Sita Abandoned in the Forest for Fear of Slander

Hardening his heart, Rama sends for Lakshmana, who rides up at once, bows and sits on the ground at Rama's feet until Rama raises him to share half the throne, while Shatrughna and the kings, Viradhita and the Vidyadharas, the priest, merchants, ministers and generals take their places. When Rama tells him of the slander, Lakshmana's eyes turn red with fury and he calls out his warriors, vowing to rid the earth of the slander, to cut out the tongues of those who defame the queen with lies and to kill whoever reviles the peerless, chaste Sita.

Rama calms him: this earth was protected by Rishabhadeva and ruled by Bharata Chakravarti, and the great kings of the Ikshvaku line, whose backs no enemy ever saw, made it famous by the moonlight of their glory, so he will not stain that fame for a fleeting attachment. A little infamy left unchecked grows into a great tree, slander cannot be killed with weapons, and as even the sun must set at night, slander dims the radiance of the best of men; knowing Sita to be utterly faultless and chaste, he will still give her up rather than let the shining clan of the Tirthankaras be stained.

Lakshmana, wise and devoted to Rama, replies that it is not right to bring grief on Sita: people slander even munis and the Jina's dharma, yet no one abandons dharma for that, and Sita, the crown of all virtuous wives, is in no way blameworthy. The ignorant see even the moon as stained though it is white, the virtuous need no witness but their own soul, a wise man no more heeds the slander of the low than a great elephant heeds a barking dog, and those who cannot bear others' virtues and always praise themselves are born in hell and nigoda (the lowest form of life).

Rama grants that all Lakshmana says is true and his mind impartial, but holds that the just must avoid what the world condemns: what joy or life has one whose infamy blazes in all ten directions, and what use is wealth that brings harm, medicine mixed with poison, or strength that does not protect those who seek refuge. Setting public talk aside, he says his own great fault is to have brought home a wife carried off by another man, who lived many days in the Rakshasa's palace garden while Ravana sent female messengers with his pleas, came near, looked on her with lustful eyes and said whatever he pleased, and he calls himself a fool caught in worldly attachment.

Rama orders Kritantavaktra to be summoned and Sita to be put out of his house at once, though she carries two children. Lakshmana pleads with joined hands that Janaka's tender, innocent, chaste daughter, a follower of the Jina's dharma who has always lived in comfort, cannot be sent alone and pregnant into the forest with no one to turn to, and that merely being looked upon is no fault, just as offerings before the Jina are seen by all and forbidden foods are seen without sin, for the fault lies only in accepting.

Rama, utterly hardened, grows angry and forbids Lakshmana to say another word: come good or ill, he will leave the queen alone and without help in an uninhabited forest where the very name of man is unheard, to live or die by her own karma, and she will not stay a moment longer in his land, his city or anyone's house, since she brings him infamy. Kritantavaktra drives up the royal road in a four-horse chariot with a great force, under parasols, bow strung and armour on, while the people wonder whom he is angry with today, and he bows to Rama and awaits his command.

Rama tells him to take Sita away, show her the Jina temples on the way and nirvana-kshetras such as Sammedashikhara to fulfil her wish, and then leave her alone in the Simhanada forest, where no one comes or goes. Kritantavaktra gently tells Sita to mount the chariot and fulfil her longing to see the Jina images; she bows to the Lord, prays that the fourfold sangha (the community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen) and Rama, devoted to the Jina's dharma, may prosper, asks the guardian deities to forgive any disrespect of hers, bids her companions stay behind since she will soon return, and after bowing to the Siddhas joyfully takes her seat.

Kritantavaktra drives the jewelled chariot as swiftly as an arrow shot by Bharata Chakravarti. Ill omens appear, a crow cawing harshly and shaking its head on a dry tree and a grief-stricken woman weeping with dishevelled hair, but Sita, intent on devotion to the Jina, pays them no heed; behind horses swift as Garuda she crosses hills, caves and forests, sees villages, towns, lotus lakes, burnt and leafless woods, deer fleeing the shouts of Bhils and trees bowed with fruit, and with her mind on Rama she takes every sweet sound for the drums of his palace.

The horses carry the chariot across the Ganga, alive with fish and crocodiles, as sadhus cross the ocean of samsara. On the far bank the general, steady as Meru, is overcome with pity, stops the chariot and weeps aloud, and when Sita asks why he grieves on a festival day of worship, he tells her the truth in words like poison and fire: at the talk of the wicked and in fear of infamy, Rama has given her up as monks give up attachment and ordered her left in this terrible forest, and would not yield though Lakshmana said everything that could be said on her behalf, so now dharma alone is her refuge and this forest of lions, tigers and elephants her only shelter.

Sita falls senseless as if struck by lightning, and on waking begs to be taken to her lord, but Kritantavaktra says the city and Rama are now far away. Weeping, she sends Rama her message: he must not grieve at giving her up, but guard his people as a father guards his son, for a true king is one his people love like the autumn full moon; above all he must never give up samyagdarshana (right faith) for fear of what the wicked say, for it is harder to regain than a jewel dropped into the ocean, and he should keep the people content with gifts and affection, feed munis and aryikas with the ninefold devotion, serve the fourfold sangha, and conquer anger with forgiveness, pride with humility, deceit with straightforwardness and greed with contentment.

Saying that a woman cannot presume to teach one who knows every scripture, and asking pardon for any joking or careless word she ever spoke, she steps down from the chariot and faints on the ground of grass, stones and thorns, lying there like a heap of jewels. Kritantavaktra, torn between his master's command and his own pity, curses a servant's lot: a dog that earns its own living is better than a servant, who like a puppet, a machine or a vimana must move as another drives him; and as one who forsakes dharma, he leaves the faultless queen and turns sorrowfully back toward Ayodhya.

Long after he has gone, Sita wakes and weeps like a stricken doe, so that the very plants of the forest seem to weep with her. She cries to lotus-eyed Rama for protection, yet declares him wholly blameless and says she is reaping her own karma: perhaps in a past life she slandered others, broke vows taken before a guru, wounded someone with harsh words, parted a pair of chakravaka birds, swans or doves, reviled munis and aryikas, hindered charity and worship, burned villages or forests, drank unfiltered water, ate at night or ate forbidden food.

She mourns that Rama's chief queen, who slept on fine beds in palaces of gold and jewels to the music of vina, flute and mridanga and was served by thousands of maids, must now lie alone on stones and thorns amid the cries of wild beasts, and wonders that her heart, caught under this mountain of slander, does not break into a hundred pieces. She calls on Rama, on Lakshmana, on her father Janaka and mother Videha and on her brother Bhamandala, lord of the Vidyadharas, lamenting that the lord who planned to worship the Jina with her in splendour has cast her into the forest.

Just then King Vajrajangha, lord of Pundarikapura, who had come to the forest to catch elephants, is returning home in great state with the elephants he has caught. His foot soldiers, armed with daggers, hear the weeping and cannot take another step, the horsemen halt, and all wonder who could be weeping in so sweet a voice in a forest full of lions, tigers, rhinos and ashtapadas, perhaps a goddess from the Saudharma heaven, a Chakravarti's queen, a Kinnari or Indra's queen Shachi, so that the whole army, vast and roaring like the ocean, stands still and listens.