Chapter 3
The Year of the Comet — Sita II
From the Chronicle of Sarama:
Many in Aryavarta remember Lanka only for its kings and its wars. I remember the people.
I remember fishermen returning at dawn with their catch. Gardeners tending groves of mango and jackfruit. Temple singers greeting the morning sun. Children racing through the streets of Trikuta. Traders from distant lands bargaining in a dozen tongues at the harbor.
Most Rakshas never carried a weapon. They raised families, worried about harvests, argued with neighbors, and prayed to the Gods much as other people did.
When Janasthana burned, it was not only warriors who died.
If Lanka excelled in beauty and trade, Ayodhya excelled in order. The people of Ayodhya possessed a discipline that even their rivals admired. Their roads were well kept, their laws respected and their public works maintained with care. Duty was not merely expected; it was honored.
Many in Lanka feared the expansion of Aryavarta. Yet even among those who opposed it, there was respect for what the Aryas had built.
One couldn’t help notice the scars on her arms.
Sita had great skin, smooth like the peel of apple but the imprisonment of the past eleven months had left its stain on her. Like tea leaves that had gotten in despite the straining, the flaws were there to see, the blemishes on her skin revealing signs of her confinement. Of course, it was not just her skin.
Weight-loss, knotted hair needing repair, four six-inch scars that my sister-in-law, Soorphanka had left on her arms; enough for people to see and judge.
She blamed herself for walking into Ravan’s cunning plan to distract Ram with the golden deer.
Later, through conversations with Sarama, she discovered Ravan’s humiliation.
He would have found me anyway.
The realization brought an unexpected measure of peace. She now understood the full history. Agastya had found his vengeance through Raghav, and Ravan had found his through Sita. On Agastya’s instruction, Raghav had burned Janasthana — the northernmost abode of the Rakshas — killing the entire population of fourteen thousand by fire.
When it happened, Sita was in Panchavati. Sita had not known there were children and pregnant women among the dead. Sarama had asked Sita how the Aryas could believe that Rakshas had no children and were born without a womb when that was impossible. She said it was a myth propagated by Agastya, who had his faults. She insisted that many Arya stories about Rakshas could not be true.
Sita told me then that she no longer knew what to believe.
Trikuta, Lanka. Present day
Sita had spent two days at the infirmary in Sarama and Raghav’s care. Raghav had insisted that he feed Sita himself. It was the morning after that Sita arrived back at Ashokvana. She had refused to move to Raghav’s tent as Lux would have to move out.
It had felt good to finally talk about her struggles to the two men who mattered most to her at that moment.
Later that morning Sita had a visitor. It was Sarama’s husband, Lord Vibhi.
Raghav and Lux were out while Sarama was collecting medicines in a nearby wooded grove.
Sita saw Lord Vibhi, the new King of Lanka, approaching her.
‘Namaskara Maate!’
‘Namaskara Kulpati!’
‘Raghav is with Guru Agastya. They will be here soon. Please permit me to lay my thoughts about… Lord Raghav.’
Sita felt her heart beat faster. This is unusual. What could this be about?
She gracefully offered him a seat.
‘Please join me, Kulpati.’
‘The message you sent with Bhrata Maruti saved my life, Maate.’
She remembered Maruti carrying her message to Raghav barely a month earlier.
‘Raghav trusted me only because you told him so. Sugriv wanted me dead. But Maruti made sure I met with Raghav.’
He placed his palm over his heart.
‘You offered me that protection. That is why I’m here. I will do whatever is in my power. Whether I am made king of Lanka or not.’
‘That is good news — are you to be made king? Does Sarama know?’
‘No, she doesn’t. All this just happened before I came here.’
‘Oh, I’m so happy to hear the news. I don’t know what I would have done if Raghav wasn’t here in time. And Maruti tells me it was you who told Raghav the secret to kill Ravan.’
‘Yes, many will remember me as the man who betrayed his brother.’
‘Yes, but also the one who brought Dharma back to Lanka. I reciprocate your feeling. I owe you my life, too.’
His face brightened. He raised his hands skywards.
‘I do what I do for my ancestors. I will restore the legacy of Heti-dharma and Pulastya-dharma.’
She remembered the stories. Heti the Raksha. Pulastya the Arya. She could see from his eyes that he meant it.
She paused and then said, ‘There was something you wanted to say about my husband.’
‘Aam. I want to explain why Raghav behaved the way he did. He is worried that your life is in danger at Ayodhya. Agastya has convinced him to take you. I will be the witness to your purity. I will fight for you, Seetha.’
‘No, that may not be necessary. I have made my own plans. I am yet to speak to my husband, so I cannot share them yet.’
‘I understand, Sita. Sarama and I are always there for you.’
‘Thank you for that, Kulpati.’
She pressed her hands together reverently. He paused.
‘I need your help with Sarama and Trijata. There is a bit of a problem.’
Trijata. Vibhi and Sarama’s daughter.
This is unusual.
‘Guru Agastya says that I am to wed Mandodari and then be King.’
Vibhi shifted uneasily. The discomfort on his face was impossible to miss.
‘Yes, by wedding the existing Queen, you would be the rightful King.’
‘Can you convey this to them?’
Sarama and Trijata. The thought clearly weighed on him.
‘This is a personal matter, Kulpati. You have to persuade your wife and daughter. And this is not final yet — Mandodari has yet to convey her decision, is it not?’
‘Yes, we await the word of the Queen.’
‘It is not for Guru Agastya alone to decide these matters. Think through the consequences on your loved ones. Is this really the best for your wife and daughter? I am sorry, but I cannot advise you on this. Please speak to Sarama soon.’
He began to say something, hesitated, then bowed and left.
Ayodhya, Kosala. A week later.
It seemed strange to be back in her room.
Sita lay on her bed thinking about the happiness that reuniting with Urmi and her sisters had brought about. She strangely missed the stone floor of the Lankan temple, and the cat, too. Raghav fell asleep as soon as he was in bed, his hand in hers. In just one year, he also seemed to have aged substantially.
She forced herself to think happy thoughts. The air at the welcoming procession had been electric. She couldn’t remember the last time it felt so good — to be back home. Reuniting at last with her sisters, the rest of Raghav’s family, her parents and friends. How wistfully she had yearned for this day when in the forest. And then the separation. How she had doubted at several moments if she might not ever see them again. And how each time Sarama had filled her with hope with news and words to cheer her up. Surviving that had taken every ounce of energy from every fiber in her body.
But now she did not feel happy. She felt a bit frustrated. It surprised her, scared her even, that she would feel like this after coming home. She had been so naive when she had first come here. Fourteen years had changed Sita completely. She now realized even more starkly how her Ayodhya life was different from Mithila and it made her miss her parents’ home even more. In Mithila even as a child, her father never made her feel that she was too young to have an opinion on state matters. In Ayodhya, the men were not used to having women discuss matters of the state except for wartime situations. When she had married Raghav, she had hoped he would be different — that he would consider her opinion on state matters, as her father did in Mithila.
Something had changed after their separation.
Sita’s father the King of Mithila supported thinkers Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka. For that time, they were far more liberal than the Kuru-Panchal people close to Hastinapur.
The intellectual center of gravity expanded eastward from the traditional Kuru-Panchala heartland (modern-day Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh) to the Videha kingdom (modern-day Bihar/Nepal). Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka Aruni spearheaded a revolutionary, inward-looking philosophy that directly challenged the rigid, ritual-dominant lifestyle of the Kuru-Panchala thinkers.
For example, while the westerners were hierarchical and closed, strictly guarded by orthodox Brahmin priestly lineages, the intellectual climate where Sita grew up was radical, relatively more democratic, and inclusive of kings, women, and various social classes.
I later learned from Sita that Ram’s father, Dashrath, was not as conservative as the westerners but not as liberal as the Mithilans.