Uttarakandaramayana and Mother Sita: As depicted by Valmiki and Sankardev

Abstract

Sankardev of the fifteenth-sixteenth century Assam felt the lack of the first and seventh books in the then extant Ramayana of Madhava Kandali (fourteenth century), whom the saint regarded as an unerring poet (apramadi kavi) and allotted the task of translating the first book to Madhavadeva. He himself took up the task of translating the seventh, which, possibly, he had the privilege of examining elsewhere in Sanskrit. In so doing, of 111 cantos in the Sanskrit Ramayana, he rejected altogether the first 38 cantos relating to the stories narrating the birth of the monkeys and the raksasas.