Sita : The Exiled Queen

This write-up is for those who consider Uttar Ramayan a legitimate part of Valmiki Ramayan. I have reasons to doubt otherwise. But let’s put that discussion away for some other time.

The later part of Valmiki Ramayan, known as Uttar Ramayan, presents an ideal conflict where a leader faces the dilemma of choosing between his duty towards his subjects and his family. The protagonists, Raam and Sita, are the avatars of Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi, respectively.

The epic revolves around keeping promises, maintaining the reputation of the vansh (dynasty/lineage), and looking at the unfolding of events from an ideal leader’s perspective.

It tells us that Raam, the King of Ayodhya, asked his wife Sita to leave the kingdom because a washerman raised questions about the purity of her character post their return from Lanka, where Sita was held captive by its Rakshas King Raavan for a considerable amount of time.

The story goes that the washerman refused to let his wife in the house and his life after she spent a night at some place other than their home. He refused to take her word for her being pure of character; he said that he is not like Raam, who accepted Sita even after she remained at Raavan’s palace for months after her abduction by him.

Hearing this, Raam, after a prolonged cogitation, decided to sacrifice his marriage so that no one could raise a finger at him in future.

Raam’s decision to let Sita go was never because of his lack of trust for her. The love and trust he had for her was impeccable and indiminishable. Yet he was also the king, a leader bound to his duty towards his people.

To an ideal king, his subjects are his priority. Always. The family occupies the second rung on this ladder. Raam, the king of Ayodhya, was following just that. He was setting an example of utter devotion towards one’s duty and maintaining high ethical standards when they demanded sacrificing a part of his life that held the utmost significance.

Sita, the integral part of Raam, followed the same by agreeing with Raam’s decision. It was King Raam’s decision and not of the husband Raam.

Raam could also have abandoned his throne and left with Sita, making Bharat the King of Ayodhya, but that would have defeated the entire purpose of Lord Vishnu’s incarnation as Raam.

As King Raam, Lord Vishnu was trying to teach the world lessons in leadership, the true sense of one’s duty, and the extent of sacrifices a leader needs to go through to lead from the front.

By leaving the throne, Raam would have been termed a deserter who chose to abandon his people and his duty for the love of his wife.

After ascending the throne of Ayodhya, following Raam’s denouncement of it as he was second in line, Bharat would have been suspected of foul play. The rumours would have indicated the possibility that Bharat was the one who instigated the washerman against Raam and Sita. After all, his mother, Kaikeyi, was the sole reason behind Raam’s fourteen years of exile to the forest. She wanted to see her son occupy the throne of Ayodhya.

The rumours thus started would have been impossible to quash. People of Ayodhya would have lost faith in their leaders. The lessons in moral and ethical standards that Lord Vishnu set out to teach the world through Raam would thus have gone in vain.

That day, Raam not only lost his love with his seemingly unfair decision towards Sita, but he lost his two stillborn children, Lav and Kush, as well. The father and the children never met until the children were into their teenage years.

After Sita departed from Ayodhya to Maharishi Valmiki’s ashram, Raam gave up all material comforts. He stayed a King to his people, but in his personal life, he turned an ascetic; he discarded royal clothes for the ones worn by the sages. Raam switched his diet to simple foods just like Sita and began to sleep on a straw mat on the floor of his bedroom as Sita was doing the same in Maharishi Valmiki’s ashram. He never remarried; there was immense pressure to do so from all quarters.

Even during the Ashwamedha Yagya, when advised by the sages that a King must sit in the Yagya with his wife, he ordered a life-size statue of Sita be placed by his side, requesting them to consider it as his wife.

Any lesser man would have refrained from taking such harsh measures when there was no one to question him. It takes a man of exceedingly high moral character to make such decisions.

As leaders and as King and Queen, Raam and Sita have set high moral standards for others to follow; they sacrificed their personal lives and happiness for their subjects.

That is why he is known as an ideal human being. A Maryada Purushottam!

Sita, the ever-mature one, had always stood alongside her Raam. That is why she is known as the Ideal Woman and an Ideal Queen.

And that is precisely how King Raam’s reign became the benchmark of ideal governance — Raam Rajya!