Sita Goes Home to the Earth

Rama was king, and Ayodhya was happy, and Sita was carrying his child. Then one evening Rama asked his friends what the people were saying about him.

They told him the people praised him. He pressed them, and at last one of them told him the rest.

"They say the king took back a wife who lived in another man's house," he said. "And now, they say, we shall have to put up with the same from our own wives."

Rama sat for a long time in silence. Then he sent for Lakshmana.

"Take Sita across the Ganga tomorrow," he said, "as if on a visit to the hermitages she wanted to see. And leave her there."

Lakshmana did it, weeping all the way. On the far bank of the river he told her the truth. Sita fainted. When she came to, she did not curse anyone.

"Tell the king," she said, "that he has abandoned me for what the people say, and not for any fault of mine. Tell him to rule his people well. That is my duty to him still."

The poet Valmiki found her there, alone in the forest, and took her to his hermitage. There she bore twin sons, Kusha and Lava, and Valmiki brought them up and taught them the poem he had made, the story of Rama.

Years later Rama held a great horse sacrifice, and the poet came to it with his two pupils. Day after day the boys sang the Ramayana to the court, and Rama listened and saw that they had his face, and knew whose sons they were.

He sent word to Valmiki.

"If Sita is pure," he said, "let her come here, before all these people, and swear it."

The next morning Valmiki came into the assembly, and Sita came behind him with her eyes on the ground and her hands joined, dressed in ochre like an ascetic.

"This is Sita," said the poet, "who has kept her vows. These are your sons. I say she is pure."

"I believe you," said Rama. "I always knew it. It was the people I feared. I acknowledge my sons."

Everyone looked at Sita, and she did not look at anyone.

"If I have never thought of anyone but Rama," she said, "even in my mind, then let Madhavi, the goddess Earth, give me a place to hide. If I have loved Rama in thought and word and deed, let the Earth take me."

The ground split open. Out of it rose a throne, beautiful beyond anything, carried on the heads of great serpents. And on it sat the Earth herself, who took Sita in her arms.

"Welcome," she said, and seated her beside her on the throne.

The throne sank back into the ground with Sita on it, and the earth closed over them. Flowers fell from the sky. Rama stood staring at the place where she had been, and there was nothing he could do.