Sita and Patriarchy: Why the Agni-Pariksha Still Fuels Women’s Resistance Today
For centuries, the story has been told as a tale of devotion. A queen returns after captivity. A husband demands proof. A fire becomes the judge. Purity is established. Order is restored. But what if we have been reading the wrong story? What if the Agni-pariksha was never really about Sita’s virtue? What if Sita Was Sita’s Agni-pariksha really a test of purity—or a reflection of society’s deep-rooted patriarchal anxieties? This article navigates Sita and Patriarchy one of the most debated episodes from the Ramayana through a contemporary feminist lens.
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[…] of endurance, and the figure subjected to one of the most painful tests of feminine virtue in the Ramayana. Yet there is another Sita waiting in the […]
[…] property. It belongs to the community, the lineage, the nation, the gods. Two iconic moments—Sita’s agni pariksha in the epic tradition and the later institutionalisation of sati—make the logic brutally clear. […]