Book Summary: The Liberation of Sita
Author: VOLGA
Book Size: 108 pages
Book available: Amazon, For free pdf you can contact me through my profile
Moral and Introduction:
The Volga, a feminist writer, has created a fictitious version of Sita’s liberation. It did not solve all of the questions, but it did provide some context. Vimukta was the original title of the book written by the author in Telugu.
The Liberation of Sita is a book that presents a new (although skewed) perspective, criticizes our patriarchal society, and connects with certain strong women who were only bolstered by their circumstances.
Because of being abandoned by Purushottam Rama, Sita goes on a long road to self-realization, according to Volga’s version. She encounters exceptional women along the road who have broken free from all that has held them back, including their husbands, sons, and their ideas about desire, beauty, and chastity. Surpanakha, Renuka, Urmila, and Ahalya, the epic’s minor female characters, guide Sita toward an unexpected conclusion. Meanwhile, Rama must analyze and weigh his duties as Ayodhya’s ruler and as a husband in love with his bride.
The Liberation of Sita is a strong inversion of India’s most iconic story of morality, choice, and sacrifice. It opens up new places within the traditional discourse, allowing women to reconsider their lives and experiences. The Volga is at her feminist best here.
According to the book
Sita was extremely beautiful, intellectual, proficient in archery, trained in administration, and the first daughter of Ruler Janaka — a powerful spiritual man in his own right; and she was married to Sri Rama, who loved her but put her through a chastity test and worse, abandoned her to uphold his Arya Dharma.
Why? What was Rama’s motivation for doing it? What’s more, why did Sita grab it in the first place?
This book is essentially Sita’s journey to self-realization, in which she ultimately breaks free and connects with herself, as well as the injustices laid out to her in the name of community and dharma. Surpanakha (Ravana’s sister), Ahalya (Sage Gautama’s wife), Renuka (Sage Jamadagni’s wife), who was nearly slain by her son Sage Parasurama, and Urmila (Sita’s sister and Lakshmana’s wife) were among the ladies who assisted Sita in coming to this insight. These four women arrive in Sita’s life at various points and assist her in asserting her uniqueness and breaking away from the expectation of her position as a queen, a wife, and even a mother.
The book is a collection of stories set in various time zones that do not follow the mythical story’s chronological order. As a result, the reader is assumed to be familiar with the legend.
Each story has grains of wisdom and leads Sita on a path of self-discovery.
The narrative of Sita and Surpanakha begins at the beginning of the book. Surpanakha sows a concept in Sita’s head while telling her journey of how she interpreted beauty in her thoughts. She says that anchoring oneself to one’s inner core is far more preferable than anchoring oneself to outward factors such as children, kingdom, and so on. ‘I fought a lot to realize that there is no distinction among beauty and ugliness in nature,’ she says of her personal experience. I studied many living species and recognized that oneness and stillness are the same things, so I explored every particle in nature, and my vision altered as a result of that quest. To my eyes, everything started to appear lovely. I, who used to despise everything, including myself, grew to adore everything…’
Sita meets Ahalya during her 14-year exile in another narrative called Music of Earth. She explains to Sita that reality is a highly subjective concept. ‘I don’t know why my narrative was conveyed to you or how it was told,’ she says. Indra was enamored with me. He, like everyone else, looked at women as though they were made to be enjoyed by males. Knowing I wouldn’t give in to his yearning, he disguised himself as my spouse and came in the dead of night. Is it possible that I saw right through his ruse? Many individuals throughout the world are troubled by this question. My spouse, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned with the subject. It didn’t make a difference to him. His property had been entrusted to someone else, even if only temporarily. It had been contaminated. Brahmin men have endowed these words with such force that there is no room for truth or untruth in them. Pollution, cleanliness, purity, impurity, honor, dishonor — these words have been invested with such power that there is no room for truth or falsity in them. ‘There’s no difference…’
When Sita claims that her spouse is unique in that he constantly inquires about the difference between truth and lies, Ahalya pointed out to her that inquiring is a subject of distrust in and of itself. She goes on to say that society favors women who do not challenge authority and accept reality as they are. If a woman recognizes that she has made mistakes, society offers means to atone for the sin; if she insists that she has not made mistakes, society views her as a victim. If a woman says, “Right or wrong, that’s my business,” no one can challenge it, no one can criticize it, and society will never accept it.
Sita realizes what Ahalya had been attempting to tell her just a few years later when she gives the fire test and returns to Ayodhya to be hailed by some proud people proclaiming her chastity.
The Shackled, the final story, stunned me the most. I had mentally depicted Rama as not an ideal man since I was engaged in these women’s experiences in this book. Why? Why did Rama quit his lifelong love? Where do you find love when you’ve been abandoned? Why couldn’t he just take command and keep Sita with him?
But most of those questions were answered in this narrative. A king must differentiate between his responsibilities as a ruler and his duties as a family man. Rama, the King, was at odds with Rama, the devoted spouse. And when he was forced to defend his realm, he decided to do so. Something Kuru King Dhristrashtra did not do when Draupadi was severely degraded in his presence in another epic, The Mahabharata.
The author made me think that Rama, not Sita, was the one who was more imprisoned! Rama’s dilemma is best expressed in the following lines: ‘… For her humiliation, he made her heart bleed uncontrollably. It was a never-ending wound. Every day, the wound would sting. The throne has inflicted a wound on Sita and Rama’s love. He couldn’t abandon Sita since she was his. He couldn’t give up the throne since RaghuVamsa was the rightful owner. The dynasty is a term used to describe a group of people who are related to The tradition of political authority being passed down to the firstborn son or daughter. On his head was the duty of upholding that legacy. The responsibility of defending the Arya Dharma eventually robbed him of all joy in his life. For him, there was no way out. Rama sobbed despondently…’
Volga (Popuri Lalita Kumari), the author of this work of fiction based on lesser-known figures from ancient literature, encourages women to take care of their own lives and see themselves as separate from the males in their life. All women, she believes, must rise, establish themselves, and take command of their own life.
