The movie controversy, the many forms of Sita, and the story of Hanuman’s rings reveal a much bigger world.
The new Ramayana movie has brought the epic back into everyday conversations. And, as often happens when a story as deeply cherished as the Ramayana is brought to the screen, not everyone is happy with what they see.
One particular point of discussion has been the portrayal of Sita fighting alongside Rama. For some viewers, this feels unfamiliar. The Sita they grew up hearing about was gentle, courageous, and steadfast, but not someone who took up arms on a battlefield.
Others have pointed out that there are lesser-known versions of the Ramayana in which Sita is portrayed very differently — even as a formidable warrior.
It made me wonder: Are we debating the character of Sita, or are we debating the version of the Ramayana we have always known?
Because perhaps there is something many of us have overlooked. The Ramayana is not simply one story that has been passed down unchanged through generations. It is a vast storytelling tradition, interpreted and retold across languages, regions, cultures, and centuries.
And the more you explore it, the more fascinating it becomes.
Which Sita are we talking about?
Most of us have grown up with a familiar image of Sita: the daughter of King Janaka, raised in Mithila, married to Rama, and eventually taken to Lanka by Ravana.
In the Valmiki Ramayana, Janaka discovers Sita while ploughing a field. This is why she is associated with the earth and is also known as Janaki, Vaidehi, and Maithili. Her association with Mithila and present-day Janakpur is deeply rooted in tradition.
But what about the idea of Sita as a warrior?
It is worth being careful here. The Valmiki Ramayana does not establish that Sita received formal training in warfare. In the episode where Rama faces Khara and Dushana in the forest, Rama asks Sita and Lakshmana to take shelter while he confronts the attackers himself.
That, however, is not the end of Sita’s story across the wider Ramayana tradition.
In the Adbhuta Ramayana, we encounter a strikingly different manifestation of her power.
In this telling, Rama faces a thousand-headed Ravana, often called Sahasramukha Ravana. When Rama is overwhelmed, Sita reveals a terrifying divine form as Mahakali and defeats the demon herself.
This is not simply the familiar battlefield scene with Sita added to it. It is a different theological and literary vision of Sita — one in which she is revealed as an expression of the supreme feminine divine.
The contrast is remarkable.
The Sita we know from one telling and the Sita who manifests as Mahakali in another are not necessarily competing characters. They reflect different ways of understanding the same figure.
Perhaps that is the first thing worth remembering when we discuss how Sita should be portrayed.
The Ramayana we grew up with isn’t the only one
When someone says the Ramayana, most of us immediately think of Valmiki’s epic, or perhaps Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, which has shaped the devotional imagination of generations.
But the story travelled far beyond those texts.
There is Kamban’s Tamil Ramayanam. There are Jain retellings, Buddhist Rama traditions, and versions from across Southeast Asia. Thailand has its Ramakien. Cambodia has the Reamker. Different languages and cultures have carried the story forward, sometimes changing its emphasis, its characters, and even the way familiar events unfold.
These are not all straightforward translations of one original work. They emerge from different religious traditions, literary styles, philosophical ideas and cultural settings.
Some versions place greater emphasis on Rama’s divinity. Others explore Sita, Ravana or Hanuman from perspectives that may feel unfamiliar to readers of the version they grew up with.
Even Sita’s origins and parentage have been interpreted differently in some traditions.
That does not mean every version says the same thing, or that every retelling has the same standing within every religious community. It simply means the Ramayana has never been limited to a single literary expression.
We see this tradition of reinterpretation continuing even today. Devotional songs, performances, and contemporary films introduce familiar characters and stories to new audiences, sometimes encouraging us to look at them from a different perspective.
The viral Parvati song from Hanuman Ansh is one such example. I explored the meaning behind the song and the story it draws from in The Meaning Behind the Parvati Song from Hanuman Ansh.
And then there is a story about Hanuman that, to me, captures this idea beautifully.
When Hanuman went looking for Rama’s ring
There is a fascinating story, told in different forms, about Rama’s ring and Hanuman’s journey to the netherworld.
In one popular telling, the time has come for Rama to leave the earthly world. Yama, the god of death, needs to meet him, but Hanuman is guarding Rama’s palace. Knowing Hanuman’s devotion, Rama needs a way to send him away for a while.
So Rama lets his ring fall through a tiny crack in the floor.
He asks Hanuman to retrieve it.
Hanuman, capable of changing his size, becomes small enough to enter the crack and descends into the netherworld. There, he begins searching for the ring.
But what he finds is extraordinary.
He is shown a collection of rings — not one or two, but countless identical rings. Each looks just like Rama’s.
Hanuman is confused. Why would there be so many rings belonging to his Rama?
In the version recounted by scholar A. K. Ramanujan in his essay Three Hundred Ramayanas, Hanuman is told that each ring belongs to a different Rama. When one Rama’s time on earth comes to an end, his ring falls into the netherworld. Hanuman’s journey is therefore part of a cycle that has happened before, and will happen again.
By the time Hanuman returns, the Rama he knew has departed.
It is a beautiful and slightly unsettling story. The devoted Hanuman, who believed he was serving the one and only Rama, discovers a much larger cycle of Ramas and their stories.
It is important to mention that the popular version involving Yama and Hanuman guarding Rama is not identical to Ramanujan’s version of the ring story. These are different tellings that share the image of the ring and the journey below the earth.
And this story is not a passage from Valmiki’s Ramayana. It belongs to the wider world of Ramayana retellings.
But perhaps that is precisely why it belongs in this conversation.
Hanuman’s devotion to Rama has been celebrated in countless prayers and devotional compositions. One such composition is the Hanuman Ashtak, which explores his strength, courage, and unwavering devotion. I have also explored its verses and significance in Hanuman Ashtak: Meaning, Significance and Verses.
What does the story of the rings really tell us?
I don’t think we need to treat the story as proof of one particular interpretation of time or the universe. Its power lies in the questions it leaves us with.
What if there have been many Ramas, many journeys and many tellings?
What if a story can remain recognisable while changing as it travels from one generation to another?
And what if the version we know is only one way of entering a much larger world?
Think about how the Ramayana has travelled. A story told in one language becomes a poem in another. A regional tradition gives a character a different emphasis. A storyteller brings forward a detail that another version barely mentions. A family passes down the version it has heard for generations.
Over time, these stories become part of people’s memories, festivals, performances, prayers and identities.
That is how an epic stays alive.
Of course, this does not mean every modern adaptation should be beyond criticism. Filmmakers can take creative liberties, but audiences are also entitled to ask which tradition an adaptation draws from and why a particular choice was made.
There is a difference between exploring an unfamiliar interpretation and presenting it as though it appears in every version of the epic.
We can respect the many Ramayana traditions and still have a meaningful discussion about how they are represented.
Perhaps the more interesting response to an unfamiliar portrayal is not to dismiss it immediately, but to ask where it comes from.
Perhaps there isn’t just one Ramayana
The story of Hanuman and the rings has stayed with me because of what it suggests.
Perhaps Hanuman’s greatest discovery in that netherworld wasn’t the loss of Rama’s ring.
It was the discovery that the story he had devoted his life to was part of something much larger.
There had been other Ramas. Other journeys. Other tellings.
We may have grown up listening to one Ramayana. Our parents and grandparents may have known another version through a regional telling, a performance or a story passed down at home. Somewhere else, someone may have grown up with a very different Sita, a different Ravana or a different understanding of Hanuman.
And perhaps that is the beauty of this epic.
It has travelled through centuries, languages, kingdoms and generations. Each has found something different in its characters, while keeping the story alive.
We don’t have to agree with every interpretation. We don’t even have to like every adaptation.
But perhaps we can be a little more curious about the stories we haven’t heard.
After all, if Hanuman could discover countless rings belonging to countless Ramas, perhaps we too can make room for the possibility that the Ramayana is much bigger than the version we remember.
So, is there just one Ramayana?
Perhaps the better question is: how many are we yet to discover?
