An excerpt from Sita’s Voice in the Assamese Ramayana: Selected Verses from the RAMAYANA of  Madhava Kandali and UTTARAKANDA by Sankaradeva, Translated, with Introduction and commentary  by TILOTTOMA MISRA (Zubaan: April 2024 Forthcoming) 

The figure of Rāma has seldom attracted the Assamese vaiṣnava devotees as much as that of Kṛṣṇa. Rāma has been considered as an incarnation of Viṣṇu, while Kṛṣṇa has been worshipped as Viṣṇu himself. Significantly, there is also no known religious sect in Assam which claims to be “exclusively Ramaite”. While there are many references to Kṛṣṇa in the copper-plate inscriptions found in Assam which date back to the early seventh century, there is hardly any mention of Rāma in the early literary records of the region. Biswanarayan Shastri has observed that while a large number of temples dedicated to Rāma or Māruti exist all over India, there is no evidence of the existence of such a temple with the images of Rāma or Maruti, intact or in ruins, in Assam. According to him even in the architecture of ancient Assam, there is no known evidence of the Rāma legend being represented anywhere.

The Rāmāyaṇa of Mādhava Kandalī, therefore, as well as the two kāṇḍas prefixed and appended to it by Mādhavadeva and Śaṅkaradeva, have never held “that exalted position in popular estimation which the Rāmacarita-mānasa of Tulsidas has been occupying for the last few centuries in north India.” Rāma and Sītā seldom attained the stature of divinity in the imagination of the Assamese people although the heroic and miraculous elements in the Rāmāyaṇa and ‘Rāma-kathā’ have continued to be a lively ingredient of folk-drama and musical performances of the ojā-pāli. It is understandable therefore that for the common people of this region the Assamese Rāmāyaṇa is hardly the religious text that the Bhāgavata-purāṇa is. Continue reading Sita’s Voice in the Assamese Ramayana: Tilottoma Misra →