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New manuscript shows more human side of Rama, Sita

Kolkata - In a sixth century manuscript of the Ramayana found inside a Purana, focusing on the separation of Rama and Sita, the two have been portrayed more as humans.

Tucked away in a library in Kolkata is a manuscript that has shed new light on Rama and Sita.

In a sixth century manuscript of the Ramayana found inside a Purana, focusing on the separation of Rama and Sita, the two have been portrayed more as humans.

Scholars working on the sixth century Vanhi Purana at the Asiatic Society library were puzzled to find that the manuscript seemed incomplete. They started looking through the Catalogus Catalogorum -- a global repository of Sanskrit manuscripts compiled by German scholar Aufrecht -- and realized two more identical manuscripts existed. One was preserved at the India Office Library at London and the second at the Kolkata-based Samskrita Sahitya Parishad, a 100-year-old research institution partly funded by the HRD ministry.

The scholars scoured the archives and found the complete version of the Vanhi Purana manuscript. When they were analyzing it, they stumbled upon the Dasa Griba Rakshash Charitram Vadha, which did not have any bearing with the Vanhi (fire) Purana. For some time they could not understand why the slokas of the purana suddenly started telling another story. But they did feel that the story was extremely familiar because the predominant characters were Rama, Sita and Ravana. Before long, the scholars realized that they were reading a sixth century version of the Ramayana with many interpolations. It is markedly different from the more accepted 4 BC Valmiki Ramayana.

"Interestingly in this version, there are just five kandas (sections) instead of the accepted seven. There is no Balkanda - the part that deals with Rama's childhood - or Uttarkanda. This Ramayana ends with the return of Rama and Sita from exile and his ascension to the Ayodhya throne," said Anasuya Bhowmick, lead scholar of the Asiatic Society for the project, who is working with the manuscript.

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