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Dewi
Sita
Sita is the wife of Rama,
the seventh avatāra of Vishnu,
and is esteemed an exemplar of womanly
and wifely virtue. According to
Hindu belief, Sita was an avatāra
of Lakshmi, Vishnu's consort, who
chose to reincarnate herself on
Earth as Sita and endure an arduous
life, to provide humankind an example
of good virtues.
Sita is one of the principal characters
in the Ramayana, a Hindu
epic named after her husband Rama.
Legend
Sita was a foundling, discovered
in a furrow in a ploughed field,
and for that reason is regarded
as a daughter of Bhudevi, the earth
Goddess. She was found and adopted
by Janaka, king of Mithila (Modern
day Janakpur, Nepal) and his wife
Sunayana. Upon her coming of age,
a swayamwara was held to
select a suitable husband for her,
and she was wed to Rama, prince
of Ayodhya, an avatara
of Vishnu.
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Some time after the wedding,
circumstances became such that Rama felt
it his duty to leave Ayodhya and spend
a period of exile in the forests of Dandakaranya.
At this time, he was 25, Sita 18 and his
brother Lakshmana 16. [1]. Sita willingly
renounced the comforts of the palace and
joined her husband in braving the travails
of exile, even living in a forest. Worse
was however to come; the forest was the
scene for the abduction of Sita by Ravana,
King of Lanka, one of her former suitors.
Ravana kidnapped Sita,disguising himself
as a sadhu while her husband was away
fetching a magnificent golden deer to
please her ( this deer was actually Ravana's
demon uncle, Mareecha, in disguise). Jatayu,
the vulture-king, who was a friend of
Rama, tried to protect her, but Ravana
chopped off his wings. Jatayu survived
long enough to inform Rama of what had
happened.
Ravana held her captive
in his distant island realm. In captivity,
Sita not only consistently rejected the
many advances of her powerful and royal
captor, but also preserved her chastity
of mind, never once wavering in her adherence
to her husband. She was finally rescued
by her husband Rama, who waged a tremendous
battle to defeat Ravana and secure the
release of Sita. Since Sita was kept in
captivity by Ravana all this time, Rama
asked her go through the 'Agni-Pariksha',
the test of going through the fire, which
would prove her chastity.
In Hindu dharma every action
has results irrespective of the stature
of the person. A school of thought states
that Rama questioned Sita on her integrity
as a punishment for her questioning the
integrity of Lakshmana who had left all
his comfort and served Rama and Sita for
14 years. Lakshmana was asked to create
the fire despite his protests about needing
such a procedure to prove that Sita is
innocent.
Later life The
couple returned to Ayodhya, where Rama
was crowned king with Sita by his side.
While the trust and affection in which
Rama held his wife never wavered, it soon
became evident that a (perhaps small)
section of the citizenry of Ayodhya found
the fact of Sita's long residence in captivity,
under the power of Ravana, a circumstance
difficult to accept.
A school of thoughts believe
that Urmila wife of Lakshmana a great
pativrata thought that Sita did not have
pain of leaving her husband for fourteen
years like what she went through. The
result was the separation of Rama and
sita due to the doubt raised by the washerman.
The story goes that an intemperate washerman,
while berating his wayward wife, declared
that he was "no pusillanimous
Rama who would take his wife back after
she had lived in the house of another
man". This calumnious comment
was reported back to Rama, who knew that
the aspersion cast on Sita was entirely
baseless; nevertheless, he felt his position
as ruler undermined by the constant possibility
of slander attaching itself to his hitherto
unimpeachable dynasty and personal reign.
It was this train of thought that led
Rama to desire the removal of Sita from
his household.
Sita was thus again in
exile; she was not only alone this time
but also pregnant. She sought refuge in
the hermitage of the sage Valmiki, where
she was delivered of twin sons, Lava and
Kusha.
Sita raised her sons single-handedly
in the hermitage. They grew up to be valiant
and intelligent and were eventually united
with their father. Once she had witnessed
the acceptance of her children by Rama,
Sita sought final refuge in the arms of
her mother Bhumidevi, the Earth Goddess.
Hearing her plea for release from an unjust
world and from a life that had rarely
been happy, the earth dramatically split
open; Bhumidevi manifested herself and
took Sita away to a better world. But
this part of Ramayana is disputed, it
is said that Rama & Sita lived together
happily ruling their kingdom for 11000
years,(which was a common kind of lifespan
in that yuga i.e. tretayuga), it was only
for a period of 14 year exile in which
one year Sita spent in Ravana's kingdom,,
so it is generally considered that Rama
& Sita had a perfectly happy married
life with very little disturbances.
This part of the epic has
been disputed. Sages point to it being
written later than the Valmiki Ramayan.
Some believe that this part of the story,
Luv-Kushkanda, was promoted by the British.
Many Hindu organizations today disown
Luv-Kush kanda and state that after Ram
is crowned king there is Ram rajya, when
everyone is happy.
Sita also took part in
the Hindu ritual of Ashvamedha. As narrated
in the Uttara Kanda (book 7). In this
narrative, Rama was married to a single
wife, Sita, who at the time was not with
him, having been excluded from Rama's
capital of Ayodhya. She was therefore
represented by a statue for the queen's
ceremony [citation needed]. Sita
was living in Valmiki's forest ashram
with her twin children by Rama, Lava and
Kusha, whose birth was unknown to Rama.
In its wanderings, the horse, accompanied
by an army and the monkey-king Hanuman,
enters the forest and encounters Lava,
who ignores the warning written on the
horse's headplate not to hinder its progress.
He tethers the horse, and with Kusha challenges
the army, which is unable to defeat the
brothers. |
