The Abduction of Sita

This fugitive made his way to the court of Ravana, the king of the giants, and related to him the sad fate of his followers. Close on the heels of Akampan came Surpanakha herself, with her cruelly mutilated face. Transported with rage at the destruction of his armies and at sight of the disfigured countenance of his sister, the terrible Rakshasa chief vowed vengeance on Rama and Lakshmana. But the necessity for great caution in dealing with such valorous foes was apparent, and Ravana did not seem over-anxious to leave his comfortable capital, Lanka, in order to seek out the formidable brothers in the woods of Dandhaka. But Surpanakha, scorned and mutilated, was thirsting for an early and bitter revenge. Reproaching her brother for his unkingly supineness, she artfully gave him a description of Sita’s beauty, far superior to that of any goddess, which served to kindle unlawful desires in his heart. She referred to Vaidehi’s golden complexion, her moon-like face, her lotus eyes, her slender waist, her taper fingers, her swelling bosom, her ample hips and lovely thighs, till the giant was only too willing to assent to her suggestion, that the most effectual and agreeable revenge he could take for the destruction of his hosts, and the cruel insults to his sister, would be to carry off the fair Sita, by stratagem, from the arms of her devoted husband, and thus add the lovely daughter of Janaka to the number, not very small, of the beauties who adorned his palace at Lanka. We shall presently see that the plot was ingeniously contrived and too successfully carried out.

How conveniently the race of Rakshasas could assume at will the forms in which they chose to appear, we know already. Taking advantage of this faculty of metamorphosis, a Rakshasa named Maricha, in obedience to Ravana’s orders, showed himself near Rama’s hermitage, in the shape of a wonderful golden deer, spotted with silver, having horns resembling jewels, a belly like a sapphire, and sides like madbuka flowers. The strange creature captivated the fancy of Sita, and she was so eager to possess it, alive or dead, that Rama was induced to go in pursuit of it. Suspecting mischief from this unusual appearance, Rama left his brother with Sita, commanding him on no account to quit her side until he returned from his pursuit of the jewelled deer. The chase led him to a considerable distance from the hermitage. Weary of his endeavours to secure the deer, Rama grew angry, and, with one of his flaming arrows, pierced it in the breast. It bounded off the ground to the height of a palm tree and, in the act of dying, began to cry, exactly in the voice of Rama, “Ah! Sita; Ah! Lakshmana.” The words reached the hermitage, as they were intended to do, and Sita, in an agony of terror, implored Lakshmana to go to the aid of his brother, who seemed to be in some dire trouble. Lakshmana, however, protested that it was all illusion, and refused to believe that Rama could be in any real danger; for, as he assured the trembling wife, “even the Almighty Himself with the celestials and the three worlds cannot defeat him” (Dutt, 609). But Vaidehi took another view of the matter, and turning sharply upon her brother-in-law accused him roundly of desiring the destruction of Rama in order that he might gratify an improper wish to possess her himself. This, indeed, she said, must have been the reason that brought him all the way from Ayodhya. What, if any, grounds the charming lady may have had for this accusation does not appear. They could have been known only to herself and to Lakshmana, who, with joined hands, humbly reproached her for her cruel words, and bending low before her went off, with a heavy heart, in search of his brother.

In a garment (probably a saree) of yellow silk, Sita sat alone at the door of her thatched cottage, weeping bitterly, when Ravana presented himself before her, in the guise of a pious medicant. Ravished by her beauty, this pious medicant began, without ceremony, to praise the various charms of Sita’s person with the most reprehensible license of detail. Nor did he stop there, but telling her that she had carried away his heart, as a stream carries away its banks, invited her to accompany him out of the gloomy forest, tenanted by Rakshasas and wild beasts, and quite unfit for the abode of a goddess like herself.

As her visitor was in appearance a Brahman, she dutifully attended to him, bringing him water to wash his feet with, and food to eat, while her eyes were straining through the forest for her absent lord. Dreading that her Brahman guest might curse her if she did not speak to him, Vaidehi began to relate the history of her exile, addressing the seeming medicant in such flattering terms as “thou best of twice born ones.” After listening to her story, Ravana revealed himself to her, and again declaring his love, invited her to become his wife in the great city of Lanka, where she should live in luxury, attended by five thousand maid-servants. Sita indignantly spurned the offer, threatening the Rakshasa with the consequences of her husband’s anger. While indulging in boastful speeches regarding his own prowess, Ravana assumed his natural form, with ten heads and twenty arms. As he stood there before Vaidehi, “his eyes were bloody,” and he appeared beautiful like unto blue clouds, being dressed in gold-hued apparel (Dutt). Approaching the adorable Sita, the enamoured giant caught her hair with one hand and her legs with another and carried her off, through the air, in his golden car drawn by asses. As she was being borne away, the fair lady cried aloud for help, invoking the sylvan deities to tell her husband whither, and by whom, she had been carried off. Her voice reached the virtuous Jatayus, the king of birds, who, though sixty thousand years old, immediately interposed to rescue her. A furious and picturesque battle ensued, in which the huge vulture-king, with his formidable beak, talons, and wings, made a gallant stand against Ravana, in the cause of virtue and his friend Rama, but eventually lost his noble life in the struggle, and left his huge bones to mark, to this day, the scene of his terrible aërial conflict with the demon. The victorious Ravana carried Sita away through the air in his arms. Some of her ornaments fell to the ground as the two sped along in their journey towards Lanka, and showers of blossoms, falling from her head, were scattered around. At this sorrowful event the sun hid his face and all nature was oppressed with grief. Not yet despairing of succour, the brave-hearted Sita observed, as she passed along in mid-air, five monkey-chiefs seated on the summit of a hill, and, unnoticed by Ravana, dropped amongst them her gold-coloured sheet and some glittering ornaments, in the hope that they might convey to Rama the intelligence of her abduction by the giant. But Fate had more sorrow in store for her. Over mountain peaks, over rivers, over the sea, Ravana conveyed his prize without meeting with further opposition, and lodged her safely in his magnificent palace in Lanka, where he treated her with the greatest consideration, and wooed her like a youthful lover, placing her tender feet upon his heads and professing himself her obedient slave.