Sita Devi
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Sita (Sanskrit/Hindi सीता Sītā) is a Goddess in the Ramayana, and is esteemed an examplar of womanly and wifely virtue. According to Hindu belief, Sita was an "avatara" of Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and good fortune, who chose to reincarnate herself on Earth as Sita, and endure an arduous life, in order to provide humankind an example of such virtues.
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Legend
Sita is a principal character of the "Ramayana", the Hindu epic named after her husband Rama.
Sita was a foundling, discovered in a furrow in a ploughed field, and for that reason is regarded as a daughter of Bhumidevi, the Earth Goddess. She was found and adopted by Janaka, King of Mithila, and his wife Sunayana. Upon coming of age, a Swayamvara was held to select a suitable husband for her, and she was wed to Rama, prince of Ayodhya, an avatara of Vishnu.
Exile and abduction
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. Sita willingly renounced the comforts of the palace and joined her husband in braving the travails of exile, and that 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 while her husband was away hunting, and held her captive in his distant island realm. 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.
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. The story goes that an intemperate washerman, while once berating his wayward wife, declared that he was no pusillanimous Rama that he would accept 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 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 eventually 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 of the sage Valmiki. Her sons grew up to be valiant and intelligent; they were eventually united with their father some years later. Once she witnessed the acceptance of her children by Rama, Sita sought final refuge in the arms of her mother, the Earth Goddess Bhumidevi. 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.
Significance
The actions, reactions and instincts manifested by Sita at every juncture in a long and arduous life are deemed exemplary; her story is one on which every young girl in India is raised to this day. The values that she enshrined and adhered to at every point are the values of womanly virtue held sacred by countless generations of Indians.
The story of Sita's kidnapping and subsequent rescue forms the core of the Indian epic, the Ramayana, supposedly written by the sage Valmiki in whose hermitage Sita took refuge during her second stint of exile.
Etymology of the name Sita
In common with other major figures of Hindu legend, Sita is known by many names. As the daughter of king Janaka, she is known as Janaki; as the princess of Mithila, as Mythili or Maithili; as the wife of Raama, she is called Ramaa. Her father Janaka had earned the sobriquet "Videha", due to his ability to transcend body consciousness; Sita is therefore also known as "Vaidehi".
However, she is of course best known by the name "Sita", which literally means "furrow". The word "furrow" was a poetic term in ancient India, its imagery redolent of fecundity and the many blessings accruent from settled agriculture. The Sita of the Ramayana may have been named after a more ancient Vedic goddess Sita, who is mentioned once in the Rigveda as an earth goddess who gives good crops.
External links
- Sita - The Silent Power of Suffering and Sacrifice by Sri Nitin Kumar.
