66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

Rama explained that he had to adopt this trial in order to
demonstrate Sita’s purity beyond a shadow of doubt to the
whole world. This seemed a rather strange inconsistency on
the part of one who had brought back to life and restored to
her husband a person like Ahalya, who had avowedly
committed a moral lapse; and then there was Sugreeva’s
wife, who had been forced to live with Vali, and whom Rama
commended as worthy of being taken back by Sugreeva
after Vali’s death. In Sita’s case Ravana, in spite of
repeated and desperate attempts, could not approach her.
She had remained inviolable. And the fiery quality of her
essential being burnt out the god of fire himself, as he had
admitted after Sita’s ordeal. Under these circumstances, it
was very strange that Rama should have spoken harshly as
he had done at the first sight of Sita, and subjected her to a
dreadful trial.
The gods, who had watched this in suspense, were now
profoundly relieved but also had an uneasy feeling that
Rama had, perhaps, lost sight of his own identity. Again and
again this seemed to happen. Rama displayed the
tribulations and the limitations of the human frame and it was
necessary from time to time to remind him of his divinity.
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THE CORONATION