She curled herself to sleep like a baby and remembered her father and her mother and all the wise words they spoke. She remembered the kindness of the sages. No one had told her the world would be so cruel, that she would be forced to leave one house and dragged out of another. ‘There is pain only when there is attachment,’ Yagnavalkya had said. She felt pain. She was attached. Was that bad? She yearned for liberation: when would Ram come?
‘He has forgotten you,’ said Surpanakha. ‘Soon he will be ready to accept me as you will be ready to accept my brother.’ Sita did not reply. She watched the rains come and go. No one travels in the rain but she knew her Ram would seek her through flood and sludge: but when would Ram come?
Then suddenly, at night, when the autumn moon was high in the sky, she heard something, very distinct from the sound of insects and the rustling of the wind.
‘Ram, Ram.’
Yes, that is exactly what she heard. Was she dreaming? Was it her imagination conjuring up what she wanted to hear?
She looked up and saw a strange sight: a silver monkey chanting the name of Ram. The monkey opened the palm of his hand and dropped something on the ground. It was a ring. Sita’s eyes widened: it was Ram’s ring. She looked up; the monkey came down and spoke, in a human voice: ‘I am Ram’s messenger, Hanuman. I have been sent to find you.’
Sita withdrew, suspicious: another of Ravana’s tricks?
Sensing her fears, Hanuman said, ‘I am no rakshasa. I am a vanara. We reside in Kishkindha located between Dandaka in the north and Lanka in the south. Like yakshas and rakshasas, we too descend from Brahma through Pulastya. My mother is Anjana, daughter of Ahilya. And I was born by the grace of Vayu, the wind-god. My father is Kesari, who served the vanara-king Riksha. I serve the son of Riksha, Sugriva. Surya, the sun-god, is my teacher. And Ram, the noble prince of the Raghu clan, who wanders in the forest as a hermit to keep the word of his father, is my inspiration. We found the jewels you discarded from Ravana’s flying chariot on the forest floor and have traced you to this garden on an island in the middle of the sea.’
The words, the tone of the voice, the sheer audacity of such an intervention, replaced doubt with trust. Through this monkey her Ram had reached out to her. Sita finally smiled, a flood of relief rising up in her heart.
The gap between Sita’s abduction and her meeting with Hanuman is at least one rainy season. She is abducted in summer before the rains and Ram fights Ravana in autumn, marked by the festival of Dussehra, after the rains.
The meeting of Hanuman and Sita is described in many ways. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, Hanuman comes to Sita after Ravana comes and threatens to kill her if she does not submit to him. In a Telugu Ramayana, Hanuman finds her about to commit suicide. In a Marathi Ramayana, she hears a monkey chant the name of Ram. In an Odia Ramayana, he drops the ring and gets her attention while her guards are sleeping, tired after spending the day alternately terrifying and cajoling her.
In the Valmiki Ramayana, Hanuman wonders if he should speak to Sita in deva-vacham, or language of the gods, meaning Sanskrit, or manushya-vacham, or language of humans, meaning Prakrit (or, some say, Tamil). Either way, she will wonder how a monkey can speak.
The dialogue shows Sita’s doubt and how Hanuman gradually gains her trust using his diplomatic skills.
Divinity is on the sidelines of Valmiki’s retelling. Ram can sense his divinity but it remains in the background. As the centuries passed, the divinity of Ram came to the foreground. His name became a mantra.
As Ram starts being increasingly associated with Vishnu, Hanuman starts becoming increasingly associated with Shiva, either as his avatar (Rudra-avatar) or as his son, and Sita starts getting associated with the Goddess. Thus through the Ramayana, the three major sects of Hinduism devoted to Shiva, Vishnu and Shakti express themselves.
The Sanskrit Hanuman-nataka informs us how there are eleven forms of Rudra. Ten of these protect the ten heads of Ravana but the eleventh one takes the form of Hanuman.
Ram’s signet ring given to Sita is said to have his name inscribed on it. The use of Devanagari script currently used for Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati came into use in India about a thousand years ago while the Ramayana is over two thousand years old, leading scholars to conclude that the use of the written word comes into the Ram narrative much later.
The Story of the Vanaras
The vanaras of Kishkindha had turned north when they heard a vulture screech. They had watched Ravana’s sword hack through Jatayu’s wing causing him to tumble to the ground. The flying chariot had then made its way south. The sound of a woman’s wail had filled the air. She had dropped her jewels from above leaving a trail. The vanaras had collected these jewels from the forest floor and given them to Sugriva, who wondered what the commotion was all about.
‘Sugriva is the king of Kishkindha, and I serve him. When Ram met him, he too was an exile because of problems with his brother,’ explained Hanuman.
Hanuman then proceeded to tell Sita all about the vanaras and their quarrels.
Brahma’s son Kashyapa had a wife called Vinata, who was the mother of birds. Once she laid two eggs. But the eggs took a long time to hatch. Impatient, she broke open one of the eggs. The child thus born became Aruni, the dawn-god, he of unknowable gender as his lower half remains unfinished.
Aruni served as charioteer of Surya, the sun-god, whose greatest rival was Indra, the flamboyant king of the sky, whose thunderbolts caused clouds to release rain. The reason for this rivalry was simple: people on earth prayed to Indra for wetness when the sun was the brightest and they prayed to Surya for dryness when Indra was most powerful.
One day, without informing Surya, Aruni entered the court of Indra to see the secret sensual dance of the apsaras. To do this he had to take a female form. Aruni’s unfamiliar face intrigued Indra, who knew all his apsaras well. He approached her, enjoyed her company and eventually made love to her. As a result Aruni gave birth to a son called Vali. This childbirth happened instantly as happens with the devas. Aruni left the child in the care of the sage Gautama and his wife Ahilya.
This tryst with Indra delayed Aruni but when he told Surya the reason for the delay Surya was most curious. He demanded Aruni show him his female form, on seeing which he too was smitten. He also made love to Aruni, and Aruni instantly gave birth to a son called Sugriva, who too he left in the care of Gautama and Ahilya.
Gautama and Ahilya already had a daughter called Anjana. Anjana told her father about Indra visiting Ahilya while he was away. So Ahilya cursed her to turn into a monkey. Gautama cursed the two boys to turn into monkeys as well as they had failed to inform him of the same. Later, after cursing Ahilya to turn into a rock, Gautama felt sorry for the motherless monkeys. He could not retract the curse and so he gave all three monkeys to Riksha, the childless monkey-king of Kishkindha.
When the children grew up, Riksha got them all married: Anjana married Kesari, Vali married Tara, and Sugriva married Ruma. Before he died, Riksha told Vali and Sugriva to share the kingdom equally.
All was well in Kishkindha, until Vali killed a demon called Dundhubi.
Dundhubi’s son, Mayavi, entered Kishkindha and challenged Vali to a duel to avenge his father’s death. In the forest, a duel is a challenge to authority and so one can never say no to it. Sugriva watched as Vali and Mayavi began their fierce fight. It was a great fight with each hurling rocks and trees at each other at first, and then showering each other with blows and kicks. It lasted for days. Finally, Mayavi gave up and ran into a cave.
Vali wanted a decisive victory. Determined to kill Mayavi, he followed the demon into the cave while Sugriva watched the mouth of the cave. ‘If he gives me the slip or succeeds in killing me, make sure you kill him as he leaves the cave,’ Vali instructed Sugriva. Days passed. Thunderous roars of their fight kept coming out from the mouth of the cave. Sugriva waited patiently for the duel to end. Then came an eerie silence and no hoot of victory.
Was Vali dead? It was
very unlike Vali not to loudly announce his triumph. Fearing that Vali may have been killed, Sugriva decided to seal the mouth of the cave and thus kill his brother’s killer.
That was his undoing.
For Vali was alive. He had killed Mayavi but was too exhausted to declare his triumph. In fact, after breaking Mayavi’s neck, all he wanted to do was sleep. When he awoke from a deep slumber and made his way out of the cave, he found its mouth blocked by a boulder.
With great difficulty, he pushed the rock aside and returned to Kishkindha, only to find Sugriva on the throne, enjoying the fruits of Kishkindha with both Ruma and Tara. ‘Traitor! Backstabber!’ Vali yelled and rushed towards Sugriva with bloodshot eyes, baring his fangs, determined to kill him.
Sugriva ran to save his life. For years, Vali chased him. Finally Sugriva took refuge atop Mount Rishyamukha where Matanga’s hermitage was located. Vali dared not step on this mountain. After killing Dundhubi, Vali had kicked the demon’s carcass into the air and it had fallen into Matanga’s hermitage. The angry sage had then uttered a curse: ‘He who kicked this carcass into my hermitage will die if he ever sets foot on the mountain on which my hermitage is located.’
Sugriva could not leave Rishyamukha for fear of Vali. So he had asked Hanuman to find out more about the flying chariot carrying the wailing woman.
‘So much impatience,’ said Sita hearing the tale of the vanaras. ‘Sugriva was too eager to believe his brother had been killed. Vali was too angry to give his brother the benefit of the doubt. Impatience is the enemy of wisdom; it propels us to jump to conclusions, judge and condemn, rather than understand.’
‘You know, at no point did your husband assume you had run away when he found you missing from your hut. He had faith in you. So he investigated patiently to find out how you had disappeared so mysteriously from the hut,’ said Hanuman.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Sita.
Hanuman then told Sita how he met Ram.
Vanara can be read as va-nara, less than human, or as vana-nara, forest people. Valmiki also describes them as kapi, monkeys. From a rational point of view they are perhaps forest tribes with monkey totems. But this does not explain their tails.
Jain Ramayana s were the earliest Ramayana s that rejected the idea of talking monkeys. Vimalasuri describes Hanuman as a vidyadhara, a special class of being, probably inspired by tribes who had monkey images on their flags.
In the Puranas, all living creatures descend from Brahma. Brahma himself is not associated with a wife, but his mind-born sons have wives. Each son fathers various species of beings. This can be seen objectively as the creation of various species like fishes, birds, reptiles, celestial beings, subterranean beings and humans. Or this can be seen as the birth of humans with different ways of thinking – people who feel entitled (devas), people who feel tricked (asuras), people who grab (rakshasas), people who hoard (yakshas) and people of artistic temperament (gandharvas).
Brahma does not create the earth or plants; he creates only mobile creatures such as birds, fishes, animals and humans who populate the earth.
The story of the incomplete, sexually ambiguous first son of Vinata comes from the Puranas. Aruni is a god and Usha is a goddess. Both embody dawn. Both are charioteers of the sun-god, often identified with Garuda, the eagle, the complete and perfect son of Vinata.
In literature, the day is masculine, the night feminine and the twilight hour ambiguous, defying categorization.
In the Adhyatma Ramayana and some regional retellings, the monkey-king Riksha himself turns into a woman when he falls into a magical pond and both Surya and Indra fall in love with him. Thus are born Sugriva and Vali.
Vanaras are located in Kishkindha, situated between Aryavarta where the humans reside and Lanka where the demons reside. This location is as much psychological as it is geographical.
Kishkindha is identified with parts of the present-day states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in the Deccan region.
Ram’s Anguish
Following Sugriva’s orders, Hanuman took the form of a bee, and travelled rapidly north until he reached the spot where Jatayu lay. From the highest branches of a tree, he saw an ascetic – whom he later identified as Ram – circling his camp like a heartbroken lover, talking to the rocks, the trees, the birds and the animals.
‘Have you seen my Sita?’ he asked. ‘Have you seen that gentle maiden who sat here and hummed songs as she watched the sunset?’
The rocks were silent.
‘Where is the golden deer you went to fetch for our sister?’ the trees demanded to know.
‘It was no deer. It was a shape-shifting demon called Maricha. He could imitate my voice and he drew Lakshman away. He was a decoy. I fear something horrible has happened to Sita.’
‘If you so cared for her, you should not have left our sister alone. The jungle is full of predators,’ said the unforgiving trees.
‘Maybe,’ the rocks finally spoke, ‘she created the distraction so that she could run away, tired of living like an exile in the forest.’
‘No, I know my Sita,’ said Ram.
Then a bird said, ‘I know who she is with but I will not tell you.’ Ram grabbed the bird’s neck so fiercely that it got elongated. When Ram released his grip, the frightened bird flew away.
Another bird said, ‘No animal begrudges a predator its prey, so why do you?’ Ram was so angry with this bird that he cursed that bird to forever be separated from its mate at night. When the bird apologized, Ram amended his curse and said its mate, separated at dusk, would rejoin it at dawn.
Ram then began to cry. His tears fell on the grass, which wondered aloud, ‘Does the prince weep for his wife or for himself?’
‘Is there a difference? This pain of incompleteness is as much hers as it is mine. I am nothing without her. And she is no one without me,’ Ram replied.
‘You presume too much,’ the bushes shouted. ‘Sita does not need you. You need her. She is free. You once claimed her as yours. Now another claims her as his.’
‘No one can claim Sita. Like the earth, my Sita, she allows herself to be claimed. She let me claim her. She found me worthy and I will not disappoint her. And I will find her. We will be reunited.’
‘Only fools are so certain,’ said a chorus of trees.
‘I am Sita’s fool then. She made me smile and laugh. She told me how thoughts can transform even a tragedy into a comedy.’ Ram then shuddered in sorrow.
The trees swayed in joy as they felt his love.
Hanuman then heard another ascetic – whom he later identified as Ram’s younger brother Lakshman – rebuke Ram: ‘This does not befit you. Do not forget you are king of Ayodhya, scion of the Raghu clan.’
Ram stopped moaning immediately. With a deep breath he resumed the posture of a regal warrior, free of all self-pity. ‘My pain can wait. What matters most is finding Sita.’
Many sages and their wives, having heard the commotion in the sky, had travelled to the banks of the Godavari to investigate. Learning what had happened to Ram, they tried to comfort him. But Hanuman watched Ram withdraw. ‘I do not wish to be touched. None but Sita shall comfort me,’ he said. Then seeing their unhappy faces, he said, ‘You can hug me in affection, and I will reciprocate, in my next life for sure, when I descend on earth as Krishna. But for now, as Ram, I will be intimate only with my Sita. Where is she?’
Ram kept going around Sita’s hut in wider and wider circles until he finally came upon Jatayu, who lay wingless on the forest floor, bleeding profusely. With his dying breath, the old bird told Ram what had happened. ‘She was taken away in the southern direction on a flying chariot by the rakshasa-king Ravana. That coward said this was your punishment for mutilating his sister. I tried stopping them but the demon chopped off my wing with his sword.’
Hanuman watched Ram comfort the bird until it breathed no more. He then saw Ram prepare to cremate the bird.
‘It’s just a bird,’ said Lakshman.
‘That may
be so but he sacrificed himself trying to protect my Sita,’ said Ram. ‘What animal does that? No, Lakshman, he is no less than a human. He has displayed more humanity than most humans. We, the unfortunate sons who could not cremate our own father, let us find satisfaction in cremating this creature, who tried protecting us as our father would.’
When the fire claiming Jatayu’s body rose to the sky, Ram became thoughtful. ‘Every action has a reaction, Lakshman. Sita is being punished because I allowed you to mutilate a woman whose only crime was that she desired me and did not appreciate the rules of marriage. The laws of karma do not follow human logic. Simply by association, an innocent pays for the crimes of the guilty.’
Hearing this, Sita told Hanuman, ‘He always told me that knowledge is no antidote to pain.’
‘Knowledge is like a floating log of wood that helps us stay afloat in the ocean of misery. To find the shore, we have to kick our legs and swim. No one can do that for us,’ said Hanuman.
On hearing this, Sita was not sure if Hanuman was a vanara or a siddha, one who could change shape at will, or a tapasvi, who had an acute sense of understanding about life.
The anguish of Ram gives a glimpse into his private world. Until then he is the personification of social perfection and royal stoicism. Now, intellect crumbles and emotions take over, until Lakshman, otherwise very passionate, reprimands him for such an inappropriate display of emotions.
Assamese ballads refer to the insensitive comments of birds that make Ram angry. He elongates the neck of the crane and causes the mythical chakravaka (goose) to wander the night crying out for its mate.
The chakravaka is sometimes equated with the chakora (partridge) that is in love with the moonlight and weeps all day as its beloved only comes at night. It is a common motif for depicting the emotion of viraha, yearning and separation.
Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Page 17
