Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Unexpected Tragedy: Rama's Rejection of Sita

One would think that after destroying evil, Rama and Sita would head back to the palace or forest and live happily ever after.  But the story takes and important and shocking, at least to me, twist.  Rama rejects Sita.
                Social Text  writer Usha Zacharias examines this tragedy and summarizes it well “Sita is captured through an illusive trick of King Ravana, who wishes to avenge Rama’s mocking rejection of his sister’s sexual advances. She spends the next eleven months as a captive in Ravana’s island kingdom of Lanka, known for its abundance in every kind of material luxury and for indulgence in sensual excess. Rejecting Ravana’s lustful overtures and his offer of material pleasures, she passes torturous months in Lanka as the epitome of ascetic womanhood, meditating exclusively on Rama. When Rama finally wins the war against Ravana, he does not wish to take Sita back, since she has been desired and touched by Ravana. To prove her integrity, Sita leaps into the fire before the contending armies and emerges unscathed by the flames, her purity validated by the gods”.

                Surprisingly, after this “trial by fire” Rama later rejects  Sita again,  as Zacharias continues to explain “These sections narrate how Rama, after his victory in the battle and reinstatement sovereign, abandons the pregnant Sita in the forest after hearing rumors that question the sexual propriety of her relationship with Ravana. Cast out of the kingdom, Sita finds shelter at the hermitage of the lower-caste ascetic, Valmiki, who brings up her twin sons and becomes their guru. At Valmiki’s insistence, Rama once again summons Sita to prove her purity publicly but instead of undergoing a second trial by fire and returning to Rama, Sita prays to the earth, her mother, to receive her back again. The earth splits open and Sita descends into its depths on a throne of snakes, and Rama is left to rule the kingdom for another ten thousand years with her golden image by his side.

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