Today being Ram Navami, I thought I should address a particularly thorny issue which I have seen come up with an uncomfortable frequency in recent times, which is the supposedly bad treatment of Sita by Rama. Which has, in turn, become a major source of criticism for the man. Most of which, I feel come from a lack of knowledge of the original text. So, let us tackle some of these issues.
(1)
The core criticism is that he made her accompany him into the forest and then abandoned her when she was pregnant. Because apparently, a washerman made a snide comment that, "Since our king has taken his wife back, now all our wives can spend time with other men, and we would have no other option but to take them back". Yatha raja tatha praja; as is the king, so are his subjects. Yes, it is a very common story and it is well known all over. But there is a major problem with it. It is not part of the original Valmiki Ramayana at all. Valmiki Ramayana, which is the primary and authentic text, ends with the coronation of Ram.
All these follow up stories of Luv-Kush, Sita's abandonment, the washerman story are later folk interpolations in the Uttarakanda or the Uttara Ramayana; which is very obviously not written by Valmiki because it begins with all the rishis coming in and praising Shri Rama for killing Indrajit. I think Rama at least would remember who killed Indrajit. Quite apart from the narrative errors and the chronological errors in the Uttara Ramayana, even the language is very obviously not that of Valmiki, it is substantially different from the original texts in terms of the poetic quality and the style of Sanskrit used in the Valmiki verses. It is an interpolative text.
The usual culprits are a bunch called the Bhargava commentators, who went around India collecting all these ancient texts and inserting their own casteist agenda into it. So, most of the books we see today have been worked over by these guys called the Bhargava commentators.
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Another thing I find disturbing is how people miss something very important about that story. Rama is a prince. Rama is in all senses an alpha man. And he does something completely unprecedented, never before in that time, had any man of power, money, prestige, looks and fame like Rama purposefully took only one wife. Ekam Patni Vrata Purushottama. He deliberately said he would marry only one woman, and that would be it. Now, when a guy had money and fame, he usually used it to collect as many women as possible, Ravana being the classic example. Does Rama get any credit for that? He was just propositioned by Surpanakha, who was said to be a very beautiful woman. But he immediately denies taking her on as his second wife even though it was perfectly acceptable in the norms of the culture at the time. Does he get any credit for that? He was a breakthrough in relationship consciousness who taught men of his times, that just because you have fame and influence, that doesn't mean you can go tomcatting around with as many women as you like. But nobody seems to look at it that way.
Even Sita, along with Rama was a breakthrough in relationship consciousness; because when Ravana, the most successful man in the universe at that time (he was far richer, good looking, than Rama, and an exceptionally powerful yogi, he was the greatest Ayurvedic physician ever known, he was the greatest Shiva bhakta ever known, perhaps only Parvati was a greater Shiva bhakta than Ravana) comes with his private jet (the Pushpaka Vimana) and asks Sita to come along with him, she denies vehemently saying you don't want to engage with me, you just want to purchase me, and I am not leaving with you because Rama is a more evolved man than you, and these riches mean nothing. So, if we are talking accomplishment and success, there is no match to Ravana, not even Rama, and yet she refuses to go with him. And Ravana is flabbergasted at this, he simply cannot understand this because this show of riches had always worked in his favour in the past, and had gotten him as many women as he had wanted.
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Many people ask why Rama was so harsh and how he can blame the woman for getting kidnapped. However, the truth of the matter is that he has every right to blame her for getting kidnapped because it was in many ways, her fault. First of all, when Ravana comes, he brings his uncle along, who is a magician and makes him transform himself into a deer with golden skin. And that is where Sita makes a blunder and asks Lakshmana to get the deer for him. And Laskhmana repeatedly refuses, saying this is definitely some enchantment, and something is definitely wrong because a deer cannot have golden skin. Then Sita manipulates Rama into getting the deer for her by pressing the sensitive, manipulative button of Bharata, saying she wanted to gift it to Bharata, who Rama had a very soft corner for. And on went Rama in hunt of the golden deer.
People don’t realise that it is not for Ravana that Valmiki wrote Vinasha kaale viparita buddhi; it was for Rama. Because there never has been and never will be a deer with golden skin, but Rama went away chasing it nevertheless. When the time for destruction comes, even your own mind turns against you.
But before he goes, Rama made sure that Sita was protected. He asked Lakshmana to guard her. And so he did. Security was provided. There was no way Ravana could have beat Lakshmana in a straight fight in time to be able to kidnap Sita away. But then Maricha comes and pretends to be an injured Rama; shrieking throes of pain in the distance. And Sita arm twists Lakshmana to go and rescue. Lakshmana keeps saying, no one in the world, neither man, nor Devas, nor Gandharvas, nor Yakshas can stand up against Rama; he is the ultimate warrior of the universe; he has learnt from Vishwamitra, the Rishi Vyagraha. This is again a trick. And then Sita says something, which is so unbelievably ghastly, that it has been edited out of multiple later interpolative texts, however the truth remains that it is found in the original Valmiki Ramayana nonetheless. She says to Lakshmana, you are sexually interested in me, so you want your brother to die so that you can initiate a sexual relationship with me. Once you say something so dreadful, what else was the poor fellow to do? He left Sita and went in search for Rama, which ultimately enabled Ravana to kidnap her away. Obviously Ravana is the primary criminal here, but the truth of the matter is it was neither Rama’s nor Laskhmana’s fault that Sita was kidnapped. It was out of her own foolishness that it happened. Vinasha kaale viparita buddhi at play again.
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When Rama makes those harsh accusations after rescuing her (before the Agni Pariskha), he is merely saying what everyone else is thinking but doesn’t dare to articulate. So these questions are there in everybody’s mind; the question of whether Sita was left unmolested by a powerful man whose most important ambition is obviously sex. He obviously knows nothing has happened, but by making her go through the Agni Pariksha, he is just shutting down these wild accusations; which otherwise would have consistently followed. He knows very well that nothing has happened but he also very well knows that if he doesn’t put an end to this gossip, and this innuendo, and these insinuations right now, there will never be any peace for her, and there will never be any peace for him. So he just says it. She does the Agni Pariksha, end of story. If we are talking culpability, yes, Rama’s words were harsh, but Sita’s words to Lakshmana in the forest are much, much worse.
Yes, Rama’s times were more patriarchal than it is now. But don’t blame Rama for that, don’t blame Valmiki. Those were societal problems. And as usual, Rama has to take the blame for everything that was wrong with his society at that point of time. So just because Rama spoke to Sita harshly, that does not automatically negate all the phenomenally wonderful things that he did for human consciousness, that he did for human relationships. Even Sita made just one mistake in her life, and she suffered tremendously for that. Rama, and Sita, even today are breakthroughs in evolutionary consciousness and relationship consciousness.
All of these come purely from ignorance of the culture and the original text.
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