Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  The golden deer marks the end of happiness. The next time Ram and Sita meet is after the war, when issues of fidelity and social propriety strain their relationship.

  The motif of the two-headed deer is commonly seen in miniature cloth paintings from Odisha. It is also found in the Ramayana of the Bhils who live in Gujarat.

  The idea of Sita wanting Ram to capture or hunt a deer is not acceptable to many storytellers and so in the Bhil Ramayana (Ram-Sita-ni-varta) we are told that the two-headed golden deer destroys Sita’s garden, upsetting Sita, and Ram is so angry that he decides to pursue and hunt the deer.

  The deer is Maricha, a shape-shifting rakshasa, an innocent victim of the war between Ram and Ravana. He represents the common servant who is sacrificed in the fight of the masters.

  Sita uses all her wits to force the obedient Lakshman to disobey. Frightened, she accuses him of an emotion that is most foul. Since Sita has been positioned as the epitome of female virtue that she would even articulate such a thought is unacceptable to many.

  The custom of a widowed sister-in-law becoming the wife of the younger brother-in-law is common in many communities across India, especially in the north-west and the Gangetic plains. It remains an ambiguous relationship, one of caretaker and child when the husband is alive and one of dependant and support when the husband is dead. The sexual tension between the two is alluded to in many folk songs. This idea becomes explicit later in the narrative when Sugriva takes Tara as his wife after Vali is killed, and Vibhishana takes Mandodari after Ravana is killed.

  In the Valmiki Ramayana, there is no mention of the Lakshman-rekha. It is first mentioned in the Telugu and Bengali Ramayana s written over a thousand years after the Valmiki Ramayana was composed. Many early Sanskrit plays that describe Sita’s abduction do not mention this line.

  In Buddha Reddy’s Telugu Ranganatha Ramayana, Lakshman draws seven lines across the ground in front of Sita’s hut, not one, and these lines spit fire each time Ravana tries to cross them.

  Feeding the Hermit

  Shortly after Lakshman left, a rishi with his body smeared with ash came to Sita’s hut with a bowl in his hand. ‘Are you the bride of that unfortunate scion of the famous Raghu clan, Ram?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Sita.

  ‘The noble Raghu clan, famous for its hospitality?’ he reconfirmed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you will surely take care of me. I have not eaten for several days and have found neither an edible berry nor a root or a shoot in this wretched forest. I beg you to feed me any morsel that you may have left in the house.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Sita.

  ‘I cannot,’ said the rishi. ‘I see no man beside you. They must have gone to the forest or the river. You are alone in the house. It would be inappropriate to come in. Someone may accuse you of being a Renuka or an Ahilya. No, it is better that you come and feed me.’ The rishi spread the hide of a blackbuck on the ground and sat at a distance from the hut, ready to receive his meal.

  Sita collected the fruits and berries from within and was about to step out when she remembered the line drawn around the hut. She was suddenly confronted with a dilemma. As long as she stayed inside the line, she was safe. Outside she was vulnerable.

  But if the rishi was not fed he would go around the forest maligning the reputation of the Raghu clan because of her, the eldest daughter-in-law. ‘They call themselves noble but refuse to leave their house to feed hungry sages. When you meet a member of the Raghu clan, remember Sita, and do not expect any hospitality,’ he would say. What was more important, herself or the reputation of the Raghu clan, she wondered. She had to risk vulnerability.

  So Sita crossed the line drawn by Lakshman, to feed the rishi.

  Ravana looked at her and smiled, ‘Inside the line you were someone’s wife. Outside you are just a woman for the taking.’

  Sita screamed. He grabbed her arm, tossed her over his shoulder and summoned his chariot. It had the power of flight!

  Though the Valmiki Ramayana leaves no doubt that Ravana grabbed Sita physically, in many regional versions, written over a thousand years later, Ravana does not touch Sita. In Kamban’s Ramayana, he picks up the ground under Sita and carries her along with the hut to Lanka. These versions suggest that in medieval times, the concept of contamination and pollution through touch had gained more prominence in Indian society.

  That Ravana is in love with Sita is a common theme, especially in South Indian retellings. Ram is the restrained, civilized, faithful beloved who follows the rules, while Ravana is the unrestrained, passionate lover who cannot handle rejection.

  In Shaktibhadra’s ninth-century Sanskrit play Ascharya-chudamani, Ram and Sita are given gifts by sages: Ram a ring and Sita a hairpin. These ornaments are special. As long as the two wear them, no demon can touch them and they can reveal demons who use magic disguises. In the play, Ravana approaches Sita not in the form of a hermit but in the form of Ram on a chariot with Lakshman as his charioteer, and tells Sita that they have to rush to Ayodhya which has been invaded by enemy forces. Sita believes him and steps on to his chariot. Ravana does not touch Sita fearing the hairpin, but when Sita touches Ravana, Ravana is forced to reveal his true form. Likewise, Surpanakha meets Ram in the form of Sita. She cannot touch him as he wears the special ring, but when he touches her, she sheds her disguise and reveals her demonic form.

  The story goes that the playwright Shaktibhadra presented his play based on the life of Ram to the great Vedanta scholar Shankara. Shankara had taken the vow of silence and so did not say anything on reading the work. Assuming this to mean displeasure, Shaktibhadra burnt his text in disappointment. When Shankara finally broke his vow of silence and praised the work, Shaktibhadra revealed what he had done. Miraculously, by the grace of Shankara, Shaktibhadra was able to recite the entire play from memory.

  Ravana’s chariot, or rather Kubera’s chariot, is called Pushpak Vimana. It is a vimana, or chariot that has the power of flight, leading one to believe that ancient Indians knew aeronautics. In fact, long essays have been written of how this ancient airplane would have been fuelled. It is seen as proof of India’s great technological achievement in ancient times.

  In Sinhalese, Ravana’s chariot is called Dandu Monara, which means flying peacock. In Sri Lanka, Weragantota, about 10 km from Mahiyangana, is identified as Ravana’s airport.

  The Wings of Jatayu

  Sita did not know who this strange rishi was. Was he a rishi at all?

  ‘Know this, pretty one, I am Ravana, king of Lanka, brother of the woman your husband mutilated, leader of the men your husband killed. You are the penalty of his crimes. When he returns to the hut, you will not be there and there will be no footprints for him to follow. He will search around the forest for years in futility like a lovesick fool and then, realizing that you have been taken by some beast or bird, he will come to terms with your loss and find comfort in another woman, probably my sister, who seems so infatuated by him despite the way he has treated her.’

  Sita refused to look at her abductor. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her wail and whimper in fear. She looked below – a carpet of trees, they were indeed flying. Sita wondered if he was taking her to Amravati, the city of the gods.

  Reading her mind, Ravana said, ‘I am taking you to the most wonderful place on earth, to Lanka, the city of gold, located in the middle of the sea, far from all human habitation.’

  Sita felt a mixture of fear and sorrow. Not for herself but for Ram and Lakshman. Her absence would make them anxious, fill them with guilt and shame. They were warriors, after all, proud men who would feel they had failed in their duty. And she wondered who would feed them when they returned from the hunt, who would provide them water to quench their thirst and make ready a bed of grass for them to rest on. Sita felt miserable about the situation Dashratha’s sons would find themselves in, rather than her own. She would manage; would they?

  She wondered how Ram would know