, Zubaan), Literature and Society in Assam: A Study of the Assamese Renaissance 1826-1926 (1987) and editor of the Oxford Anthology of Writings from North-East India (2011). She has translated and edited Gunabhiram Barua’s Ramnabami-Natak (2007). She was awarded the Ishan Puraskar by Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad for Swarnalata, and the Lummer Dai Award by the Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society and the Assam Sahitya Sabha for Kameikhar Ghar.