Setubandha

Author(s): Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 50

INTRODUCTION
and tells her that Rāma has crossed over to Lankā, and that the severed head was a magical trick. She declares her willingness to sacrifice her life for Sita, and offers to carry a message to Rāma; but instead, at the request of Sītā, goes and overhears the deliberations of Rāvaņa with his ministers, and returns to report his decision to fight to death'. The episode of the severed head ends here in the Rāmāyaṇa. In the fighting that ensues, Sītā is brought by Trijatā in the aerial car Puşpaka under the orders of Rāvaņa to witness Rāma and Laksmana lying on the battlefield apparently dead, pierced by the serpent arrows of Indrajit. For the second time Sītā bewails the death of Rāma; and Trijatā consoles her by explaining the signs indicating that they are alive'.
Pravarasena makes a few modifications in the Rāmāyana narrative, and reshapes the materials into a coherent picture of the deception of Rāvana, Sītā’s grief and Trijatā's consolation to her. The course of events that had led Trijatā to re her dreams in the Sundarakānda is outside the scope of the Setubandha, but the gist of the dreams appears in her comforting words to Sītā is our poem (11.129, 130). In the Rāmāyaṇa Rāvaņa goes to the Asoka grove and tells Sila a concocted story of Rāma having been killed in his sleep in a night attack on his camp, and asks Vidyujjihva to show the severed head, which he says has just been brought from the scene of fighting; while he himself throws before Sīlā the famous bow of Rāma. In the Setubandha the magic head is quietly taken to the grove by the demons and left in front of Sītā who is shocked at its sudden appearance. More conspicuous is the absence of Saramā and her kindly services. In the Setubandha her place is taken by the more familiar Trijatā. Pravarasena
1 Rāmāyana 6. 22-25. 2 ibid. 6. 37–38.