Agni test of Sita

[Guest guest]

On Sun, 6 Dec 1998 bhakti-errors wrote:

>

> "Why did Lord Rama act so much out of character?", we ask ourselves.

Such inconsistency would naturally be doubted.

 

> Whatever may be our own misgivings about Rama's behaviour in the scenes

> leading to "Sita's agni-pravEsam" we must bear in mind that to the poet

> Valmiki himself what the Lord of Ayodhya said or did was NOT IN THE LEAST

> out of character !

However, this is not to say that Valmiki Kavi wrote everything we

think he did; in light of the above question, but also based on the

evidence of manuscripts, some scholars have concluded that the

Agni-pratIkSA is a later interpolation. See "The Fire Ordeal of Sita--A

Later Interpolation in the Ramayana?" by Nilmadhav Sen, Journal of the

Oriental Institute of Baroda, #1, 1952, pg. 201-6, and in the same journal

#5, 1955-6, G.H. Bhatt's The Fire Ordeal of Sita--An Interpolation in the

Valmiki Ramayana," pg. 292, if you're interested in the details of this

assertion.

 

MT