Sita in the Valmiki Ramayana: Cultivating the Seeds of the Goddess and Devotion: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

The Valmiki Ramayana presents a heroine, Sita, who echoes and foretells the once and future depictions of a divine feminine. Working
backward or forward historically with regard to the Valmiki Ramayana is an uncertain proposition: the text is referentially dense and the evidence about its creation and early reception is circumstantial. However, the characterizations of Sita, her descriptions, circumstances and situation remind us that the epic can be seen as an “amalgamation” of Indian historical and ahistorical traditions: there is the convergence of many Sanskritic and local or undocumented religious concepts in the Valmiki text.