BEYOND THE CANON: VOLGA’S THE LIBERATION OF SITA AND THE ETHICS OF MARGINAL TRADITIONS

The Liberation of Sita (2010) by the contemporary Indian writer Volga is a radical, feminist retelling of the Ramayana that reconfigures the traditional ethical order of the epic. This chapter focuses on how The Liberation of Sita reinterprets the notion of dharma through a marginal, relational and experiential mode of ethical authority. Departing from the canonical interpretations of the epic, which locate moral authority in the tradition’s masculine, divine and royal sources, Volga’s retelling argues that the ethical life of the Ramayana may also be found in the lived experience and introspection of women in the epic, and through the solidarity they forge with each other. Drawing on feminist criticism, postmodern narrative theory and contemporary myth studies, this chapter demonstrates how The Liberation of Sita offers a postmodern and feminist reinterpretation of the Ramayana tradition in which the epic is not a rejection of dharma, nor a negation of the moral authority of the divine, royal and patriarchal, but a reconfiguration of dharma into an interior and dialogic practice of autonomy, empathy and collective ethical decision-making. The chapter is based on a close reading of the text, and argues that the marginal and relational ethical order of the Ramayana is made more explicit through the woman characters that Sita meets at the beginning of the story - Ahalya, Renuka, Surpanakha and Urmila. Volga’s narrative strategies, which incorporate elements of fragmentation, polyphony and interior monologue, further serve to decentralise the concept of a moral absolutist order in the epic. This chapter positions The Liberation of Sita within modern mythic practice that humanizes morality and reinterprets the relationship between duty, autonomy, and collective responsibility by reclaiming the epic as a forum for ethical inquiry rather than moral resolution.