Kanchana Sita is a 1961 play by renowned Malayalam playwright C. N. Sreekantan Nair

C. N. Sreekantan Nair

C. N. Sreekantan Nair was a Malayalam playwright. He is probably best known for his Ramayana trilogy - Kanchana Sita, Saketham and Lankalakshmi - based on the epic Ramayana...

. Nair took the inspiration for this play from the Uttara Kanda of Valmiki

Valmiki

Valmiki is celebrated as the poet harbinger in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself. He is revered as the Adi Kavi, which means First Poet, for he discovered the first śloka i.e...

's Ramayana

Ramayana

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...

. The play is the first of Sreekantan Nair's dramatic trilogy based on the Ramayana, the others are Saketham and Lankalakshmi. The play is about the tragedy of power, and the sacrifices that adherence to dharma demands, including abandoning a chaste wife. Kanchana Sita won the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award for the year 1962.

In 1977, G. Aravindan

G. Aravindan

Govindan Aravindan who was popularly known as G. Aravindan was a national award winning film director, screenwriter, musician and cartoonist from Kerala, India. He was known for his unorthodox way of film-making; he changed his cinematic forms consistently and experimented in story telling without...

 adapted the play into a film with same title

Kanchana Sita

Kanchana Sita is a 1977 Indian Malayalam feature-length film scripted and directed by G. Aravindan. A mythological film, its story was adapted from C. N...

. The film went on to become a great critical success and is regarded one of the best Indian films ever made.