Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  Shiva then said, ‘When yagna is done without tapasya, we exploit other people’s hunger to satisfy our own. Thus a corrupt society comes into being.’

  ‘Indeed. Tapasya is like the shaft of the bow. Yagna is like the string of the bow. Individually, they do not create the bow. To create the bow, the shaft has to bend and the string has to become taut.’

  ‘Too loose, the bow is useless. Too tight, the bow will break,’ said Shiva repeating Vishnu’s words when Prithu became king.

  ‘Come, let us create the bow that joins yagna and tapasya. Let this be the symbol of all relationships, of man and woman in marriage, of king and kingdom in kingship.’ So saying the Goddess took the form of Parvati, daughter of the mountains, and led Shiva down the slopes to the bustling city of Kashi on the riverbank. Here she became Annapoorna, goddess of food, and he transformed from Shiva, the hermit who has no hunger, to Shankara, the householder who cares for the hunger of others.

  From their conversations came a bow. He who could string this bow would be the perfect king. Shiva gave the bow to Janaka, patron of the Upanishad. Vishwamitra was keen that his students should see this bow, though he was not sure they would be able to string it. But there was no harm in trying.

  In 1609, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary named Jacobo Fenicio, who lived in the court of the Zamorin of Calicut and travelled the Malabar Coast, put together the first well-researched document on Hindu mythology for Western audiences (though the work of a plagiarist called Baldeus dated 1672 became more popular). In it, he records an oral retelling of Sita’s birth. Shiva serves Lanka for a while as its guardian and one day drops some ash near one of its gates from which springs a great tree. A branch of that tree finds its way to Mithila where Janaka sets it aflame as part of a yagna. From the fire emerges a girl, Sita, bearing a bow. The bow bears an inscription that she would marry the man who would break the bow.

  It is significant that Shiva, the god who knows no hunger, who lives atop Mount Kailas, a mountain of stone covered with snow with no vegetation, has as his wife Shakti, who is worshipped as Annapoorna, goddess of food, in Kashi, the city on the riverbank. Her kitchen is where the hermit and the householder make peace, for the hermit may not be hungry but he needs to be compassionate enough to care for those who are not hermits like him. He may burn Kama, the god of desire, and become Kamantaka, destroyer of desire, but she is Kameshwari, and Kamakhya, the goddess who appreciates and satisfies desire.

  Shiva and Shakti have two sons: Ganesha, the elephant-headed scribe, who satisfies those who seek food, and Kartikeya, the six-headed warrior, who defends those who fear they will become food. Thus with Shiva by her side, Shakti creates a forest where both predator and prey are happy.

  Sita Picks Up the Bow

  The bow of Shiva was so heavy that even a dozen men could not pick it up. So it was hauled on to a cart and taken to the armoury of Mithila where it was kept, admired from a distance by all the warriors who passed through the land. Every day Janaka would smear it with ash and light lamps around it in reverence.

  One day, Sita entered the armoury with her three sisters and a dozen maids. She had been given the responsibility of cleaning the entire palace. ‘Make sure no corner, no courtyard, no pillar, no wall, no roof or floor goes unattended. And don’t forget the weapons. They need to be wiped, so that the wood does not gather mould, and the metal does not rust,’ her mother had said. While the other girls busied themselves wiping the swords, the spears, the knives, the shields, the arrows, the bows and the maces, Sita headed straight for Shiva’s bow.

  ‘That’s too heavy,’ said one of the maids, ‘no man can pick it up.’

  ‘Still it needs to be cleaned,’ said Sita, effortlessly picking up the bow with one hand and vigorously wiping its undersurface with the other.

  News of this amazing feat reached the king and the queen. They rushed to the armoury and asked Sita to pick up the bow again. She did it with great ease, wondering what the fuss was all about.

  ‘She is too strong. Who will marry her now?’ wondered her mother with a smile on her face but concern in her heart.

  ‘Someone who is equally strong, or maybe stronger,’ said her father.

  ‘And wise,’ said Sunaina, knowing how much Janaka valued wisdom over strength. ‘The perfect king.’

  Janaka sent word across Aryavarta to kings and princes, inviting them to Mithila to string the bow of Shiva and claim both the bow and his daughter. Unlike in the Upanishad, when the city was full of sages seeking wisdom, the city was now full of princes who were motivated by power, property and pleasure.

  Many came, many tried, all failed.

  Amongst the many men who came to the city to pick up the bow was a man who came from faraway Lanka. He was taller than any man in the city, and his hair was thick and curly, his chest wide and his stomach firm. He smeared his body with ash, an indicator that he admired Shiva. No one looked at his face; his stare was so intense that everyone around him lowered their eyes. The man bent down to pick up the bow of Shiva and almost succeeded, but then he sneered, and lost balance; the bow pinned him to the ground like an angry python.

  Janaka and his warriors rushed to his aid, but failed to pull him out from underneath. As the ash-smeared, fiery-eyed stranger gasped for breath, Sita was sent for. She picked up the bow with one hand, and kept it aside. The man was not grateful. He roared, ‘If I could not pick up this bow, then no man can. Your daughter will die a lonely spinster, Janaka.’

  Unflustered by these words, Janaka said, ‘Alone maybe, but never lonely. She is not you.’

  The man disappeared and was never seen again. But there were whispers on the streets of the city that he was none other than Ravana, son of the rishi Vishrava, king of the dreaded rakshasas.

  The Valmiki Ramayana does not depict Sita as having the strength to lift the bow, but it is part of folklore. Films like Sita Swayamvar (1976) show this episode. Parashurama advises Janaka to make sure that the man who marries Sita has the ability to string the bow that Sita is able to pick up.

  The story of Ravana trying to pick up Shiva’s bow is also not found in the Valmiki Ramayana but is again part of folklore. It is one of the themes performed by Chhau dancers of Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar. The reason given for Ravana’s failure is his pride and overconfidence.

  The idea of Sita’s strength has its origin in Sita being seen as the Goddess. She is Kali, the sovereign goddess of nature, who chooses to be Gauri, demure and domesticated, for the benefit of humanity. This idea is made explicit in the Adbhut Ramayana and in Shakta literature.

  In folk songs from the Gangetic plains, Sita prays to Shakti, the Goddess, to get a good husband. When a demon approaches her, she gives him a letter to deliver to Shakti. In it she asks Shakti to kill the presumptuous demon. Shakti kills the demon as Durga, the warrior-goddess, enabling Sita to marry Ram.

  The Origin of Ravana

  The rakshasas considered themselves rakshak or guardians of the forest way of life that favours the strong and the cunning, where there are no rules, only brute force. They naturally did not care too much for the tapasya or yagna of the rishis, until Sumali saw Kubera, that is.

  Sumali was the leader of a pack of rakshasas who prowled the jungles of the south. One day, he encountered Kubera, leader of the yakshas, who had built a city of gold called Lanka on the island of Trikuta in the middle of the southern sea; he travelled around the world on a flying chariot, the Pushpak Vimana.

  Sumali learned that Kubera’s mother was a yaksha called Idavida but his father was a rishi called Vishrava. Knowledge of tapasya, yagna and the Vedas obtained from his father had enabled Kubera to become rich and powerful. Sumali desired a child as powerful and capable as Kubera. So he asked his daughter, Kaikesi, to go to Vishrava and have a child by him. That is how Ravana was born.

  Vishrava taught Ravana all about tapasya, yagna and the Vedas. Ravana expanded his mind so much that he needed ten heads to accommodate all his knowledge and twenty arms to accom