The Ramayana · 371 of 493

Sundara Kānda (The Beautiful Book): Canto 37 — Sítá’s Speech

“Thou bringest me,” she cried again, “A mingled draught of bliss and pain: Bliss, that he wears me in his heart, Pain, that he wakes and weeps apart, O, see how Fate is king of all, Now lifts us high, now bids us fall, And leads a captive bound with cord The meanest slave, the proudest lord, Thus even now Fate’s stern decree Has struck with grief my lord and me. Say, how shall Ráma reach the shore Of sorrow’s waves that rise and roar, A shipwrecked sailor, well nigh drowned In the wild sea that foams around? When will he smite the demon down, Lay low in dust the giants’ town, And, glorious from his foes’ defeat, His wife, his long-lost Sítá, meet? Go, bid him speed to smite his foes Before the year shall reach its close. Ten months are fled but two remain, Then Rávaṇ’s captive must be slain. Oft has Vibhishaṇ,(863) just and wise, Besought him to restore his prize. But deaf is Rávaṇ’s senseless ear: His brother’s rede he will not hear. Vibhishaṇ’s daughter(864) loves me well: From her I learnt the tale I tell. Avindhva(865) prudent, just, and old, The giant’s fall has oft foretold; But Fate impels him to despise His word on whom he most relies. In Ráma’s love I rest secure, For my fond heart is true and pure, And him, my noblest lord, I deem In valour, power, and might supreme.”

As from her eyes the waters ran, The Vánar chief again began: “Yea, Ráma, when he hears my tale, Will with our hosts these walls assail. Or I myself, O Queen, this day Will bear thee from the fiend away, Will lift thee up, and take thee hence To him thy refuge and defence; Will take thee in my arms, and flee To Ráma far beyond the sea; Will place thee on Praśravaṇ hill Where Raghu’s son is waiting still.” “How canst thou bear me hence?” she cried, “The way is long, the sea is wide. To bear my very weight would be A task too hard for one like thee.”(866)

Swift rose before her startled eyes The Vánar in his native size, Like Mandar’s hill or Meru’s height, Encircled with a blaze of light. “O come,” he cried, “thy fears dispel, Nor doubt that I will bear thee well. Come, in my strength and care confide, And sit in joy by Ráma’s side.”

Insight

Hanumān offers to carry Sītā back across the ocean himself. He swells to his great size and tells her there is no danger; she can sit on his shoulder and be with Rāma by evening. Sītā refuses, and her refusal has been read in many directions. The traditional reading takes it as wifely honor: she will not let any man other than her husband touch her even to rescue her. A second reading, also old, is political: she will not be smuggled out, because Rāma's victory must be public, and the asura order must be broken in open war, not by trickery. A third reading, common in modern Indian feminist scholarship from Madhu Kishwar through Volga's Liberation of Sita and Pattanaik's Sita, reads it as agency: Sītā chooses the manner of her own rescue, refuses to be a passive parcel, and asserts that her story is hers to determine. All three are in the text. The Sanskrit is silent enough to hold them.On the multiple readings of Sītā's refusal: Madhu Kishwar, Manushi essays on Sītā (collected 2008); Volga, The Liberation of Sita, trans. T. Vijay Kumar and C. Vijayasree (HarperCollins India 2016); Devdutt Pattanaik, Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana (Penguin India 2013); Chitra Divakaruni, The Forest of Enchantments (HarperCollins India 2019).

Again she spake: “I know thee now, Brave, resolute, and strong art thou; In glory like the Lord of Fire With storm-swift feet which naught may tire But yet with thee I may not fly: For, borne so swiftly through the sky, Mine eyes would soon grow faint and dim, My dizzy brain would reel and swim, My yielding arms relax their hold, And I in terror uncontrolled Should fall into the raging sea Where hungry sharks would feed on me. Nor can I touch, of free accord, The limbs of any save my lord. If, by the giant forced away, In his enfolding arms I lay, Not mine, O Vánar, was the blame; What could I do, a helpless dame? Go, to my lord my message bear, And bid him end my long despair.”