The Ramayana's ending is the reason lamps are lit, but the epic's later chapters are where the tradition argues with itself: after the rescue, Rama subjects Sita to a fire ordeal and then exiles her anyway on the strength of gossip. Regional retellings differ sharply — some omit it, some center it, and Tamil, Bengali, Thai, and Indonesian versions each shift the emphasis. The scholar A.K. Ramanujan's point stands: there is no single Ramayana, and treating one telling as the original is itself a modern move.