“But Sitey! This is injustice!”

“And that is why, dear husband, we shall fight it…with love and sacrifice.”

For all the ideals that the Ramayan has epitomized for humanity since eons, this is one aspect of the story which has pained and even angered generations of progressive men and women across Bharath – Queen Sita having to leave Ayodhya for the forest. The following questions are often raised with regard to this particular instance in the story.

 1.   How could the ‘ideal king’ Ram be so utterly unjust to a woman who he knew was innocent?

 2.   By allowing Mother Sita to leave Ayodhya, didn’t Lord Ram pave the way for further regressiveness and exploitation of women? In the name of protecting Dharma didn’t he actually end up promoting Adharma? Shouldn’t they have done something to rid their society of such bigoted ideals instead of succumbing to them?

In spite of these questions, both Lord Ram and Mother Sita are etched in the collective consciousness of Bharath, as the quintessence of virtue and honor for over 14,000 years since the time the Ramayan is slated to have happened. This itself is testament enough to the ideal way in which Lord Ram and Mother Sita handled the crisis at hand. And why this is so, is explained further in this chapter.

The Age - Treta Yuga

Before we plunge into the reasons of why Mother Sita’s relegation to the forest was the best way in which the matter could have been resolved, we must understand that had similar circumstances unfolded in today’s day and age, neither would anyone have objected to Mother Sita being the queen of Ayodhya, nor would Lord Ram or Mother Sita have taken such a drastic decision. But when this incident occurred, the day and age were different. It was what is called the Treta Yuga, an age wherein the moral and ethical standards of society were stauncher and more unyielding than those we have today and much more uncompromising than they were even in the very next age   – the Dwapar Yuga, the age of Lord Krishna.

(While we revere Lord Ram for who He was, we revere Lord Krishna too for who He was and yet Lord Ram had allowed his wife to go into the forest, while Lord Krishna had helped Rukmini elope on the day she was to be married (on Rukimini’s own request) and had subsequently married her.

While Lord Ram had just one wife, Lord Krishna had 16,000 (The reason for that has been dealt with in another chapter)

The point of mentioning these two apparently contradictory aspects of Lord Ram’s and Lord Krishna’s lives here, is to once again highlight that Hindus have never been dogmatic. The two seemingly opposite personalities of Lord Ram and Lord Krishna are equally revered because we Bharatiyas always consider the context and circumstances within which decisions were taken by our heroes to arrive at balanced and informed conclusions.

Nobody stops us from questioning and analyzing the decisions of even our Highest Gods, and nobody expects us to accept the seemingly wrong or irrational on the basis of blind faith. We can’t help it - objective and open-minded reasoning is etched in our culture, our faith and in our very DNA.)

The Background

There was talk in the kingdom that Mother Sita had spent ten months in another man’s home, hence there was a question mark on her chastity. And it was not just Mother Sita who was being judged here. People had begun thinking even of Lord Ram as a ‘weak king’ too smitten by a woman who was not fit to be the queen of the land.

Lord Ram could not bring himself to even inform Mother Sita of their subjects having such degrading opinions about her. It was Mother Sita who sent her own spies into the kingdom to find out what was troubling the king so much and when she found out, it was HER decision to leave. And here is why.

The duty of the King and Queen

The elevated moral fabric in Treta Yuga meant that the emperor and empress had absolutely no leeway to compromise on issues relating to fulfilling their duty towards their subjects. This duty was called Rajadharma.

Rajadharma stated that from the moment they donned the crown, the king and queen had no dreams, happiness, joys, sorrows or ambitions of their own. Their lives, their very beings would now be driven by one aspiration alone – the welfare of their kingdom, as long as such welfare was within the precincts of Dharma.

The Rajadharma also stipulated that the duty of the king, queen and other members of the royal family was not simply to create administrative polices and defend their kingdom. Their primary duty was to be ‘the ideal examples of the highest moral standards and this duty was uncompromisable because the way they were ‘perceived’ in terms of their morality would have a direct and significant bearing on the moral and ethical fabric of their entire kingdom.

It is a known fact that when the ‘leaders’ falter, the followers falter too – when the head of the family fails his commitments, there is no accountability for any member of the rest of the family; when the boss accepts bribes, the sub-ordinates get a license to be corrupt; when politicians have no integrity, the population gets a free run with tracheary and duplicity. If it comes from the top, venality spreads like a virus across all strata of society.

Also, when the king’s and queen’s own credibility is fuzzy there is a general distrust of their decisions and actions. In such a scenario, the kingdom runs a great risk of going into disarray.

Thus, for the royal family, ensuring that they be perceived as taintless epitomes of the purest social and personal values was one of their highest duties. It was NOT simply about popularity but rather about protecting ethics and order in the society of their kingdom.

Mother Sita was absolutely pure and innocent, but many in the population did not think so and that was enough to taint the moral image of the royal family and by extension of society at large. That the royal couple did not appear to embody the ethical and spiritual standards expected of them was not acceptable to the people of Ayodhya. Rajadharma required that the king and queen respect that view.

Were there any alternatives other than Mother Sita having to leave?

Consider the following alternatives that were there for Lord Ram and Mother Sita in keeping with what has been mentioned above.

 1.   People could have been educated on the actual circumstances of what had transpired with Ravan and Lanka

This story happened 14,000 years ago when there was no way to provide mass information and explanation to people - no television interviews, no recording and replays, no YouTube channels, no Mann Ki Baat. In such a scenario, there would have been hardly any means for the royal couple to provide any personal explanation to their people and everyone would agree, that an explanation about the queen’s chastity by officers of the empire would have been downright demeaning to the royal family, to the queen herself and to the image of the empire. Therefore, in such circumstances a perception once created would have lingered forever.

2. Lord Ram could have left with Mother Sita thus standing up for his wife, giving a stern message to his subjects and ensuring that his wife does not have to face the injustice alone.

Doing this would have further strengthened people’s opinion that Lord Ram was a weak man who kept his wife above his kingdom and his people in unabashed defiance of the very rules of Rajadharma. If the king himself violated his own vows, what integrity could be expected out of his officers and his people? Also, Lord Ram leaving with Mother Sita would have done nothing to correct people’s mistaken perception of her.

3. Mother Sita could have undergone another Agnipariksha and thus people would have seen proof of her chastity

Anyone reading this would be mortified at even the thought of this alternative. Could anything else have been more degrading, more demeaning for any woman? This would have been far more disgraceful than even spending those ten months in Lanka.

Hence Mother Sita leaving alone was the only dignified way in which the situation could be tackled. She left the palace in the middle of the night, with none of the subjects to see her go or to stop her so that no one could doubt the determinedness of her resolve.

Lord Ram stayed back in Ayodhya and followed the Rajdharma dedicating his being to the welfare of his people, winning their love, their trust and their adoration. But even as he followed his Rajadharma, he did not flinch from supporting his wife before his subjects.

Firstly, in spite of the fact that he had no heir, he refused to get married again. He did not succumb to the entreaties of even some of the highest priests of the land and remained openly loyal to Mother Sita.

When the Ashwamedha Yagnya – one of the most sanctified practices of the Vedic Age was organized in Ayodhya, Lord Ram had Mother Sita’s life-size image sculpted in gold to be placed beside him as he performed the sacred rites of the Yagnya, in glaring view of all his subjects.

By doing the above, Lord Ram sent a clear message to his people that while as the king he had respected their wishes, as a man, as a husband he believed in and loved his wife with the core of his being and to him only Mother Sita deserved to be the rightful queen of Ayodhya.

The stoic credibility that Lord Ram had earned with his establishment of what is hailed as the Ramrajya even today – the synonym for the most ideal form of administration and governance that tirelessly works for the welfare of all the subjects of the empire - made people understand that if such a Dharmic emperor and his family held Mother Sita in such high esteem and adoration, then she MUST be innocent.

By that time Sage Valmiki had sent Luv and Kush to go around Ayodhya and sing to her people the story of the Ramayan including all that had transpired during the fourteen years of exile and people realized the terrible sacrifice that they had doomed their beloved king and queen to make because of their narrow-mindedness.

The fact that Lord Ram and Mother Sita chose to offer no explanation and made such a silent, supreme sacrifice for the sake of their people only added to their God-like stature.  

Thus, by remaining silent, Lord Ram and Mother Sita put an end to all debate. They made people realize their folly on their own. It took time, but when it happened, it stayed for all of eternity.

This brings us to one final question:

Why did Mother Sita choose to leave even after She was welcomed back?

Should a woman or any person be treated like an object that can be discarded just because one doesn’t like it any more and brought back just because one decides it should not have been thrown?

Mother Sita was the queen, an example to all of womankind, the very reason why people objected to her being the queen in the first place. Should she have accepted the above-mentioned treatment? Should she have behaved like this ‘nobody’ who could be made to leave and then brought back based entirely on the whims, mis-judgements and sudden realizations of others? If she accepted this as the queen, what hope would the ordinary women of her kingdom have for a life of dignity and honor? Her decision to go back to her Mother – Mother Earth in defiance of her husband, her sons, her people, left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the people of Bharat for all time to come. What else explains the fact that the people of the very land that relegated Mother Sita to the forest, because she had been kidnapped by a demon and made to stay in his kingdom for ten months reveres Draupadi who had chosen to have five husbands and was almost disrobed in the court of Hastinapur? Ever since the Ramayan there has not been one instance of public support for injustice to a woman in any of the numerous stories within our epics or Puranas.

Lord Ram and Mother Sita - by resigning themselves to sacrificing their personal happiness, restored the honor and dignity of all women for all times to come.

 (The current article is from the author's upcoming book on Hinduism tentatively called DHARM)

 

Amishi Seth has authored four books published by Penguin, Landmark and Orange Art Media. Her books are 'The Giofies go on a Holiday', 'The Goofies Tear Down their House' and 'The strawberry farm'. She has written and directed over 50 successful plays, mega stage shows, conducted trainings and workshops with reputed Educational Institutions like Birla, Somaiya, SIES, Vibgyor International and others as also with Production Houses including Raell Padamsee’s Ace Productions and Harish Bhimani. She also runs her own YouTube channel called PEP THOUGHTS...that talks about do-it-here-and-now practical ways to apply concepts of Spirituality and Human Values to change one’s attitude and solve everyday problems and issues of life.

Image Credits: flickr.com (The image is representative and doesn't have relation to the episode mentioned in the article)

 

 

 

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