#they weren't about to write about barbarian women any more than they did about Greek women

[lightdancer1]

Sita is the archetypal form of Lakshmi, in one sense:

Out of all the avatars of Vishnu, Rama is the one who happens to have had the most direct impact on Hindu self-perception. The Ramayana, which includes the Bhavagad Gita, is considered by most Hindus to be the Indian national epic. As Rama is an avatar of Vishnu, so is Sita of Lakshmi. The role of Sita, taken captive by the Asura King Ravana, and the war fought over her between Rama and Ravana, is a woman who adhered to all the various aspects of Dharma asked of a noble Hindu woman.

She also dies unjustly and dies for her husband's honor, showing the idea behind Sati, if not quite Sati, is deeply interwoven into the warp and weft of Hinduism. And indeed, the greatest act of tyranny of colonizing and imperialist forces is not the mass murders and sacking of Hindu temples in the eyes of today's Hinduvta fascism, it's....Sati bans. That's why they hate the British, that's why they hate Aurangzeb.

Sati also illustrates a fundamental rule of Hindu ideology, one challenged by both Islamic-Indian culture (which stands unique in the Muslim world in permitting a role for women that doesn't even exist in theory elsewhere, let alone practice) and the future colonialism of European nations. Namely that a good Hindu woman, like the good Christian woman of times past, defines herself solely in the sight and in the shadow of men and has no existence outside of that.