In Indian collective consciousness, the word Sita triggers images of purity, devotion, perfection, selflessness, godliness and goddess of sacrifice. Some (more than will admit) Indian women have a few more stubborn images that include, wronged, betrayed, abandoned, eclipsed, pawned to male ideals and the primordial touchstone of Indian women’s subservience. Historians, people of faith, modern minds (especially women-centric) battle with how a goddess in her own right (as wife and consort of the ubiquitous Lord Rama) accepted such a ‘raw’ deal, which undoubtedly shadows somewhat the Divine epic Ramayana. And then I stumbled across an entire Upanishad dedicated to Sita and herein lies the whole tale between the visible and invisible, palpable and amorphous, feminist and the incomparable feminine.

Icons such as Sita continue to perplex and annoy torch-bearers and sanctimonious pundits alike. Strange how intensely polarized they both stand. One group hails her name as synonomous with ‘virtuous wife’ precisely for the same events that the other group sees her as oppressed and betrayed. But the Upanishad documents the mystery, known to few and even fewer seek to unveil.

The word upanishad means secret and sacred knowledge. The Upanishads (112 in number) form part of the Vedas(4 in number) and are the foundation of the hindu scriptures primarily focussed on philosophy, meditation and the nature of God; they form the core spiritual thought of vedantic hinduism.The Vedas are a large corpus of texts originating in ancient India and are Hinduism’s oldest scriptural texts of Hinduism. The Vedas are considered ‘apauresheya’ (not human compositions) containing Divine wisdom which is self-revealed and eternal., thus termed shruti (that which is heard) as opposed to the ones composed by people, which are called smriti (the remembered). As mystic contemplations of the Vedas, the upanishads are the putative end and essence thus also known as Vedanta (end/culmination of the Vedas).

So these fountainheads of ‘truth’ must have a reason for dedicating an entire Upanishad (called Sita Upanishad) for the only ‘mortal’ female icon to find place in the exalted shruti.

The Upanishad begins as a question to Brahma on ‘who is Sita?’ and continues as a rendition of characteristics/eulogies of her persona. The following key excerpts from the esoteric text will help illuminate what I mean:
“The great Yogmaya, Goddess Sita has three forms. As the white, persevering wisdom she appears in the form of the word (Sabda Brahman), by the striking of the plough in earth she appears in her second form as daughter of King Janaka and finally in the third form she is the invisible but all pervading form of Ikara ( the invisible origins of creation).

She is the cause for preservation, destruction and creation of all living organisms.

Sita is the form of all Vedas, all Gods, present equally in all worlds, in the form of all religions and the soul of all matters. She is in the form of men, gods, hermits and gandharvas(celestial beings). She is different from the Lord Mahanarayana in the form of Mahalakshmi yet there is no distinction or difference.

Sita is in the form of power of the trinity (Brahma/Vishnu/Mahesh). She exists in the form of fire within creatures in the form of thirst and hunger. She is the mouth of the Gods, in the form of seasons for medicines and exists both within and outside the forests.

Goddess Sita appears in multiform for preservation of all beings and in the form of Goddess Nila (Kali) illumines with the power of lightening.

Sri Sita is the power of action of the Supreme Soul (Brahman) and can be said to originate as the primordial sound from the mouth of Lord Hari. It is this sound which is both bindu (the atom/centre) and is contained in Aum.

Adya Shakti, Sita reveals the world in all its various forms only when the Gods resolve it, and she appears in all visible forms. She is thus the will-power of the trinity (Brahmna/Vishnu/Mahesh)

She is to be adored and adorned as the Supreme Divine feminine whose four arms symbolize fearlessness, wish-fulfilling, illusion of change and the lotus. All planets, galaxies, the Sun, Moon, all Gods, creatures, celestial beings etc worship and adore her.”

Hmm... a far cry from both ‘virtuous wife’ and ‘suppressed/betrayed consort of Sri Rama! For those well-versed in the divine terms and there literal and allegorical meanings, it will be clear that Sita is the primordial prakriti (nature) of all things illusory as well as their origin. As Sabda Brhaman or the Word she embodies the essence of manifestation as sound from which the essence of Leela or the cosmic Play originates and into which it returns. As the will-power of the trinity (Brahman,/Shiv/Vishnu), Sita is the circle of intention which wave like rises from the great void, scatters as the multi-hued cosmos and dances betwixt the polars of illusion and reality, bliss and suffering and Samsara and Nirvana.

The Upanishad calls her Goddess Tara in her form of healing, Mahalakshmi as deity of abundance and prosperity, Saraswati as the presiding deity of Vakh (the Word), the inimitable Kali with lightening like powers to transform chitta (consciousness) Bhuvaneswari as Goddess of all the worlds etc. The complete Adya Shakti, who far from being subservient, is called “the form of men, Gods, hermits and gandharvas.”

So what indeed is this paradox? How can the omniscient one, defined by the original ‘divine’ words of the shruti texts, be concomitantly perceived as betrayed, wronged and subservient? Why and how did this come to be? If the Divine feminine is exalted by the shrutis as the ultimate power of the Leela, the great glory of Mahamaya, then how did gender turn into such a bitter and belligerent war? Is the vanguard of feminist liberation collapsing in the winds of its own illusory storm? Is there indeed another road for feminism where truth is far more subtle, deep and invincible, where victor and victory merge to resurrect as an inimitable force of purpose, light and creativity?

I will attempt to answer these questions in my concluding post. I hope others will join me in sharing perspectives and offering insights. I look forward to your responses.

With love and gratitude