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My interest in Sita wasparticularly aroused whenas part of a gender

affirmative programme, I conductedawareness sessions for adolescentgirls in Higher Secondary schools insome villages in Himachal. In the courseof one such participatory discourse, astudent commented that she felt thesame kind of embarrassment and shameon being teased by a man as Sita musthave felt when Ram asked her for asecond time to prove her innocence bytaking the fire test. Much as I tried, Ifailed to convince the girls that it wasanger and rejection of both herhusband and the fire test, that promptedSita to return to mother Earth.

Sita’s story has important meaningsto many people in various regions ofHimachal. Though no single temple hasbeen dedicated to her alone, bothShaivites and Vaishnavs relate to heras an epitome of purity and as thegoddess of endurance. Allusions to thesuffering that Prithvi or Earth mustendure due to the will of the gods, asSita did as the daughter of Prithvi, arecommon in Himachal where strongbelief in village deities in local versionsof gods and goddesses still remainsstrong.1

In the folk songs of most districtsin Himachal, the bride is almost alwaysaddressed as Sita and her friends andrelatives wish that the man she isbethrothed to might prove himself tobe like Ram who is considered theepitome of the perfect man. In a folksong of Hamirpur district of Himachal,the groom’s relatives sing for him:

If you wish to sit on the horse andbring your bride home, you mustpromise that you will treat her likeRam treated Sita.

In the Jain Ramayan of the 3rdcentury A.D, Sita was the daughter ofRavan and his wife Mandodari afloatand was after her birth put in a box byMandodari, which was set afloatbecause the astrologers had predicted

that the girl would be the cause of herfather’s death. The Buddhist versionsof the Ramayan from Tibet, Malayaand, Khaitan repeat the same story.

Folk Ramayan of MahasuThe Ramayan of Mahasu district

in Himachal which covers large partsof present day Shimla district and thatof Kinnaur district seems to have beeninfluenced by the Jain and Buddhistversions of the Ramayan in the storyof Sita’s birth. In the folk version ofMahasu district: a daughter was bornto Ravan and there were celebrationsin Lanka. The astrologers predicted thatshe will grow up and get married to herfather and bring him a bad name.

When Ravan heard this he orderedthat the girl be killed. However his wifeMandodari did not have the heart toget her daughter killed. She put herinside a box with lot of gold and jewelsand then let the box float in the ocean.The box was found by a fisherman and

his wife who buried it under the fieldthat King Janak of Mithila was to ploughhimself to end drought conditions inhis kingdom.2 The next day Janakfound Sita in the box that he ploughedout of the field and adopted her as hisdaughter.

Sita dreams that Dashrath, Ram’sfather, asks her to get Ram to conductshradh in the memory of his deadancestors.Ram did as he was instructed.Sita cooked delicious food for theoccasion, one part of which was servedto a crow as per tradition. Sita instructedthe crow not to fly with the foodtowards the South as the ruler therewould kill him on getting the smell ofthe delicious food. The crow refusedto listen to her and flew southwards.Ravan, the ruler of the South, declaredthat the food that smelled so goodshould be snatched from the crow andbrought to him. On tasting the food hegot a search conducted for the woman

Sita in Himachal Pradesh� Richa Jas

Ram and Sita in the Panchvati hermitage, Pahari Schoolpainting, Kangra idiom. 1780-85

26 MANUSHI

who had cooked it and then planned toabduct her. Good cooking skills in awoman are not only considered anasset but are considered absolutelyessential requirement in Himachal. Alsothe folk tradition in Himachal givesmuch importance to appeasing thespirits of their ancestors.

The folk Ramayan of Mahasu hasno role for Shrupnakha3 , Ravan’s sisterwho is conspicuous by her absence. Inmany other Ramayanas, she plays akey role in instigating her brother toabduct Sita.

Disobedient LakshmanIn Kullu and Bilaspur district’s folk

Ramayan, Lakshman deviatessignificantly from most popularversions in refusing to fetch water forhis brother Ram, saying that his wifeSita had also come to know the forestswell enough over the years and couldnow do that job for him. In the hills,fetching water is one of the main choresperformed by women. Sometimeswomen have to walk long distances toget water. Men usually dismiss it as atask women are supposed to do andLakshman’s attitude is a reflection onthe contemporary attitude of men inHimachal.

Frail and Vain SitaIn Bilaspur district, the dialogue

goes further after Ram tells Sita to gofetch water for him. Sita says that she isof royal birth and needs a golden pitcherto get water. Accordingly it is arrangedfor her and she goes deep into thejungles to get cold water for Ram. Thereshe encounters the golden deer. She isso Smitten by its charm that she tellsRam:

If you refuse to get the deer’s skinfor me, I refuse to call you husband.Some of the folk poets in Himachal

who wrote local versions of theRamayan view Sita as a frail womanwith a weakness for gold, a trait theysee as natural in women. These poetsuse karmic theory to blame Sita forevery bit of misfortune that befell her,

while Ram is exonerated from blame asit is suggested that even in abandoningSita he was fulfilling his duty towardshis subjects which was his foremostkarma.

While some of the women Iinterviewed in Himachal relatepositively to Sita’s passion for goldsaying that it is natural in a woman,others think that it seems a paradox asSita lived austerely for the larger part ofher life and insisted on leaving all royalluxuries behind to accompany herhusband to the forest.

The Ramayan of Una district takesthe story of Sita’s birth directly fromthe Adbhut Ramayan. It is believed thatthe saint Valmiki had written thisversion of the Ramayan for the gods.In Una district’s Ramayan, the king ofLanka’s wife, Mandodari conceivedSita on drinking the blood of somesaints. Her husband Ravan hadcollected this blood in a vessel toannounce his victory over these saintswithout having to kill them. One of thesesaints had in the same vessel acquireda portion of the goddess Lakshmithrough his prayers. He mixed it withthe milk of Kusha grass he had meantthis milk to be drunk by his wife so thathis daughter would have a bit ofLakshmi in her. Mandodari drank the

milk thinking that it was poison, as thatwas what her husband had told herbefore he asked her to keep it safely.Thereafter, she conceived Sita. In thisstory Ravan is absolutely unaware ofSita’s birth.

In Mandi district also the impact ofthe Adbhut Ramayan becomesobvious as it is on display in the TarnaDevi temple where there is a picture ofBrahma, Vishnu and Mahesh bowingbefore Sita. The accompanyingSanskrit shloka describes Sita as

‘She who has eyes as beautiful asLotus flowers, is fair and beautifullike the full moon, she who bestowspassion and understanding on herdevotees, and grants them theirwishes, she who is the beloved ofRam and is worshipped by theTrinity.’

In Himachal, various temples oflocalized versions of Durga, andtemples devoted to Shiv-Shaktinormally have an image of Hanumanguarding them at the entrance. Thetemple priests say that Hanuman wasthe son of Shiv and was given away byhis father into the service of Ram whowas an incarnation of Vishnu.

4 While

this view also sheds light on the factthat vaishanavism had taken over ashaiv society, another interpretation

The trinity of Shiv, Vishnu and Brahma, paying their respect to Sita in apainting at Tarna Mandir in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.

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that comes to mind is that this is asubtle recognition in Himachal of theshakt aspect of Sita.

The genre of myth has never beenentirely abandoned in Himachal.Though it has dwindled to children’sbedtime tales in some societies, inparts of the world protected by forestsor deserts from international megaculture, it has continued to flourish.

During various discussions I hadwith women there it emerged that agood number of teenage girls andwomen believed that Sita had askedMother Earth to take her because shewas ashamed that her husband wasstill reluctant to take her back. One isforced to question whether the returnto Prithvi5 was due to Sita’s shameor was actually Sita’s bold choice.

In the Arthashastra of Kautilya,the word Sita is given meaning as aform of land tax. The word Sita literallymeans furrowed land. The storiesregarding Sita’s birth and her returnto the earth preserve the basic qualityof her name. She strongly symbolizesfertility and motherhood in Himachal.

The Sita of the Ramayan is notidentical to the Sita of the mythsinvoking her various traits inHimachal. Sita abiding with hermother Prithvi implies reverence toMother Earth. Women in Himachal domore than 70 per cent of theagricultural work. Their natal familiesaccept those who are discarded bytheir husbands more readily becauseas extra hands to work in the fieldsthey are always an asset to their natalhomes.

Sitas of TodayVirah, or separation, is a dominant

theme in the folk songs in Himachal.Women in Himachal sing of

despair, of ravaged fates, of strandedloves, of Sita and Ram, of Radha andKrishna - and also of hope andreconciliation. They sing oftranscendence through meeting their

idealized, spiritual lovers andhusbands, as did Vaishnavi Radhain ages past. They believe that atsome level Sita was one with Ram andonly the physical manifestation of thedivine union was not possible.

After intense reflections onHimachal’s society it seems that atsome level trust in Sita, and thestrength derived from her, gives thewomen in Himachal a kind of anultimate faith in the resilience of theirculture. �

ReferencesTurner II, B.L., R.H. Moss, and D.L.Skole (eds.) 1993. Relating Land Use andGlobal Land-Cover Change. InterGovernmental Biodiversity ProgrammeReport No. 34 and Human DevelopmentProgramme Report No. 5. Stockholm.Hari Ram Jasta (ed.) 1974. Pahari LokRamayan. Shimla: Himachal PradeshAcademy of Language, Art and Culture.Lutgendorf, Philip 1994. ‘The Text in aChanging Society.’ In The Life of a Text,Performing the Ramcharitmanas ofTulsidas. New Delhi :Oxford UniversityPress.Raha, M.K. 1979. ‘Stratification andReligion in a Himalayan Society.’ InHimalayan Anthropology: The Indo-Tibetan Interface, ed. James F. Fisher.Moutine, TX: Aldine.Ranjan, S.P.& Joosta, H.R. 1980. FolkTales of Himachal Pradesh. U.K.,Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.Turner B.L. et al. (eds.) 1990. The Earthas Transformed by Human Action.London: Cambridge University Press.

Footnotes1) Since ancient times in Himachal, oneparticular deity presides in an area,although there may be more than one god,native to it The chief deity dominatessocial and cultural intercourse and setsthe social calendar of the festivals,forecasts weather, protects crop fromdisease ensures well-being; answersindividual queries; hex opponents ofdevotees, and interact in all facets ofvillage life through the medium of oracles.It is a standard practice for the gods tovisit relatives and friends in other villagesand even for specific households to invite

them. On such occasions a member ofeach household in their domain is obligedto accompany them. It is believed thatthose households that do not send arepresentative with the devta’s retinue arepunished by crop failure or illness or insome other way by the divinity. Thetemple committee also commonly leviesa fine on them.2) The concept of the king or the masterof the household taking upon himself toplough the land during times of droughtperhaps emerged during the period of thegrowing impact of the Vaishnav traditionas earth is understood to be the secondspouse of Vishnu and the king under theVaishnav tradition was seen as anincarnation of Vishnu himself. HimachalPradesh also has a long history ofdroughts.3) Shrupnakha is a sister of the king ofLanka, Ravan. Once when during his exileRam was sitting with his wife Sita andbrother Lakshman in a place calledPanchvati, Shrupnakha came and on seeingRam expressed her desire for him. Onbeing refused she went to Lakshman andsought to become his wife. Repulsed byhim too, she went again to where Ramwas sitting and tried to kill Sita. Then asthe story goes Lakshman seized hissword and cut off her nose and ears,shouting that he would have killed herhad she not been a woman. Shrupnakhawent back to Lanka bleeding and told herbrother of her misfortune. Ravanpromised to avenge her insult from Ram,Lakshman and Sita.4) Hanuman, another creation of Valmiki,is a monkey of a different order. He is theHindu ideal of the perfect devotee whofinds full realization of manhood in hislove and loyality to Ram.5) The earlier images of Prithvi in Hindumythology describe her as a mother. Thesynonym Vasudha connotes a repositoryof wealth. Annada, her other name,means “one who gives food.” Laterliterature describes her as a beautifulyoung woman, Vishnu’s wife and aspouse of all rich and victorious kings.The Rigveda recognizes Prithvi only asthe spouse of the sky, drawing asimilarity with ancient Greek andEgyptian mythology. �

Richa Jas is Ph. D. student at JawaharLal Nehru University, New Delhi.