Week 5: Exile before Sita's Abduction (Reading Diary A)

One of the first things in this weeks reading that caught my attention was when Bharawaja blessed the three queens, including Kaikeyi. In Narayan's Ramayana everyone (except for Rama) hated Kaikeyi for a while. People tried to curse her and Bharata was so refused to be near her in the beginning. But in Buck's version, everyone is much quicker to forgive, as seen by Bharawaja blessing her, and then Bharata comforting her. In this version, she also seems to realize at this point that she was wrong to do what she did. I also found it interesting that after blessing Kaikeyi, Bharawaja said that it would be for the best in the end and that Rama would help many people during his exile. I thought that this was a nice touch to Buck's story to give everyone involved more hope than in Narayan's version.

I also like that in Buck's retelling of Ramayana there are more details about people that Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana met during their travels. I thought that the gifts given to Sita by Apsarases were interesting. Through Narayan's tellings and some of Buck's, it seemed that Sita was already the most beautiful woman on Earth, yet Apsarases gave her enchanted jewelry and ornaments which would make her the most beautiful, and stay beautiful forever. While I could see giving Sita gifts to allow her to keep her beauty forever, which is what this seemed to be, it still took me by surprise based on Sita's previous descriptions in Ramayana.

Rama visits Atri. Wikimedia

One thing that I particularly liked about this last section of Buck's Ramayana was that it had the time frame. Throughout Narayan's story, I was trying to keep up with how long Rama had been exiled but it was difficult to follow. I was so happy when I read that at the end of this section, Buck said that Rama had now been exiled 13 years. In Narayan's story, in my mind, Sita was abducted much earlier than that and Rama spent years looking for her, since he seemed to do a lot. But at least in Buck's version, I liked knowing how close they were to the end of the exile. 

The last thing that I wanted to talk about from this section is the differences in Surpanakha's confrontations with Rama and Lakshmana. Until she attacked Sita,  it was interesting because the exchange seemed quite civil and polite. I mean according to Buck, an ugly demon came up to the three, tried to convince first Rama to marry her, then Lakshmana afterwards. Both of them politely declined, saying they were already married. Lakshmana even blessed her and wished her luck with finding a husband. This is very different from Narayan's version where Surpanakha was trying to trick Rama and both he and Lakshmana tried to cast her out before she attacked Sita. I liked Buck's version much more and thought that it was kind of entertaining how they interacted before Surpanakha attacked Sita.