Week 14, Reading Diary D, Sita's Ramayana

Author: Samhita Arni

Artist: Moyna Chitrakar

Title: Sita's Ramayana

Year: 2011

Sita's Ramayana

pages 111-end

Ravana is dead. The war is over.

Rama gets the city and the honor of crowning a new king. 

Sita is free. Rama is of course a hero, he saved her.

For all the good that does. The cannot be together, again.

His war to save his honor has left a blood soaked trail and women and children with out fathers, brothers and husbands.

Sita in her state of innocence and purity is deeply hurt.

Sita jumps into a fire, but the god Agni leads her out because she is indeed pure.

Rama and Sita jump in their UFO and head back to the kingdom they had been exiled from.

Ayodhya.

Sita gets pregnant.

Rumors.

She gets left in the forest.

Abandoned.

The forest hears her grief.

Again, like Snow White, the nature kingdom are there as her companions.

She has a son Lava.

Bam, magically she has his twin, Kusha that a hermit, Valmiki, made for her.

Usually only a man gets to be the wise person, dweller of the forest.

Sita takes on a male role by staying in the forest.

Hanuman, Lakshmana and Rama get beat in battle by the boys.

The boys then get raised by their father as warriors

and poor Sita jumps into the earth.

Week 14, Reading Diary C, Sita's Ramayana

Author: Samhita Arni

Artist: Moyna Chitrakar

Title: Sita's Ramayana

Year: 2011

Sita's Ramayana

pages 72-110

It appears that everyone tells Ravana to stop being foolish, and give Sita back because it means ruin to the whole of Lanka if he won't stop. He is like a pitbull and is relentless and refuses to budge from his mission. His son is killed without honor. I think it is important that the story points this out and also adds how war itself is without honor.

The magician that tries to deceive Hanuman also is lacking in honor. He tried to poison the cute monkey man and then tried to get him killed by the crocodile. Hanuman frees the crocodile who was trapped in the body by magic and tells Hanuman of the deceit. The good guy wins, the bad guy never does for long.

Hanuman goes to retrieve the herb needed to cure Lakshmana and can't find it, so he brings the whole hill. I am sorta wondering right now if this is how it normally looks in other depictions too. This looks to me like the pinecone thing that the Persian kings have.

Week 13, Reading Diary B, Sita's Ramayana

Author: Samhita Arni

Artist: Moyna Chitrakar

Title: Sita's Ramayana

Year: 2011

Sita's Ramayana

Pages 36-71

Jatayu the friendly bird tells Rama about Sita being nabbed by the evil Ravana.  The friendly bird died for the sakes of Sita and Rama. 

Loyalty.Duty. Desire. Rebirth and Death.

Dharma.

Kama.

Karma.

Moksha.

Samsara.

They find the dropped jewelry that Sita leaves as a trail. 

Rama, the banished and exiled king gathers the army of Vanaras the king of which was also an exiled king. Sugriva. He gets his vengeance but it is at a high price. It hurts those he loves.

I find it comical that Hanuman starts the fire for the demon king and its demons. In modern western tradition, the demon king (satan) would already have fire in his kingdom of hell. Of course a strinking difference being that Lanka is real and Hell maybe not so much.

Bears, monkeys and squirrels in army to rescue lovely Sita. It's hard for me not to see her as Snow White. The animal kingdom builds a bridge. Whoa.

The War begins.

Week 13, Reading Diary A, Sita's Ramayana

Author: Samhita Arni

Artist: Moyna Chitrakar

Title: Sita's Ramayana

Year: 2011

Sita's Ramayana

pages 1-36

This is another graphic novel. I really love Sita so much, and I thought it would be fun to learn more about her in order to write more about her. So far, the many ways that I have read the story of Sita, they all really don't have as much variances as I had expected. The channel that the story is told is mostly what changes. 

This book is so vivid in color. More so than the comic books or the other graphic novel I read about Sita. Also, this one I checked out and could take home and the others had to be read in the library. I took more extensive notes on those because it was harder to be able to revisit them if I had questions.

"Violence breeds violence, and an unjust act only begets greater injustice."

In the beginning in the forest, Sita narrates that it was simple compared to where they came from. The temptations of evil came upon them and caused problems, first in the demon, then the deer. The minstrel that causes Sita to cross the ward of protection and be nabbed by the demon king Ravana.

"The Rakshasi, Trijatha, was kind and compassionate and had the gift of prophecy."

Hanuman shows up.