About the Book
Sita's Voice in the Assamese Ramayana is a translation of select verses from the Assamese Saptakända Ramayana of Madhava Kandali, Sankaradeva and Madhavdeva, written between the 14-15 centuries CE. This vernacular rendition of the Valmiki Ramayana has been translated with a scholarly introduction by Tilottoma Misra. The selected verses represent a distinctive creative rendition of the Valmiki text from the region of Assam by adding new emotional and philosophic dimensions to it. Especially in the Uttarakända ascribed to Sankaradeva, Sita's voice acquires a unique quality in her final rejection of Rama thereby expressing her ultimate disillusionment with him, the much-acclaimed paragon of all virtues.
"Others may praise bim for all bis deeds. But Death incarnate is Rama for me.
"I have never beard of a husband more unkind than be. O how can I look upon him again with love and pride?"
About the Author
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), Loubitya Sindbu (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 Kameikbar Ghar.
Preface
The Ramayana tradition that has existed in Assam from around the fourteenth century or possibly even earlier has not received the same kind of scholarly attention as other South Asian traditions centred round the epic. In recent decades, several studies have focused specifically on the possibility of re-reading or questioning the tradition from diverse perspectives. These studies, however, contain very few references to the Ramayana or 'Ramakatha' tradition in north-eastern India. It is in this context that I have written and translated this work on the Rāmāyaņa of Madhava Kandali and the Uttarakāņda by Śańkaradeva. My attempt in this present work has been to bring into focus the socio-political, religious and gender contexts that might have existed in north-east India in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and that might have inspired the vernacular poets to represent the characters and events in the epic in a certain manner.
Introduction
The figure of Rāma has seldom attracted Assamese Vaisnava devotees as much as that of Krsna. Rāma has been considered an incarnation of Vişņu, while Krşņa has been worshipped as Vişņu himself. Significantly, there is also no known religious sect in Assam that claims to be "exclusively Ramaite". While there are many references to Kṛṣņa in the copper-plate inscriptions found in Assam that date back to the early seventh century, there is hardly any mention of Rama in the early literary records of the region. Biswanarayan Shastri has observed that, while a large number of temples dedicated to Rāma or Maruti exist all over India, there is no evidence of the existence of such a temple intact or in ruins, in Assam.