Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  Book One: Birth

  ‘She was born of the earth and raised amongst sages.’

  Foundling in the Furrow

  It was the start of the sowing season. The fences separated the farm from the jungle. Outside the blackbuck roamed free; within the farmer would decide what was crop and what was weed.

  The farmers invited their king Janaka to be the first to plough the land with a golden hoe. To the sound of bells and drums and conch-shell trumpets, the king shoved the hoe into the ground and began to till the land. Soft, moist earth, dark as the night sky, was pushed away on either side to reveal a furrow. As the furrow extended itself, firmly and fast, the king felt confident and the farmers were pleased.

  Suddenly the king stopped. The furrow revealed a golden hand: tiny fingers rising up like grass, as if drawn by the sunshine. Janaka moved the dirt away, and found hidden within the soft, moist earth a baby, a girl, healthy and radiant, smiling joyfully, as if waiting to be found.

  Was it an abandoned child? No, said the farmers, convinced it was a gift from the earth-goddess to their childless king. But this was not fruit of his seed – how could she be his daughter? Fatherhood, said Janaka, springs in the heart, not from a seed.

  Janaka picked up the infant, who gurgled happily in his arms. Placing her close to his heart, he declared, ‘This is Bhumija, daughter of the earth. You may call her Maithili, princess of Mithila, or Vaidehi, lady from Videha, or Janaki, she who chose Janaka. I will call her Sita, she who was found in a furrow, she who chose me to be her father.’

  Everyone felt gladness in their hearts. The ceremony was truly successful. The childless king had returned to the palace a father. No harvest could be better.

  Videha is located in modern-day Bihar (Mithila region) suggesting the narrative has the Gangetic plains as its base.

  Vedic hymns refer both to herding and agricultural activities. The ritual of tilling the soil was closely associated with the Vedic yagna Vajapeya that was meant for ‘vaja’ or food.

  Furrows do not exist in nature. Furrows indicate agriculture, the birth of human civilization. Sita then embodies the fruit of nature’s domestication and the rise of human culture.

  In the Vedas, there is reference to Sita, goddess of fertility.

  Janaka is a family name. The first Janaka was Nimi. His son was Mithi, who founded the city of Mithila.

  In the Mahabharata’s Ramopakhyan, Sita is Janaka’s biological daughter. In many regional versions, Sita is found in a box or the earth-goddess, Bhudevi, appears and gifts the child to Janaka. There are even versions such as the Jain Vasudevahindi and the Kashmiri Ramavatara-charita where Sita is actually a child of Ravana’s, cast away into the sea and passed from the sea through the earth to Janaka.

  In the Ananda Ramayana, Vishnu gives a king called Padmaksha a fruit that contains a baby, who is Lakshmi incarnate. She is named Padmavati who eventually becomes Sita.

  That Sita is not born from a mother’s womb makes her ‘ayonija’. Children born so are considered special. They defy death.

  A rationalist would say that Sita was perhaps a foundling, a girl child abandoned.

  The district of Sitamarhi in Bihar is associated with the field where Sita was ploughed out by Janaka.

  A Daughter Called Shanta

  Dashratha, king of Ayodhya in the land of Kosala, also had a daughter. Her name was Shanta, she who is peaceful. But she did not bring Dashratha peace, for he wanted sons.

  So Dashratha went north to Kekaya and asked King Ashwapati for his daughter’s hand in marriage. It was foretold the princess would bear an illustrious son. The king objected, ‘Kaushalya is already your wife, and has given you a daughter. If my Kaikeyi marries you she will just be a junior queen.’

  ‘But if she bears me a son, he will be king and she will be queen mother,’ argued Dashratha, to convince Ashwapati, who let him marry Kaikeyi.

  Unfortunately, Kaikeyi gave birth to neither son nor daughter. So Dashratha married a third time, a woman named Sumitra, but even she failed to produce a child.

  Dashratha was filled with despair. Who would he pass on the crown to? And how would he face his ancestors, in the land of the dead, across the river Vaitarni, for they would ask him if he had left behind sons who would help them be reborn?

  That is when Rompada, king of Anga, came to him and said, ‘My kingdom is struck with drought because Indra, ruler of the sky, god of rain, is afraid of one of my subjects, Rishyashringa, son of Vibhandaka, a mighty hermit. This same Rishyashringa, who causes drought in my kingdom, is, I am sure, the cause of your childlessness. The crisis will end only if my daughter succeeds in seducing this hermit and turns him into a householder, thus tempering his powers to Indra’s satisfaction. But I have no daughter, Dashratha. Let me adopt yours. And if she succeeds in bringing rain to Anga, I will make sure that Rishyashringa compels Indra to give you sons.’

  Suddenly, the daughter became the answer to Dashratha’s problem.

  The story of Shanta is elaborated in the Mahabharata and in many Puranas. In some versions, like the southern manuscript of the Valmiki Ramayana, she is the daughter of Dashratha adopted by Rompada and in other versions she is Rompada’s daughter with no association with Dashratha. The narratives are not clear if Kaushalya is the mother.

  In Upendra Bhanja’s Odia Baidehi-bilasa, courtesans led by Jarata seduce Rishyashringa and bring him on a boat to perform the yagna that brings rain to Anga. Mighty pleased, Dashratha offers his daughter, Shanta, and brings him to Kosala to perform a yagna that will give him sons. The story reveals a comfort with eroticism and courtesans who were part of the temple devadasi culture that thrived in coastal Odisha, especially in the Jagannath temple in Puri. Tulsidas in his Avadhi Ram-charit-manas, which was meant to serve as devotional literature, does not mention Rishyashringa at all. In the Sanskrit Adhyatma Ramayana, which focuses on metaphysics, Rishyashringa makes an appearance, but the tale of seduction is kept out.

  In a male-dominated society, when a couple does not bear a child, the problem is first attributed to the wife, and only then to the husband.

  In Hindu mythology, fertility of the land is closely linked with the fertility of the people who reside on the land, especially the king. Thus the story connects the failure of the rains with the failure of the king’s ability to father sons.

  The tale correlates drought with monastic practices. Celibacy affects the rains adversely. This reflects the discomfort with rising monastic orders. Even the hermit Shiva is turned into a householder, Shankara, by the Goddess, to ensure that the snow of the mountains melts to create a river – Ganga – on whose banks civilization can thrive.

  The Abduction of Rishyashringa

  Vibhandaka was called a rishi, a seer, because he saw what others did not. He knew that food turns into sap, then blood, then flesh, then nerve, then bone, then marrow and finally seed. When seed is shed, new life comes into being. No living creature has control over the shedding of their seed, except humans, especially men.

  When seed is retained in the body it turns into ojas. Ojas can be turned into tapa through the practice of tapasya. Tapa is fire of the mind, generated through meditation and contemplation. With tapa comes siddha, the power to control nature: the power to compel gods to bring down rain, make barren women fertile, sterile men virile, to walk on water and fly without wings. Vibhandaka was determined to perform tapasya, churn tapa, acquire siddha, control nature and make her dance to his tune.

  Fearful that Vibhandaka would succeed and use siddha against him, Indra sent an apsara, a damsel from his paradise, to seduce him. The mere sight of this apsara caused Vibhandaka to lose control of his senses. Semen squirted out of his body – much against his will – and fell on the grass. A doe ate this. So powerful was the semen that it made the doe pregnant. She gave birth to a human male child with antlers, who came to be known as Rishyashringa.

  Vibhandaka saw Rishyashringa as a symbol of his personal failure, and so raised him with rage and ambition, wi