Aum Vasundharayai Namaha!

25

Sita

Sita is all creation and the gods of creation,

She is cause and effect, saints and demons, the elements, souls;

She is supreme virtue and supreme beauty,

The worlds are illumined by her form as the sun;

She adorns herself with lightning;

She is the evolving wheel of the cycles of time;

Merely by opening her eyes, she calls the worlds into being.

As her beautiful eyelids flutter closed,

The universe collapses.

She is the power of enjoyment, the tree of plenty,

The wish-fulfilling gem.

In two hands she bears fragrant lotuses,

Another hand signals the granting of boons,

While the fourth gestures, “Don’t be afraid”;

She is the goddess Lakshmi, seated in yoga posture

On her lion throne.

All the beauty you see around you is hers alone,

Yes, hers alone.

—BRAHMA IN THE SITA UPANISHAD

Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, was the prince of the kingdom of Kosala. He was the upholder of all dharmas in all fields of life. He is depicted as the perfect son, perfect brother, perfect husband, perfect king, and perfect man. His life shows that a person holding a high political position should always put his loyalty to his subordinates before his personal interests.

Rama married Sita, princess of the country of Videha. Sita was the model of wifely devotion and loyalty. Her love for Rama, unlike that of Radha, was based on strong marital ties. She is one of the most popular heroines in Hindu mythology and is always given as an example of the perfect wife to all young girls.

Whenever Vishnu takes an avatara, his consort Lakshmi also takes on a bodily form to be with him. Thus Sita was an incarnation of Lakshmi, though she is also said to be an incarnation of another of Vishnu’s wives, Bhudevi, or the earth deity.

The word sita means “furrow,” and we find that there was a female deity called Sita who was known prior to the story of Rama and Sita. She was associated with agriculture and fertility. The heroine Sita described in the sage Valmiki’s epic Ramayana may have been named after this deity, for we find that her origin is the earth. In one of the Vedic hymns addressed to the lord of the fields, the goddess Sita is invoked:

Auspicious Sita, come near,

We venerate and worship you,

That you might bless and prosper us,

And bring us abundant fruits.

In the Kausika-sutra, Sita is depicted as the wife of Parjanya, god of rain. She is said to be the mother of gods, mortals, and creatures and was invoked for growth and prosperity. In the Paraskara-sutra Sita is depicted as the wife of Indra, god of rain and fertility. In the yajnas or Vedic fire ceremonies, she, along with the other gods, was offered cooked rice and barley. In the Vajasaneyi Samhita, Sita was invoked by the drawing of four furrows on the sacrificial field. And the Purana known as Harivamsa gives Sita as one of the names of the goddess Arya, the earth goddess. Thus we notice that in the Vedas and Puranas, the goddess Sita has always had a close association with the earth and all its bounties.

Sita’s role is to make us aware of the necessity of a male power to awaken the fertility of the plowed earth and arouse and inseminate it. The beautiful interaction between divine and human is brought out in all the ancient stories concerning Sita. The fertility of the earth is the result of the interaction between sky (god) and earth (man), between male and female, between the latent powers of the field and the inseminating effects of the plow, which opens the earth for the insertion of seeds into her fertile interior. The esoteric meaning of this play is that human endeavor and noble actions are needed to ensure an unfailing supply of crops from the earth. If humans do not have this goodwill, the earth deity will withdraw all her goods into herself.

However, Sita was not a very significant deity prior to the Ramayana. In the Ramayana she is depicted as the daughter of Janaka, king of Videha. When taking part in a royal ritual in which he had to plow a sacrificial field, he found a baby girl in one of the furrows. Hence she was given the name Sita (furrow). She was the personification of the earth’s fertility, abundance, and well-being. Thus Sita was no mere human being. Her birth was supernatural and her abilities and appearance are exalted throughout the text. She was called ayonija (not born from a womb). She was deeply associated with the primordial powers of the earth.

Even as a child Janaka was astounded by Sita’s strength. She was able to lift a huge bow that normally could be lifted only by a hundred men. Janaka vowed that he would give her in marriage only to one who could lift and string the bow. When she came of marriageable age, it was found that only Rama, the prince of Kosala, was capable of this stupendous feat. He broke the bow and married the celestially beautiful Sita, who had already given her heart to him. Theirs was a love story beyond parallel. Rama’s love for Sita and hers for him has been the theme song of many bards from that day to this.

Despite their great love for each other, Sita and Rama’s story is one of sorrow from beginning to end. Thanks to the machinations of his stepmother, Rama’s father exiled him to the forest for fourteen years on the very eve of his coronation. Rama, being a noble soul, was unperturbed by his father’s command and prepared to go to the forest by himself. However, both his brother Lakshmana and his wife Sita insisted that they should be allowed to accompany him. When Rama pointed out the dangers of the forest to one as delicately nurtured as she, Sita replied that to a chaste woman, her husband was her god, and apart from him she might as well be dead:

For a woman, it is not her father, her son, her mother, her friends, or her own self but her husband who, in this world and the next, is ever her sole means of salvation. If thou dost enter the impenetrable forest today, O descendent of Raghu, I shall precede thee on foot. I shall happily live in the forest as I lived in the palace of my father, having no anxiety and reflecting only on my duties toward my lord. Ever subject to thy will, docile, living like an ascetic, in those honey-scented woodlands, I shall be blissfully happy, for you will be near me, O illustrious lord!

When Rama pointed out to her the dangers and rigors of forest life, her reply was, “The hardships described by thee will be transmuted into joys through my devotion to thee. Separated from thee I should immediately yield up my life. Which woman can live without her consort? Thou canst not doubt this truth where I am concerned. O Rama! I shall remain sinless by following piously in the footsteps of my husband, for thou art my god!”

For twelve years Rama and Sita led an idyllic life in the forest. In their thirteenth year of exile Sita was abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, and taken to his island kingdom. There she was severely tried by Ravana, who wooed her diligently. However, he dared not touch her, since he had been cursed that if he took a woman without her consent he would be struck dead.

With the aid of Sugriva, king of the monkeys, and his able general, Hanuman, Rama found out the whereabouts of Sita and went to Lanka. He defeated Ravana and rescued his beloved wife. But her trials were far from being over. Rama accused her of infidelity, and in order to prove her chastity, he asked her to undergo the ordeal of fire. Personally he had no doubts about her purity, but he knew that peoples’ tongues would wag and question the chastity of his queen, who had stayed for one full year in the Ashoka forest, which belonged to the notorious Ravana.

Sita was shocked at this accusation. She commanded Lakshmana to make a pyre for her. After having been publicly denounced by her husband, she felt it would be better for her to die. When the fire was blazing, she circumambulated Rama and prepared to jump into the flames.

She addressed Agni, god of fire, thus: “If my heart has never ceased to be true to Rama, do thou, O witness of all beings, grant me thy protection! As I am pure in conduct, though Rama looks on me as sullied, do thou, O witness of the worlds, grant me full protection!”

With these words she jumped into the blazing pyre, but because of her innocence and faultless purity, Agni refused to harm her and brought her out unscathed. Even her flower garland remained unwithered in the flames. Rama and Sita returned in triumph to Ayodhya, capital of Kosala, where the citizens were waiting with great joy to welcome them back.

All Puranic stories have esoteric meanings. In this particular story, Sita is the individual soul captured by the overpowering demonic forces of the material world. However, she never forgets her divine beloved. This play demonstrates that God will always protect a soul or jivatman that remains faithful to the Paramatman throughout the temptations of life and refuses to surrender to greed, lust, and power. He will rescue the jivatman and carry it back to its own world. God loves every soul as passionately as Rama loved Sita.

The union of Sita and Rama represents the interplay between a powerful and virtuous king with a woman who symbolizes the fecund forces of the earth. She was literally the child of the earth. The result of this auspicious relationship between kingly virility and earthly fertility was the kingdom of Rama, known as Ramarajya. His reign was characterized by harmony, longevity of the people, order, and abundant crops. Social, political, and economic virtues dominated this society where the ruler was the epitome of dharma and his wife the personification of womanly virtues.

Unfortunately for Sita, despite his passionate attachment to her, Rama placed his duty to his people and adherence to dharma before his duty as a husband. One was for the good of his country and people, whereas the other was for personal gratification. The welfare of his people was always held above his own pleasure. In one of his incognito expeditions through the streets of Ayodhya, Rama heard his wife being maligned. He recalled the old saying, “As the king, so the citizens.” It was the duty of the ideal king to set a perfect example to his people. When the people heard that he had taken back as his wife one who had lived in the court of another for a whole year, they were tempted to follow his example. Such behavior would lead eventually to the degeneration of the moral consciousness of the society. As the upholder of dharma, Rama was forced to banish Sita to the forest, even though he had just learned of her pregnancy. This bitter decision to part from his beloved wife was made for the sake of his subjects. He commanded Lakshmana to take her to the forest and leave her there.

Sita knew nothing of his decision and went joyfully with Lakshmana to the forest. She had desired to be taken for a while to the hermitage of the sages where she had spent so many happy years with her husband. Just before he left her, Lakshmana gave her the unhappy news that she had been banished by the king, her husband. Even when she heard of this bitter decree, Sita did not blame Rama. She sent a message to Rama through Lakshmana: “O Raghava, you know that I am truly pure. You have renounced me for fear of dishonor, because your subjects have reproached and censured you. I am not distressed on my own account. It is for you to keep your fair name untarnished. The husband is a god to a wife. He is her entire family and her spiritual preceptor. Even at the price of her life, she must seek to please her lord!”

Sita found protection in the hermitage of the sage Valmiki, author of the Ramayana, and there she gave birth to twin sons. Rama lived a lonely life in the palace and refused to take another wife, though both his priests and his subjects urged him to do so. He remained faithful to Sita in body and mind and refused to follow the trend of the age, in which kings were allowed to take numerous wives. When his sons were twelve years old, Rama once again considered taking Sita back. Valmiki urged Rama to meet with her. Rama was eager to do so, but yet again he asked her to undergo a public ordeal that would convince his subjects once and for all of her innocence.

However, Sita was fed up with life on this earth. She could bear no more, and she begged the earth, her mother, to take her back to her bosom: “If in thought, word, or deed I have ever dwelt on my husband Rama alone, may the earth goddess Madhavi receive me.”

As she said these words, the ground shuddered and split open. A throne twined with all the creepers and plants of the earth rose up from the ground. On this was seated the earth deity. Sita ran to her and was clasped to her bosom. The throne sank into the earth and the crack closed over it before the horrified eyes of the beholders. Rama ranted and raved and angrily demanded the earth to return his beloved to him, but the ground remained silent and closed.

Rama lived for many years after this as a recluse, though he continued with his duties as the perfect king and ruler. His life was lived in sorrow and he never took another wife, for Sita’s image was enshrined in his heart forever. He made a golden effigy of Sita and used it in her place in all the religious rituals that demanded a wife.

Sita’s steadfast loyalty to her husband makes her the model of the ideal wife. Her life was inextricably bound with that of her husband. Throughout the Ramayana, her only thought was of Rama’s welfare. Thus Sita represents all the good qualities of a chaste woman and an ideal wife. Although other goddesses like Parvati and Lakshmi express many of these qualities, Sita is by far the most popular and beloved as the paradigm for wifely devotion, forbearance, and chastity. The Ramayana is well known in every Hindu household, and Hindu ideals have been modeled on the examples given in this book.

The Hindu tradition teaches a woman to emphasize those points in her character that would make her a model daughter, mother, and wife. She is supposed to succumb to the demands of society and not impose her own demands on it, as the modern woman does. From childhood, women are taught to cultivate an attitude that subordinates their welfare to the welfare of others, especially that of their husband and children. This, of course, ensures an integrated society, since it produces a strong family unit that is the basic block of any social structure. The Hindu community in this manner is instructed by a mythology that provides numerous models and images to which the individual may aspire. In the case of a Hindu woman the model is condensed to just one character, and she is Sita.

The wedding of the eternal Lord and spouse,

Took place again on earth in human forms;

In a new act of the drama of the world,

The united two began a greater age.

In the silence and murmur of that emerald world,

And the mutter of the priest-wind’s sacred verse;

Amid the choral whisperings of the leaves;

Love’s twain had joined together and grew one.

The natural miracle was wrought once more;

In the immutable ideal world,

One human moment was eternal made.

—SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

Thus ends the twenty-fifth chapter of Shakti, known as “Sita,” which describes the greatness of Sita, the model of womanhood.

Aum Aim Hreem Kleem