Results from 2012 research on Sita
Article on Sita
October 26 2012, 9:01 AM
Here’s what I found. Post what you’ve found using the reply function:
477 views and 27 responses
Oct 26 2012, 9:08 AM
Rebecca responded:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/ramayana/1221
Rama learns the truth about Sita and begs her to come home with him. She goes with him and they live happily ever after.
Oct 26 2012, 9:09 AM
Alicia Oberholzer responded:
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/sita.htm
This source describes sita's unconditional love and devotion to Rama. She dies as a symbol of an "ideal" woman. This source also describes different versions of Sita's character.
Oct 26 2012, 9:10 AM
Anna Kempel responded:
Oct 26 2012, 9:11 AM
Conner Intress responded:
basically the story was similar to the one we watched before but it ends with Rama commiting suicide.
adaniel.tripod.com/ramayana.htm
Oct 26 2012, 9:12 AM
phil responded:
www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/ramayana/1208
Description of the final part of the Ramayana, no mention of the washer guy in this one so its a different version of the story than the one told in Sita sings the Blues.Oct 26 2012, 9:13 AM
Kristina Chura responded:
All of the endings I found matched the one in Sita Sings the Blues, where Sita is banished because of Rama's kingdom disappaproving of her. She then is swallowed by mother earth to prove her purity which ends in Rama and his followers jumping in a rover and ending their life.
http://adaniel.tripod.com/ramayana.htm
However this version tells that is was Sita that ended up killing Ravana, but that seems to contradict Rama's purpose of reincarnation.
Oct 26 2012, 9:14 AM
Ben Gordon responded:
According to the Sita wikipedia article, Sita returns home with Rama, after begging his forgiveness. After another trial, she returns to the womb of the earth. Another interesting fact about Sita is that in some versions of the Ramayana, she is born as a daughter of Ravana, who abandons her due to prophecy. She is found and raised as a princess.
Oct 26 2012, 9:14 AM
Jeff responded:
http://ancientindians.net/goddesses/lakshmi/sita-devi/
This webpage contains a lot of smaller details about Sita's life and her role in the Ramayana. It contains some interesting details about her origin.
Oct 26 2012, 9:14 AM
Liam Dolan responded:
I found when I looked on the Internet that Sita proved her loyalty by having the earth swallow her up. Rama later on was so sad that he jumped in a river. Since he was such a role model, many followed him.
Oct 26 2012, 9:15 AM
Ari Aisen responded:
http://www.coedu.usf.edu/culture/Story/Story_India_Rama.htm
This gives tells a shortened version of the Ramayana, but from the point of view from Sita and explains the things that happen to her directly.
Oct 26 2012, 9:16 AM
Elsa Lauer responded:
I found two websites about Sita and her return to Earth.
1. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1...
Apparently, Sita is a model of "womanly love, womanly devotion and a wife's noble self-abnegation."
2. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sita
This site says that Rama demanded Sita's return, and when the Earth didn't return her, he became sorrowful and never remarried.Oct 26 2012, 9:16 AM
stanislaw banas responded:
This webpage contains the info that Sita has to prove her live to Rama so she gets swallowed up by Mother Earth.
Oct 26 2012, 9:17 AM
stanislaw banas responded:
Oct 26 2012, 9:17 AM
Anna Kempel responded:
ignore the previous post!! http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint/texts/Ramayana.pdf
After Rama banishes Sita because he wants to set a good example for his people, Sita gives birth to her two sons in the forest who then learn the Ramayana. Years later, they sing the Ramayana to Rama before his kingdom during a great horse sacrifice (ashvanedha). When he learns they are his sons, he asks for Sita to come back and purify herself once more. She is accepted back into the womb of mother earth as her purification and Rama, who is stricken with grief, follows her as he is no longer needed in his mortal form.Oct 26 2012, 9:17 AM
Grant A responded:
This article it gives a summary of the story of the ramayana, but it also gives opinions on Sita's suffering and her sacrafice for Rama. It also has a portion that discusses wether Sita or Rama is more powerful.
Oct 26 2012, 9:18 AM
Erika responded:
I pretty much found the same thing as Mr. Easton. There are many controversies for Sita and the way she was treated. Rama did not really care about Sita.
http://www.articlesbase.com/literature-articles/the-plight-of-sita-and-the-in... How could Rama be such a great man if he treated his wife so badly?Oct 26 2012, 9:18 AM
Sophie Melnick responded:
I found that Sita is exiled a second time because her karma regarding sleeping in Ravana's house is immortal. So, as we talked about in class, she is taken back into the womb of Mother Earth so she can "live and die as an ideal woman", which is logical, considering she's married to the ideal man.
Oct 26 2012, 9:18 AM
Laura Zdon responded:
http://www.gheehappy.com/book/ramayana-divine-loophole/
Awesome Picture Book
Oct 26 2012, 9:19 AM
Alison responded:
Sita lives and dies the ideal woman, she believes it is better to return to mother earth that return to a man who questions her devotion.
Oct 26 2012, 9:20 AM
Zhirong Cai responded:
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Encyclopedia of Modern Asia
Ramayana
By Robert P. GoldmanIn this section of the encyclopedia, it states that Sita was pregregant but there are rumors in the city questioning her purity. Rama thus sends her to the forest and found shelter with sage Valmiki. She then give birth to two sons and taught them to sing Ramayana. The two sons perform the poem to Rama and Valmiki then presents Sita to Rama. Rama agrees to take Sita back but Sita asks mother earth to take her back to prove her purity. She then disappears in to the earth. Later, after a period of rule in Adohya, Rama is reminded of his purpose of reincarnation and returns to the heaven.
The following is the original text from the section The rescue of Sita and thereafter:
"Rama and the monkeys build a bridge across the ocean and lay siege to Ravana's citadel. After a protracted war, Rama slays Ravana on the battlefield and recovers Sita. The long-suffering princess must pass through a fire ordeal to publicly prove her chastity before she is reunited with Rama, and the two return to Ayodhya, where Rama is at long last consecrated as king. At length, after hearing of rumors concerning Sita's fidelity when in captivity, Rama resolves to banish her, although she is pregnant. She is sheltered in the hermitage of the sage Valmiki, the author of the poem, where she bears Rama's twins, the epic bards Lava and Kusa. After the twins perform the poem for the king, Valmiki brings Sita back to Rama and attests to her virtue. Rama agrees to take her back, but she calls on her mother the earth to take her if she has been true to her husband. She disappears into the earth, leaving Rama desolate. He continues to rule righteously until he is reminded that the purpose for which he incarnated has been accomplished. Rama then enters the Sarayu River at Ayodhya, followed by all the inhabitants of the city, and ascends to heaven to resume his place in heaven as the great lord Vishnu."
Oct 26 2012, 9:23 AM
Jack Cook responded:
1. This article outlines small scenes parallel to the main plot of the Ramayana, which demonstrate Sita's strength, and tests of her virtue.
http://tinyurl.com/9l2mn62Oct 26 2012, 9:26 AM
Elli Rubimac responded:
Sita's sons go to Ayodhya when they are full grown, and Rama calls Sita back after seeing them. Sita dies in Ayodhya by being swallowed up by the Earth, and Rama drowns himself shortly after having been heartbroken, leaving his sons to rule. They reunite in heaven, where Rama is welcomed by Brahma and becomes Vishnu once again and Sita is his happily devoted wife.
Oct 26 2012, 9:28 AM
Jack Cook responded:
Five movement Jazz Quartet ending:
"You won't have this avatar of Vishnu to kick around anymore"
http://kaanburrow.net/jB/Vishnu.htmlOct 26 2012, 9:29 AM
Michael responded:
At the last chapter of the Ramayana, Sita goes back to the palace and becomes pregnant with Rama's child. Rama can't stand knowing whether or not the child her wife is bearing belongs to him or not. So, he sends her out with Lakshmana to the forest and to exile there. And then, she is exiled. With her being exiled, she gave birth to twins, Rama's sons. Time passes and Rama comes back and asks Sita to prove her worthiness to Rama, again. And she says "if I haven't been unworthy, let Mother Earth take me back to my womb" and that's what happened. Rama became filled with grief and eventually jumped into the river.
Oct 26 2012, 9:30 AM
Mr. Easton responded:
A chapter from a book:
UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004
Inside the Drama-House
Rama Stories and Shadow Puppets in South India
Stuart Blackburn
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford
© 1996 The Regents of the University of California--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Chapter 2
Rama Stories and Puppet Plays
There are many Ramayanas—three hundred in one reckoning, though three thousand is more likely. However many, these multiple tellings are not an illustration of "The One and the Many," that shopworn slogan for Hinduism, because there is no single source. Although Valmiki's Sanskrit poem is often regarded as the original Ramayana, and although it is an early and influential text, it is more a cultural measuring stick than the origin of these many Rama stories. Regional patterns and popular scenes exist, but there is no the Ramayana, not even a standard text with numerous "versions," only a true ocean of stories in which Rama marries Sita, chases the golden deer, conquers Ravana, regains his wife, and ascends the throne in Ayodhya. These events are sung and danced, printed in comic books and paraded on television, performed with shadow puppets and told in the nearly fifty thousand lines of Kampan as well as the three words of a Telugu proverb: "Built [the causeway], beat [Ravana], brought [Sita]."[1] Each of these tellings is partial, incomplete, and any assumption that a particular motif, say Rama's killing of Ravana, is indispensable to the plot is probably wrong; Jain texts, for instance, prefer that Laksmana, not the evolved soul Rama, incur the sin of violently killing Ravana. We are beginning to chart these many Ramayanas and their narrative variations, but their transmission and reception are more difficult to record. However, as the notion of a unitary text, tidily authored and passively received, gives way to the recognition of a historicized and composite telling, these processes of borrowing and accommodation become both more visible and more instructive."--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 26 2012, 9:30 AM
Carrie Jones responded:
Source: Gale Virtual Reference Library database,
"Ramayana"
Encyclopedia of India
Ed. Stanley Wolpert. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. p390-399.Ending summary:
- twins sing song to Rama and tell him it was from Sita
- Rama realizes they are his sons, recognizes Sita
- Rama wants to "test Sita's purity" again
- Valmiki (sage that mentors Sita & sons) tells Rama that only Sita can test her own purity.
- Sita: "If I have thought with my mind none other than Rama, let the goddess Madhavi [Earth] give me an opening" (she returns to the earth)
- Rama threatens to destroy the earth if Sita is not returned, but Brahma reminds him that he is Vishnu (preserver)
- Rama continues his rule, alone, but makes sacrifices to Sita
-Rama finds out from Brahma's messenger that he is to return to heaven as Vishnu
-Lakshama is banished by Rama, and returns to heaven while meditating.Oct 26 2012, 9:36 AM
Jack Cook responded:
"When Women Retell the Ramayana":
http://tinyurl.com/9bgrngf