The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c14.s2.7

c14.s2.7

The *Uttararāmacarita*¹ is based on the last and late book of the *Rāmāyaṇa*. Janaka has departed; Sītā enceinte is sad and Rāma is consoling her. News is brought from Vasiṣṭha; he bids the king meet every wish of his wife, but rank first of all his duty to his people. Lakṣmaṇa reports that the painter, who has been depicting the scenes of their wanderings, has finished; they enter the gallery, and live over again their experiences, Rāma consoling Sītā for her cruel separation from her husband and friends; incidentally he prays the holy Gaṅgā to protect her and that the magic arms he has may pass spontaneously to his sons. Sītā, wearied, falls asleep. The Brahmin Durmukha, who has been sent to report on the feeling of the people, reveals that they doubt Sītā's purity. Rāma has already promised Sītā to let her visit again the forest, scene of her wanderings; he now decides that, when she has gone, she must not return, and the command is obeyed. Act II shows an ascetic Ātreyī in converse with the spirit of the woods, Vāsantī; we learn that Rāma is celebrating the horse sacrifice, and that Vālmīki is bringing up two fine boys entrusted to him by a goddess. Rāma enters, sword in hand, to lay an impious Çudra Çambūka; slain, the latter, purified by this death, appears in spirit form and leads his benefactor to Agastya’s hermitage. In Act III two rivers Tamasā and Muralā converse; they tell us that Sītā abandoned would have killed herself but Gaṅgā preserved her, and entrusted her two sons, born in her sorrow, to Vālmīki to train. Then Sītā in a spirit form appears, unseen by mortals; she is permitted by Gaṅgā to revisit under Tamasā’s care the scenes of her youth. Rāma also appears. At the sight of the scene of their early love, both faint, but Sītā, recovering, touches unseen Rāma who recovers only to relapse and be revived again. Finally Sītā departs, leaving Rāma fainting.