Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  In the Valmiki Ramayana, while enlisting Ravana’s help, Surpanakha feels the need to describe Sita’s beauty. It is as if she instinctively knows that Ravana would not bother with avenging her insult unless there was something in it for him.

  Ashoka trees are evergreen and are sacred in classical Sanskrit literature. Its leaves were strung on doorways to invite the goddess of wealth. (Today, Ashoka leaves have been replaced by mango leaves.) People often confuse the Ashoka tree that has bright red-orange flowers with another tree, also called the Ashoka, a tall willowy tree that has green flowers.

  Valmiki’s Ramayana describes Sita in Lanka as a sunken boat, a broken branch and a lotus covered with mud.

  The Valmiki Ramayana refers to an old rakshasa woman called Trijata, a daughter of Vibhishana called Kala and another rakshasa woman called Sarama who are Sita’s friends. In later Ramayana s, Sarama is identified as Vibhishana’s wife, and Trijata becomes the embodiment of the friendly rakshasa woman, sometimes called Vibhishana’s daughter.

  In the tenth-century Indonesian Ramayana Kakawin (which means kavya or song in Old Javanese), and the thirteenth-century Sanskrit play Prasanna-Raghav by Jayadeva, Sita contemplates suicide by burning herself to death but is made to change her mind by Trijata.

  Family plays an important role in the Ramayana. Ram, Sita and even Ravana exist in a family ecosystem.

  A House and Wife for Ravana

  The women of Lanka told Sita that Ravana was the greatest devotee of Shiva.

  As Shiva was a hermit he did not know how to build a house. So Parvati asked him to commission an architect. Ravana was summoned as he was skilled in Vastushastra, the science of space. Ravana built a great palace atop Mount Kailas for Parvati, much to her delight. Pleased with the happiness Ravana had given his wife, Shiva offered him anything he desired. Ravana asked for the house itself, for it had turned out to be so beautiful that he just could not bear to part with it. So, much to Parvati’s annoyance, Ravana took away the palace he had built and placed it atop Mount Trikuta, right in the centre of Lanka.

  Ravana once created a lute for Shiva using one of his heads as the gourd, one of his arms as the beam and the nerves of his arm as the strings. Pleased with this instrument, Shiva offered Ravana whatever he desired. Ravana had seen a beautiful woman on Mount Kailas. ‘I want that woman as my wife,’ said Ravana. Shiva agreed, not realizing that Ravana had asked for Parvati. Parvati was not angry with Shiva, for she knew Shiva was so innocent that he did not know the distinction between a woman and a wife. But she was annoyed with Ravana for taking advantage of her husband’s innocence. So she asked Brahma to transform a female frog into a woman, her double. Mistaking this woman, who was named Mandodari, for Parvati, Ravana took her to Lanka and made her his queen.

  These tales did not impress Sita. ‘You call him the devotee of Shiva and yet he has no shame stealing the hermit’s house and even desiring his wife. Ravana, whose hunger seems insatiable, clearly has learned nothing from Shiva, who has outgrown all hunger!’

  ‘He is an expert in astrology. He has written the Ravana-samhita, which reveals how to predict the future by observing the movements of stars and planets and how to change the future using gemstones,’ said Trijata.

  ‘He who seeks to predict the future is insecure. He who seeks to control the future is insecure. Ah, your Ravana is so unlike my Ram,’ said Sita.

  When she learned how Lanka had been built by Kubera for the yakshas and how Ravana had driven him out and made this the home of rakshasas, Sita smiled, for she came from a household where brothers were eager to give each other the kingdom, not drive others away from it. Ravana-kula was no Raghu-kula. Ravana behaved like the territorial dominant beast who drives away rivals. Such behaviour was unbecoming of humans. It was certainly not dharma.

  Folk storytellers of Maharashtra narrate the story of Ravana craving Shiva’s house.

  The story of the frog (manduka, in Sanskrit) being turned into a woman (Mandodari) comes from Manduka Shabda, a dance composed for the thirteenth-century court dancer Lakumadevi by Jayapa Nayak, author of the Nritya Ratnavali. It was performed in the Kuchipudi style before the great Andhra emperor Krishnadevaraya in the seventeenth century.

  Mandor, near Jodhpur, Rajasthan, marks the spot where Ravana married Mandodari.

  All retellings of the Ramayana agree that Ravana is a great scholar with knowledge of the Vedas, Tantra, shastras and various occult sciences besides being an accomplished astrologer, doctor, musician and dancer. He is a super-achiever, far more charismatic and flamboyant than the serene Ram. Naturally, he does not understand why Sita prefers Ram to him.

  Indian philosophy separates what a man is from what he possesses. We are a set of thoughts and we have a set of things. Ram derives his strength from his thoughts, what he is, while Ravana derives his strength from his possessions, what he has. Ravana has knowledge; he may be learned, but he is not wise. Through Ravana, the bards draw attention to the learned brahmin priest who spouts hymns verbatim but fails to appreciate their meaning or transform himself because of them.

  Lal Kitab, a nineteenth-century Urdu book on Hindu astrology, palmistry and face-reading, is attributed to Ravana, king of Lanka, who lost the book because of his arrogance. It resurfaced in Arabia and was later brought to India by Persian scholars.

  Mandodari’s Daughter

  It was rumoured that long ago, before she became mother of Indrajit, Mandodari had borne a daughter. She had accidentally consumed a pot of blood thinking it was a pot of water. The blood was that of rishis, collected as tax by Ravana for a ritual meant to appease the Goddess and secure boons from her.

  When the girl was born, the astrologers foretold that she would cause the death of Ravana. So the child was put in a box and the box cast into the sea. ‘Did the sea-god give my daughter to the earth-goddess and did the earth-goddess give her to Janaka and did Janaka give her to Ram?’ wondered Mandodari, each time she saw Sita. And that is why she did everything in her power to make Ravana give up Sita.

  ‘A woman, it is foretold, will be the cause of your death,’ she told Ravana.

  Mandodari reminded him of the woman Vedavati, who had burned herself to death rather than submit to the passionate embraces of Ravana. Had she not sworn that she would kill Ravana in her next life?

  Mandodari reminded him of Rambha, the nymph who was the wife of Nalkubera, Kubera’s son. Ravana had forced himself on her and Nalkubera had cursed him that if he forced himself on a woman again his head would burst into a thousand pieces.

  Every night Mandodari and the women of the city sang for Ravana and danced for him and pleasured him in every way, hoping to make him get over his obsession with Sita. But the more she said no, the more he desired her.

  ‘When bad times come,’ Mandodari remembered the wise men saying, ‘we are unable to stop ourselves from doing stupid things.’

  The story of Sita being Mandodari’s daughter hence Ravana’s can be traced to the ninth-century Jain text Uttarpurana by Gunabhadra.

  The Tibetan Ramayana and Khotan Ramayana speak of peasants and sages finding the abandoned girl. In the Kashmiri Ramayana, the abandoned girl is found and raised by Janaka.

  In the Javanese Serat Khanda, Mandodari is asked to abandon the child which is destined to kill her husband and Vibhishana replaces the child by creating an infant from the clouds. This child is called Meghnad, born of the clouds and so sounding like the clouds.

  In the Dashavatara-charita of Kshemendra, Ravana finds a baby girl inside a lotus and gives her to Mandodari. But Narada warns Mandodari that Ravana will fall in love with the girl when she grows up, so Mandodari discards the girl in a box which is found by Janaka who adopts her as his daughter.

  In the Sanskrit Adbhut Ramayana, Ravana collects the blood of sages as tribute since they have nothing else to give him. Mandodari accidentally drinks this blood and becomes pregnant with Sita who she aborts and buries under the ground at Kurukshetra. Janaka eventually finds Sita and take