Sita's Abduction

Author's Note: The choices in this story were based on the tradition of the Maya Sita. In the Adhyatma Ramayana, an illusion of Sita takes the place of the real Sita as she hides in the fire for a year according to Rama's instructions. Because of this, the entire war against Ravana is really not about getting Sita back for Rama but about fulfilling his duty. It's really a very subtle change to the plot but it has a lot of implications for how the significance of the Ramayana is understood. As told in the Adhyatma Ramayana Sita is hidden well before the golden deer is spotted and the Maya Sita is actually the one that asks for it. I decided to make the real Sita spot the golden deer so that way it would read better alongside the version adapted from Narayan's Ramayana and create a critical choice. I found it very hard to condense the story while still including all the relevant pieces to the Maya Sita story and so I did have to make quite a few simplifications to the plots from both versions. I also made the stories to begin and end the same no matter which option you chose to show the common threads that link different versions of the Ramayana.