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 (Today, Ashoka leaves have been replaced by mango leaves.)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
s her home.
In the Sanskrit Ananda Ramayana, a princess called Lakshmi enters the fire after disgruntled suitors who want to marry her kill her father, King Padmaksha. Years later, she steps out of the fire, but is seen by Ravana, so she retreats back into the flames. Ravana extinguishes the fire and keeps the glowing stones he finds in the fire pit in a box. When Mandodari opens the box, she finds a girl inside. Sensing trouble, she buries the box with the girl under the ground; it is found by Janaka in Mithila.
The story of Sita being Ravana’s daughter probably emerged to further the case that Ravana kept Sita at arm’s length while she was in captivity. But alongside these stories are others of Ravana, the lovelorn, passionate lover.
Seduction Attempts
What is the greatest battlefield? The heart of a woman who is in love with someone else. To make her leave her beloved and come to your bed of her own free will, that is the greatest challenge. And so Ravana did everything in his power to make Sita fall in love with him.
He sang for her. All the women in Lanka swooned over his voice. But not Sita.
He danced for her. All the women in Lanka drooled over the rhythm of his body. But not Sita.
He told her stories. All the women in Lanka stayed awake all night enchanted by the plot. But not Sita.
He made himself vulnerable telling stories of how his father always compared him to Kubera and how he always felt inadequate before Vali and Kartavirya. All the women in Lanka wanted to comfort him. But not Sita.
He showered her with gifts – the finest flowers, the finest jewellery, the finest fabrics, the finest food. All the women in Lanka thought she was extremely lucky. But not Sita.
‘He loves you so much,’ said Trijata.
‘Then why does he care for his happiness over mine?’ asked Sita. ‘Why does he not let me go?’
‘What more can a woman ask of a man? He gives you all that you want. He makes you feel important, wanted, desired and powerful. He guards you jealously and protects you from harm.’
‘That is not love. He does not see me. He just wants to possess me, and finds it frustrating that I do not submit to him. Love is not about power; it is about giving up power, a voluntary submission before one’s beloved. Love is about seeing: I see Ram, and Ram sees me. I want to be seen by Ram and Ram wants to be seen by me. I have shown Ram my vulnerabilities without trepidation and so has he. Ravana cannot love another because he sees no one, not even himself.’
‘He can take you by force.’
‘And that is supposed to frighten me? You give too much value to this body, much more than I do. I am not my body. I will never ever be violated.’
In the Jain Ramchandra-charitra Purana written in Kannada by Nagachandra, Ravana is described as a great sage until he sees Sita and is then overwhelmed by love and lust.
The many stories that explain why Ravana could not possibly force himself on Sita are created to reassure audiences of Sita’s purity. One must not forget that ritual pollution and purity creates a hierarchy in the Hindu scheme of things. Based on this scheme of hierarchy, members of various communities were kept away from the well and the temple and stripped of human dignity. So mere touching, not just sexual violation, can result in loss of reputation and status.
Sita is not Renuka who desires Kartavirya or Ahilya who succumbs to Indra. She is confident of her love for Ram. Her fidelity has nothing to do with Ram or with the rules of marriage; it is an expression of who she is. This is often described as pativrata, or a wife’s vow of chastity. But with Sita it seems less about the expectations of a wife, and more about the emotional choice of an individual.
The Ramayana asks, what is love? Is it attachment? Is it control? Is it freedom? Is love transformative? Should love be exclusive? Is it physical, emotional or intellectual? Is Ram’s gentle silence an indicator of love or Ravana’s vocal pining?
The Ramayana’s villain, Ravana, has many wives. In his next life, Ram becomes Krishna who also has many wives. Yet, Krishna’s love for his wives is described very differently from Ravana’s love for his wives. Ravana’s love is full of lust, domination and control. Krishna’s love is full of affection, understanding and freedom.
Many who hear the story of the Ramayana, unlike Sita, fall prey to what psychologists call the Stockholm syndrome (falling in love with one’s captors like hostages who start siding with the hijackers) and start appreciating the qualities of Ravana even though he uses force to drag a woman into his house and keep her captive by force.
The Board Games of Sita
Sita’s words were strange. Trijata repeated everything she heard to the women of Lanka. ‘She does not consider herself inferior to men, even though she willingly walks behind her husband. Those are social rules, she says, artificial, contextual, functional, necessary.’
‘I would rather the men followed me,’ said Sulochana one day, almost embarrassed at revealing the desire of her heart.
‘That would be just another kind of pecking order,’ said Sita. ‘Where there is a pecking order, there is no love.’
They flocked to see her, to hear her speak, this strange woman from the far north, who had won the heart of Ravana and thought nothing of it. They came bearing her gifts – flowers and food and clothes and perfumes. ‘But I have nothing to give you in exchange,’ she said.
‘Tell us about your world,’ they said.
So she shared with them the stories of her life, the ways of her father’s house and her husband’s house: how they dressed and how they cooked and how they lived. She spoke of the rituals she followed every day, the gods she worshipped and the powers she invoked. ‘We are the matriarchs of the household, priestesses of our homes. Every morning we worship the house, wipe the floor with water, decorate the walls with paintings and put strings of leaves and flowers on the doors. Every evening we light lamps in the courtyard and serve the evening meal.’
‘What gives you this confidence?’ they asked.
‘Faith and patience,’ said Sita. She told them the story of how long ago a demon took the earth under the sea. Vishnu took the form of a boar, plunged into the waters, gored the demon to death and, placing the earth-goddess on his snout, carried her to the surface. As they rose, they made love. His embraces caused the earth to fold, thus the mountains and valleys came into being. He plunged his resplendent trunks into the ground thus impregnating the earth which bore all plants. Now, satisfied, she reclines on the hood of the serpent Adi Sesha, gazing upon the blue-black sky adorned with clouds and stars that is Vishnu, her beloved and her guardian. He rescues her whenever she is in trouble. ‘I am the earth. Ravana is the demon who has hidden me from the world. Ram will come as Vishnu did and rescue me, of that I am sure. He never disappoints.’
Sita knew herbs that could heal, cure skin rashes and unblock noses and aid the movement of bowels. And most exciting of all, she showed them board games that they could play.
Soon in every house in Lanka people were playing board games designed by Sita. Games that husbands could play with their wives, grandparents with grandchildren, groups of men and groups of women among themselves. This is how they passed the time, enjoying each other’s company, not arguing, not fighting, not trying to prove who was the dominant one. By her sheer presence, Sita turned Lanka into a playground where everyone laughed and smiled.
At night, hearing the joyful sounds coming from every courtyard in Lanka, Mandodari said, ‘You set out to conquer her heart. And she has ended up conquering all our hearts. Let this wonderful girl go.’
‘Never,’ said Ravana. He would not be defeated in his own land.
Ramanuja, the Vedanta scholar, repeatedly identifies Sita as Lakshmi and Ram as Vishnu. Vishnu descends on earth primarily to protect Lakshmi. Vishnu took the form of a boar to rescue the earth from the asura Hiranyaksha. He takes the form of Ram to descend on earth to rescue Sita from the rakshasa Ravana. In Sri Vaishnavism, the bhakti school based on Ramanuja’s teachings, devotees can reach Vishnu only through Sita, or L
akshmi, who he identifies as Sri, the embodiment of auspiciousness and affluence.
Sitaipandi, or the game of Sita, is a form of solitaire. A single row of seven pits is created in the ground. One tamarind seed is kept in the first pit, two in the second, three in the third, and so on. Thus twenty-eight seeds are distributed. One collects all seven seeds of the seventh pit and sows one each in the remaining pits so that six becomes seven, five becomes six, four becomes five, and so on. The last remaining seed is put in the seventh pit. Now one takes the seeds from the sixth pit and redistributes them. This continues till one reaches the initial position with one seed in the first pit and seven in the seventh. It is a repetitive game that occupies time intelligently and is said to be the first game designed by Sita during captivity.
Board games like vimanam (flying chariot) and vagh-bakri (tigers and goats, or predators and prey) are said to be inspired from Sita’s plight.
Rig Samhita, the oldest collection of Vedic hymns, refers to the game of dice. One is not sure if the dice was accompanied by a board game. In popular imagery, gods and goddesses are often shown playing board games. Shiva plays games with Parvati, Vishnu with his devotees. In the Mahabharata, the gambling match with dice results in Draupadi being wagered by her husband Yudhisthira.
Board games are now part of sacred rituals performed during Lakshmi Puja and Diwali.
According to astrological data found in the Valmiki Ramayana, the abduction took place in 5077 BCE, the thirteenth year of exile.
Book Five: Anticipation
‘From her faith came her patience.’
The Monkey in the Tree
Her father had once said that she would never be lonely, even when alone. But he was wrong. Sita was lonely. The Ashoka tree bursting with flowers that heralded love seemed to mock her. The women around pitied her. She stood there firm as a rock with but two blades of grass between her and her tormentor, but her heart was growing restless: when would Ram come?