The story Ramayana* is his entire life journey starting from his innocent youth, his mastery over skills in winning Sita, his role as dutiful and obedient son to adhere to his father’s words while aware of the flagitious intensions of his step mother. He gives up all the worldly richness and sets away to spend 14 years in jungle. Sita being his wife accompanies him followed by Laxman, Ram’s younger brother.
They spend quite an adventurous and romantic** life in the forest. Sita finds her world in her husband Ram and experiences an unspelled love for him. Everything works fine when one day, Sita gets abducted by Ravana while Ram is away to fulfill one of her impossible wishes. Ram does everything possible to get back his love. He gathers a huge army, builds a bridge across an ocean, does all that he could. Finally, he succeeds to kill Ravana and gets her back. With this they complete 14 years of stay in jungle and they return to their kingdom after which they should have lived happily ever after.
But the story takes turmoil instead, Ram’s story ends here and Sita’s story begins. This happens when a subject of Ram’s kingdom whispers “how could Ram trust Sita, who been with Ravana for so long”. Ram wants a test now, Agni-Pareeksha – A test to check purity of a woman, by entering into fire. Exactly this part of the story becomes hard to digest. This is where so many questions arise and is left unanswered.
- Did it serve right for a person like Ram ‘the so called God’ to come down to such a cruel act?
- Is he setting example for all men or rather his followers to commit such an act?
- Or is he doing right by following well set example from his predecessors?
- Ram must have done justice to his kingdom? But why not to his wife? Had he really loved her he wouldn’t have banished her at such a crucial moment.
Did it serve her right to undergo another painful punishment after she had been a victim and had already suffered years of pain in the evil’s custody?
Why anywhere in the whole epic Sita does not have any views? Why didn’t she refuse when they were to leave for jungle (her sister Urmila does that)? Why didn’t she not ask back “why should I jump into fire?” “Don’t you trust me?”
We often come across people stating ‘Ram jaisa pati mila hai’. Can we really consider Ram as an ‘example for perfection’?
If these questions are answered they can be called as Sitayana. It should contain the entire possible thing Sita would have had in mind, but not presented in Ramayana. Nina Paley an Indian born professional animation moviemaker is releasing Santayana. She says:
“We never really know why Rama banishes Sita. Common interpretations resemble rationalizations and apologies: Rama “had to” abuse Sita to maintain the traditional order of his kingdom, in which the opinion of the lowliest man ranked higher than the life of any woman. As literature, Rama’s behavior towards Sita makes no sense…except it’s so realistic. It is the Ramayana’s ambiguities that make it so compelling.”
I strongly feel, movie is going to make some level of controversy and protest. If you are planning to participate, please make sure you have answers to all the questions Ms. Paley is asking.
Some clips of the movie have already reached youTube reservoir. I have posted two of them.
Sita in Love
Ram in Doubt
* Ramayana – the most popular mythological epic dwells around Ram –ninth incarnation of Lord Vishnu as believed by most of the Hindus. Ram is another name for a ‘perfect man’ and is symbolized for loyalty, respect, courage, justice and unbound love.
** Their romantic story in forest is only next best to Kalidasa’s Shakuntala. They sit watching “Kaumauda” near lake cheek to cheek whole night long with “rAtrirEva vyamsIt” (a great literary work in Sanskrit).
The Bach 
You want me to prove Ramayana occured??
Welllll….
Let us consider the epic and compare it with today’s world.
There was a city of Ayodhya, in the epic its the birth place of Sri Rama and today’s Ayodhya is still considered to be Rama’s Ayodhya.
A place, in Ayodhya where annual fair was held from time immemorial, was considered to be Janmabhumi. Theres no denial of this fact, its been observed as a tradition, not documented.
Coming down south.. Rameshwaram a place where its stated in Ramayana, the epic, that Rama worshipped Lord Shiva on the sea shore just before starting with the bridge construction to Lanka.
Today, even today, a temple exists at the same said place, people throng to worship there from allover. There is no denial of this fact.
Near Hampi in Karnataka, there is a hilly region identified as Kishkindha. This place is still referred to as Kishkindha, and there is a Hanuman temple.
Kishkindha in the epic is the place where Rama and Hanuman meet.
Dandakaranya, as explained in the epic matches with its current strength and location. ‘Extending over an area of about 35,600 square miles (92,300 square km), it includes the Abujhmar Hills in the west and borders the Eastern Ghats in the east. The Dandakaranya includes parts of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh states.‘
Today, Chitrakut is by the border of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, 132km south of Allahabad.
And the explaination matches with what Valmiki has documented in Ramayana. Its stated that Rama stayed there for most part of his 14 year forest stint. Rama temple stands there from time immemorial.
Parnasala in Andhra Pradesh, is supposed to be the place from where Ravana abducted Sita. There is no proof available against this belief.
Lepakshi in Andhra Pradesh has a big temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, construction of which has no documentation. Its believed that Jatayu fought with Ravana in this locality, strangely enough, the place matches the explainations of the place given in Ramayana.
The Rama setu, the bridge, built by vanaras is believed to have been there connecting these places. Even geographically the unusual narrow projections of land far into the sea from Ramanathapuram to Dhanushkodi on the Indian side and correspondingly from Mannar to Talaimannar across the sea support the possibility of existence of such a bridge all along. It is possible that the middle portion may have been washed away in course of time. This bridge must have been present in the Mahabharata period. The Parashar Samhita says Arjuna, after his victory over the South, finds this bridge and learns that it was the one constructed by vanaras with mountains.
Lastly, in Sri Lanka, Ashoka Vana called “Sita Wakey”, is situated near Nuwara Eliya in the hills. The mountains around here are in the form of an inverted ‘ T ‘ and have been described so as Trikuta Parvata in Sundara Kanda. Hanuman’s search mission to the south started from the sea coast (Arabian) nearer to the Vindhya ranges presumably via Lakshadweep, where he comes across Minaca hill. Eventually he landed on the island (Lanka), which was surrounded by seawater, and had coconut trees. Sundara Kanda itself provides many more clues about Lanka. Recently, a Sita temple was built in this serene atmosphere.
Rama’s period, placed by different scholars between 3881 B.C. and 1000 A.D. demands confirmation of the exact period by excavatory findings.
The entire subject, which deserves an in-depth study by different specialists, should yield interesting facts on our ancient culture and civilization.
Names in use, traditions in place, the belief, mention in the epic, and supporting proof gives us an impression that Rama is just not a character in an epic, but a real man who walked across our country with flesh and blood!!
And I heard somewhere…. If there is one co-incidence, for anything for that matter, we can ignore it. If there are two, we can think a while about it. If there are as many as I have given here, what do u call it? Was it a deliberately imprinted fiction?
Think 100 times before you ask for proof again.
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@Kaushik
It has been dated 1.2 million years, thus putting it in the time-frame of it’s so-called construction.
– Are you aware that Homo Sapiens, the species of modern humans, appeared on the Earth only 2,50,000years ago, that is almost a million years after that ‘event’ of construction.
@destinationsrik
People who write story books these days, generally uses names of modern day towns and cities. Does ‘places exist’ can imply ‘fact existed’?
BTW, even if Rama was a ruler in the province of Ayodhya somewhere between 2000-3000 BC, and Valmiki wrote ‘Ramayana’ in praise of Rama – then also it does not make ‘Ramayana’ a fact.
Troy was unique in this case. The remnants of Troy points to the way it was destroyed and that was similar to what was suggested in the epics. Still, there is no historicity of Zeus, Apollo and other gods …
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Diganta dude, whats the point you wanna make here?
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All started with this :
Occurance of Ramayana and Valmiki’s life are contemporary.
My point is :
Let’s not infer anything assuming that what’s written in Ramayana(esp. – Uttara Ramayana) is true and historic, even if we think that king Rama was there.
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Yes, as Diganta mentioned places mentioned cannot be considered as facts. I agree. But you need to consider the events mentioned in the epic. some constructions, some war remnants, some cities built. Considering these facts, i had put down the building of Adam’s brige and city opf Dwaraka. NASA has suggested that the brige has been made of corals, and there is a high possiblity that it is not a natural phenomenon.
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Interesting post… and quite an interesting debate in the comments section 🙂
BUT then, the point of the post was not to prove whether Ramayana happened or not. Let us just assume it as a story told to us from generations as one with a moral.
The questions you have raised is very valid. Why is it always women who have to prove their sanctity?
The point is very clear, a man is “expected” to be disloyal… not talking about Rama only here, but in general.
Like it was widely accepted if a king had more than one wife or If he just went hunting and came back with a forest woman as his wife.
But the same is not acceptable in the case of a woman.. now call it prejudice, narrow mindedness or whatever… it’s true even to this day!
A woman who is betrayed by her husband.. finally forgives him (ok after some fighting) and is branded “Pativrata Naari”. But the reverse never happens.
Times have changed, atleast to a large extent. The same kind of commitment is expected from a man also these days. This is mainly because women are independent. They can live on their own now without any man’s support, but it was not the case back in those days so a woman was left with no choice but to adhere to her husband’s words.
Coming back to Ramanaya,
The story goes something like this : Once Narada goes on Sanchaara.. (as usual) and he sees a beautiful maiden in a garden. He falls for this maiden and wants to marry her. Incidently a swayamwara is arranged for her. But it is also known that this maiden has a secret liking for lord Vishnu himself. Knowing this, Narada comes to vishnu and asks him to make him as beautiful as him so that he can marry the maiden. Vishnu being sarvaantaryaami, knows that Narada is meant to be a brahmachaari forever for loka kalyaana. But he cannot deny him his wish so he says tathaasthu! And Narada gets a monkey face (narayana being a synonym for a monkey). Without realising this, narada goes to the swayamvaara like that only and needless to say is utterly humiliated. He obviously gets wild at vishnu and curses him saying that because of this “trick” he is also going to suffer from “Patni Veedane”.
This curse is what Rama (avatara of Vishnu) suffers when he banishes Sita.
He was meant to “suffer” and hence he was made to do that mistake.
Rama himself admits later that this is the greatest mistake he has ever commited.
This was puraana speaking… but logically speaking, Rama himself says that he is a KING first and HUSBAND later.He didn’t want an unrest in his kingdom because of his wife. To him, his subjects were more important than his family. Hence even to this day a well administered kingdom is called “Ramaraajya” where everything is fair and just.
Now to answer the question “Do we really want a Pati like Raama”? YES. Because he stayed loyal to his wife till the end. He was one of the first “ekapatnivratha (having only one wife)”. He was anyway the king and before/after banishing Sita, he could have married anybody else of his choice… but he didn’t. He preferred to stay with the memories of Sita than with somebody else. Now who wouldn’t want a husband like that? 🙂
Finally (ok I will stop soon ;-)).. Sita herself was a very strong woman as opposed to the thinking that she suffered and was very docile.
She endured 14 years of living in a Jungle, lived with a Rakshasa, Went thru fire, Was banished by her own husband.. but never did she give up. She endured it all.. that’s the greatness of her.
In the end when all was well, she refused to go back to her husband and instead became one with mother earth. She could have gone back to Raama and lived the life of a queen.. but she struck to her principles. Not every woman is that strong!
THE END (finally :))
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@Kedarsoman
Thanks, I would like to add (to your comment) no only epics, complete society never been fair to women.
@kaushik
Unless it was properly proved, I am not all that comfortable accepting Ramayana did happen. You know me… 😉
@diganta
I am with you in this: “anybody need not prove it dint occur, what objective is to prove it did occur “
@Shrik,
Those are some wonderful information you have added here Saar. But some (may be many) of them are later addition of the real epic. People are dream and imagine, they relate every movie they watch, every book they read to their life. So why not they created something which is there in an epic?
@Shark ,
Welcome to my blog , you will find similar interesting stuff here ,
I completely agree with you till the last two paragraphs of your comment. I do not agree one concept you mentioned. “he is a KING first and HUSBAND later. He didn’t want unrest in his kingdom because of his wife.” … There was no need of him to do this. The situation was not at all serious ( I can put it as “ a dog was barking in rama’s kingdom, against sita” ) . It was very nice decision if he chose to ignore it.
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@bachodi:
Excatly! As I told Rama himself accepts that it was his “mistake”. Now he was a “manushya avataara” and he was prone to commit mistakes. So he did it… for which he repented for the rest of his life.
Infact, finally he breaks down… cries.. and that’s what causes pralaya (or the end of Thretayuga). His tears flood the world.
We have to notice one thing here, it is always easy to look back and point out at the mistakes commited, but finally all these are circumstantial. Instead of debating on why he commited it, why don’t we learn from his mistake and give what a woman deserves. Some respect.
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@Shark,
“Why don’t we learn from his mistake” Will never happen because of several reasons. I) even if he accepts it’s a mistake, we are not ready to accept it’s a mistake (at all). 2) We are not good learners, same mistakes have been happening and so many females went ashes for their husbands etc etc
And just for 😉 … why only “Some respect.” Why not all the respect she deserves?
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The moral is finally decided.
A SHE has to be given proper respect, all that she deserves and not demands.
You know what…I jsut couldnt stay remembering this poem :
|| Yatra Naryaastu pujyante Ramante Tatra devatah ||
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