The Ramayana- The Chapter of Beauty

This blog will focus on depictions of human beauty. I will begin with an extract from the Ramayana, a 3000 year old text from India, which had been passed down orally since pre-historical times. In its "Chapter of Beauty" (Sundra-Kanda) the ideal of beauty is manifested through the heroine Sita who, kidnapped by the demon Ravana is desolate in a garden guarded by his ogresses. She is described vividly in parallels to the natural world. The chanting of this chapter in this text of religious significance brings about a fulfillment of all wishes.

Here, the beauty of Sita is not simply the ideal beauty in a woman but symbolises ideal beauty in the world. I think this concept plays a part in ideal beauty in all cultures, the qualities they have show what is thought to be ideal in the world. Her inner beauty is the central image which these physical metaphors are used to describe.

‘Sita seemed to scorch the nearby vegetation with her deep sighs. Her beauty, now only faintly discernible, resembled a fire clouded by smoke. She was clad in a single yellow garment, resembling a pond without lotuses. Abashed and disconsolate, she was like the doe cut off from her herd and surrounded by a pack of hounds. Her hair was formed into a single braid (ek-veni), falling like a black serpent on her back. Seated on the ground like a branch fallen from a tree, she resembled a blurred memory or a fortune lost, a faith betrayed or a hope dashed, like a reputation lost due to false rumor.’
‘Looking here and there like a delicate fawn, Sita was barely discernible, like a Vedic text once learned by heart but now nearly lost through the lack of recitation. It was only with great difficulty that Hanuman was able to recognize her, because she was like a word whose meaning has changed due to inapt usage. Even then, keeping her faith, the firm lady looked no more agitated than the river Ganga, which however heavy the rainfall, never floods.’
‘Weighed down by grief, Sita was like a ship at sea burdened by heavy cargo. She resembled a star, whose positive karma now exhausted, had fallen down from heaven to the earth. Lacking in all ornaments, she was adorned only by the love for her husband. In the absence of her lord, she was rendered mute like an untouched vina.’
‘Her body was covered with dirt, however, she was adorned with her own physical beauty, thus, like a tender lotus stalk covered with mud she both lacked beauty and possessed it. She seemed to be a wave risen from the ocean of grief. Like a command disobeyed, or the skies aflame at the time of a catastrophe, she was like a river run dry. She resembled a pond ruined by elephants, its lotus blossoms and leaves torn up and the birds frightened away. This was the condition of Sita, like a little girl abandoned in the midst of desolate wilderness.’