Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  Janaka would respond, ‘The earth grants Janaka what he deserves. The fire grants Dashratha what he wants. I choose the destiny of daughters. He submits to the desire of sons.’

  Word of this reached a woman called Sulabha. In beautiful attire and beautiful form, she approached the king and demanded a private audience with him. Everyone wondered why.

  Sulabha noticed the king’s awkwardness and asked, ‘This land is called Videha, meaning “beyond the body”. I assumed the king of this land would value my mind more than my body. But I assumed wrong.’

  Janaka felt acutely embarrassed at being chastised so.

  Sulabha continued, ‘Humans are special. We have a mind that can imagine. With imagination we can, without moving, travel through space and time, conjure up situations that do not exist in reality. It is what separates humanity from the rest of nature. Such a mind is called manas, which is why humans are called manavas. You are a manava with male flesh and I am a manava with female flesh. We both see the world differently, not because we have different bodies, but because we have different minds. You see the world from one point of view and I see the world from another point of view. But our minds can expand. I can see the world from your point of view and you can see it from mine. Some, like Vibhandaka and Rishyashringa, instead of expanding the mind, use it to control nature through tapasya and yagna. They do not accept the world as it is. Why? Enquire into the human mind, Janaka, and you will better understand the flesh and the world around this flesh. That is veda, wisdom.’

  Inspired by these words, Janaka invited to his land all the rishis of Aryavarta to share the knowledge of the Vedas. They emerged from caves, from mountaintops, from riverbanks and seashores and travelled to Janaka’s court to exchange ideas and discover other ways of seeing the world. This conference of intimate conversations that would eventually broaden the gaze of humanity came to be known as the Upanishad.

  The Valmiki Ramayana does not name Sita’s mother. In Vimalasuri’s Jain Paumachariya, her name is Videha. In the Jain Vasudevahindi, her name is Dharini. The name Sunaina or Sunetra comes from later regional works.

  Sita’s father is identified as Siradhvaja Janaka in the Valmiki Ramayana to distinguish him from other Janakas. Siradhvaja means ‘he whose banner is a plough’. Kushadhvaja means ‘he whose banner is grass’. The Janaka kings of Videha were closely associated with agriculture.

  In the Jain Paumachariya, Sita has a twin brother called Bhamandala, while in the Vishnu and Vayu Puranas, she has a brother called Bhanuman, a name that closely resembles Hanuman’s. Not much is known about him.

  The meeting of Sulabha and Janaka is narrated in the Bhisma Parva of the Mahabharata. It describes how she enters his mind using yogic powers and how he resists. The name of the Janaka Sulabha meets is Dharmadhvaja, sometimes identified as Sita’s father.

  The idea of female monks and intellectuals was not unknown in Vedic times, but it was not actively encouraged. It is said that initially even the Buddha hesitated to include women in his monastic order, until he saw the pain of his stepmother at the death of his father and realized that pain is gender-neutral.

  Vedic hymns are used in three ways: in rituals, described in the Brahmanas; in solitary visualizations, described in the Aranyakas; and in intimate conversations, described in the Upanishads. All three thrived in the pre-Buddhist period. When Buddhism started waning in India after the fifth century CE, these works once again gained prominence because of the works of acharyas such as Shankara, Yamuna, Ramanuja and Madhava.

  Janaka is a common participant of the intimate conversations that make up the Upanishad. In the Brahmanas, the raja or king is the patron while the rishi or sage is the conductor. The Aranyakas are the works of rishis alone while in the Upanishads we find kings equally engaged.

  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, European scholars, with the memory of the Renaissance (scientific revolution) and Reformation (religious revolution) still fresh in their minds, tried to explain Indian intellectual development along similar lines, with ritualistic priests being overthrown by intellectual kings like Janaka and the Buddha. Such classification and progression is more imposed than accurate. While the tension between the monk, the household priest and the king is not in doubt, we find the ideas in the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads often mingling and merging. Revolutions are subtle in India, and the winner does not wipe out the loser; he simply takes the more dominant position. Thus Shiva, the monastic form of God, and Vishnu, the royal form of God, are two sides of the same coin.

  The Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads (pre-500 BCE) focus on taking the participant from the form (ritual and hymn) to formlessness (thought), a technique consistent in later-day Agama, Purana and Tantra literature (post-500 CE).

  The Upanishad

  Sita attended the conference with her father, at first clinging on to his shoulders, then seated on his lap, and finally following him around, observing him engage with hundreds of sages, amongst them Ashtavakra, Gargi and Yagnavalkya.

  When Ashtavakra was still in his mother’s womb, he had corrected his father’s understanding of the Vedas. Infuriated, his father had cursed him to be born with eight bends in his body, hence his name, one who has eight deformities. ‘Without realizing it, I threatened my father,’ Ashtavakra said to Janaka. ‘Animals fight to defend their bodies. Humans curse to defend their imagination of themselves. This imagined notion of who we are, and how others are supposed to see us, is called aham. Aham constantly seeks validation from the external world. When that is not forthcoming it becomes insecure. Aham makes humans accumulate things; through things we hope people will look upon us as we imagine ourselves. That is why, Janaka, people display their wealth and their knowledge and their power. Aham yearns to be seen.’

  Gargi was a lady who questioned everything: ‘Why does the world exist? What binds the sky to the earth? Why do we imagine? Why do we flatter ourselves with imagination? Why does Dashratha yearn for sons? Why is Janaka satisfied with daughters? What makes one king so different from another?’ This angered many sages, who told her, ‘If you ask so many questions your head will fall off.’ But Gargi persisted, undeterred. She was hungry for answers. She did not care if her head fell off; she would grow a new head then, a wiser one.

  Yagnavalkya revolted against his own teacher who refused to answer questions. He refused to accept that the purpose of tapasya and yagna was to compel nature to do humanity’s bidding. He approached the sun-god, Surya, who sees everything, for answers. Surya explained to him how fear of death makes plants seek nourishment and grow towards sunlight and water. Fear of death is what makes animals run towards pastures and prey. At the same time, yearning for life makes animals hide and run from predators. But human fear is unique: fuelled by imagination, it seeks value and meaning. ‘Do I matter? What makes me matter?’

  Thus informed, Yagnavalkya shared his understanding of manas in the court of Janaka. ‘Every human creates his own imagined version of the world, and of himself. Every human is therefore Brahma, creator of his own aham. Aham Brahmasmi, I am Brahma. Tat tvam asi, so are you. We knot our imagination with fear to create aham. Tapasya and yagna are two tools that can help us unknot the mind, outgrow fear and discover atma, our true self.’

  ‘Tell me more about atma,’ said Janaka.

  Yagnavalkya said, ‘Atma is the brahman, a fully expanded mind. Atma is the mind that does not fear death or yearn for life. It does not seek validation. It witnesses the world as it is. Atma is ishwar, also known as Shiva, who performs tapasya, is self-contained and self-sufficient. Atma is bhagavan, also known as Vishnu, who conducts a yagna to nourish everyone even though he needs no nourishment.’

  ‘May Brahma’s head keep falling off till he finds the brahman,’ said Ashtavakra.

  ‘Who will facilitate this?’ asked Gargi.

  ‘The brahmin, transmitter of the Vedas,’ said Yagnavalkya.

  Vedic knowledge is contained in hymns composed in the Sanskrit language. T