SITA DM THE TV UTTARAMAYANA 67 purity of family and home. All this she pleads forcefully on the television screen. The question is where does the director get authentic relevant material for such an unnatural departure? Let us recapitulate some of the facts in the different versions of the epic text. The question of abandonment arises only on the assumption of Sita's guilt which not one version mentions. The imputed guilt is: Ravana, a stranger, had touched her, as defiling her ritual purity and she stayed in Lanka for nearly a year. Kamban, the author of the southern version of the Ramayana avoids the charge of a stranger's touch very cleverly; in his version Ravana bodily lifts the hut with Sita inside, so that he did not have to touch her. In some other cleverer versions the abducted Sita was not the real person, but either an illusory (maya) or shadow (chaya) Sita. Tilaka the commentator in his exegesis of Valmiki's 'nivadhe ravana sita mayo mayamivasurim', Ravana bore Sita like Maya carrying a demon magic (III: 54:14) spins a tale of mayasita and says that before the abduction Sita went and resided in fire. Tulsidas in his Ramacaritamanasa repeats this idea in Lankakanda after verse 107-8 and anticipates this verse in 111:24. He gives a docetic version and says that what Ravana stole was but a magic replica of Sita. The Kurmapurana also repeats this. But most versions let the real Sita be abducted. Even here there are two possibilities (1) she is abducted because she herself is guilty as is borne out in Krittibasa, the Jain version Paumacariau, the Kathasariisagara synopsis, Jaimin's Asvamedhaparvan, Padmapurana, and Kundamala. Rama hears himself maligned by a washerwoman and on reaching home finds Sita engaged in painting a portrait of Ravana; this convinces him that she had a weakness for Ravana. But her action (painting) was prompted by Kaikeyi's daughter in Chandravati's translation, in the Kashmir! translation and in the Ananda Ramayana. In the Kundamala her co-wives urge her to paint the portrait. In the Marathi Bhavartha Ramayana she ponders over her ill-luck (abduction) and wonders if this is not a punishment for hurting Laksmana, insulting him wrongly over the golden deer episode. In some versions she is abducted because she is under a curse, by Bhrgu because the latter had suffered separation from his wife (in Valmiki) by Sukra (in the Padmapurana), by Tara wl^o was widowed because Rama had killed Valin (Valmiki and Krittivasa and the Assamese version Madhavakandali). In the Adhyatma Ramayana we have a curious tale: even when Rama and Sita were happy after their return to Ayodhya, Sita tells Rama that the gods are impatient in heaven for their return. Hence they decide on a ruse: Sita will be abandoned in the forest on a 'feigned scandal* regarding her chastity. There, in the forest her sons would be bom. After this she will return to the court to prove her innocence and will enter the earth; Rama will follow her (VII. 37-40). This suicide pact does not hold any water, except that it confirms Rama's faith in her chastity. A much inferior and vulgar explanation of the banishment is found in the Ananda Ramayana: