Seetha Amman Temple

I continue to mine pictures from my criminally over-burdened phone, this time, inexplicably, from the student trip to India and Sri Lanka in March 2017. As my students will attest, it always comes back to the Ramayana. I've been thinking a lot about the Ramayana lately because, well it is the Ramayana, but also because if I don't get serious about finishing this damn book the idea will outlive me. Plus, our Core curriculum at Champlain as we know it is disappearing, and it also means that amazing courses like Heroines & Heroes will fade away. Not only is it a fascinating course to teach, but it was also a wonderful fit for travel courses. Our Spring 2017 Ramayana-themed Heroines & Heroes trip to India and Sri Lanka, while exhausting and fraught with some travel-related near-disasters, was the most tightly-constructed and success trip I've ever run. If Heroines & Heroes disappears I really should run this specific course and trip again, which would form a very noble send-off.  Here are some pictures from Sri Lanka of the Seetha Amman Temple. It's officially a Sita temple, but, quite naturally, also celebrates the story of Rama in its entirety. It was also the spot where our Sri Lankan guide and friend Sudarshana Parera finally told the students the "other" story of the Rama, the one where Ravanna was the hero. It was the about the most brilliantly teachable moment of my entire career. My student Max turned to me in amazement and asked, "Did you know this?" And, of course, the answer was yes, but I thought it would be more powerful coming from a Sri Lankan in Sri Lanka than from me in a classroom in Burlington, Vermont.

The extraordinary iconography at the temple. It was another blisteringly hot and humid day in Sri Lanka, and we happily reached the temple in the morning.

Hanuman. It's never simply a monkey when he is carrying a massive mace.

Rama: the unquestioned hero to all Indians. The Sri Lankans view the story differently.

And Rama's wife Sita. This was officially a temple dedicated to her, and it featured many of the events of her capture and rescue from Lanka.

Rama, Sita and Laksmana.

And while Ganesha played no role in the Ramayana, he made an appearance.

Strips as cloth as offerings and appeals for good fortune.

The very large footprints left by Hanuman as he, in his giant form, jumped from India to Lanka.

It was Hanuman who found the kidnapped Sita. He offered to carry her back, but she refused because it would have been an affront to Rama's honor, and so she waited for her beloved to arrive.