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Agni test of Sita

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M. Tandy • December 7, 1998 


On Sun, 6 Dec 1998 bhakti-errors@lists.best.com wrote:
> 
> "Why did Lord Rama act so much out of character?", we ask ourselves. 
	Such inconsistency would naturally be doubted.


> Whatever may be our own misgivings about Rama's behaviour in the scenes
> leading to "Sita's agni-pravEsam" we must bear in mind that to the poet
> Valmiki himself what the Lord of Ayodhya said or did was NOT IN THE LEAST
> out of character ! 
	However, this is not to say that Valmiki Kavi wrote everything we
think he did; in light of the above question, but also based on the 
evidence of manuscripts, some scholars have concluded that the
Agni-pratIkSA is a later interpolation. See "The Fire Ordeal of Sita--A
Later Interpolation in the Ramayana?" by Nilmadhav Sen, Journal of the
Oriental Institute of Baroda, #1, 1952, pg. 201-6, and in the same journal
#5, 1955-6, G.H. Bhatt's The Fire Ordeal of Sita--An Interpolation in the
Valmiki Ramayana," pg. 292, if you're interested in the details of this
assertion.  
	
	MT