6. SITA :

Janaka, king of Mithila, was an ideal
ruler. He was a much revered friend of
Dasaratha who, when he planned his yaga
for progeny, sent not mere messengers but
ministers to Mithila to invite King Janaka.
Janaka was not only a brave king but
was as well-versed in the Sastras and
Vedas as any rishi and was the beloved
pupil of Yajnavalkya whose exposition of
Brahmana to him is the substance of the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna cites Janaka
as an illustrious example of the Karma
yogin. Janaka was thus worthy to be the
father of Sita who was to be the wife of
Vishnu come down on Earth in human
form.


Desirous of performing a yaga, Janaka
at one time ploughed the chosen site. As
usual, this was done by his own hand.
As the field was being cleared and
leveled, Janaka saw among shrubs a baby
divinely beautiful. Janaka was childless
and accepted the infant as the goddess
Earth's gift to him.


Taking the child in his arms he went to
his beloved wife and said: "Here is
treasure for us. I found this child on the
yaga site and we shall make it our own."
And she joyfully consented.


The beauty of the goddess Earth mortal
eyes cannot see in its fulness, but we get
glimpses of it as we gaze with grateful
hearts on the emerald green or golden
ripeness of spring time or autumn fields,
or with awe and adoration on the glories
of mountain and valley, rivers and ocean.
This loveliness was Sita in its entirety.
Kamban would have it that Sita's beauty
threw into the shade Lakshmi herself who
came up with Nectar as the Ocean of Milk
was being churned. This child of divine
beauty was brought up by King Janaka
and his dear queen.


When Sita reached the age of marriage
Janaka was sad that he would have to part
with her. Though he tried hard, he was for
long unable to choose a prince worthy of
Sita. Many kings came to Mithila, seeking
Sita's hand, but in Janaka's view none of
them was good enough. The King
anxiously thought over the matter and
came to a decision. Long ago, pleased
with a yaga performed by Janaka, Varuna,
presented to him Rudra's bow and two
quivers. That was an ancient heavenly
bow, which no ordinary man could even
move.


This was kept by him as an honored
heirloom. Since only a very exceptional
man could be considered worthy of Sita,
Janaka issued this proclamation: "Sita, my
daughter, will be given in marriage to the
prince who can lift, bend and string the
bow of Siva which Varuna gave me and to
none other."


Many princes who had heard of Sita's
beauty, went to Mithila only to return
disappointed. None could fulfil the
condition.


Led by Viswamitra, the rishis from
Siddhashrama were proceeding to Mithila,
with bullock-carts transporting their
luggage. The animals and the birds in the
ashrama set out to follow Viswamitra, but
he gently bade them stay behind.
It was evening when they reached the
river Sona. There they rested for the night,
Viswamitra recounting to Rama and
Lakshmana the history of the place.
Getting up in the morning, they continued
their journey and crossed another river,
not very deep, and by noon they were at
the Ganga.


They bathed in the holy river and the
rishis made lustrations to their forbears.
They improvised an ashrama there,
performed their pujas and cooked their
food. Meal over, they sat round
Viswamitra who, at the request of the two
princes, told the story of the Ganga.
Himavan, king of mountains and his
spouse, Menaka, had two daughters of
whom Ganga was the elder. Himavan sent
her to the land of the Devas in response to
their request and she dwelt with them.
Uma, the younger, won the favor of Siva
and became his spouse.


Sagara, a former King of Ayodhya, had
no son for a long time. With his two
wives, Kesini and Sumati, he went to
Himalaya and performed tapas. Sage
Bhrigu, pleased with the king, blessed him
and said: "You will get a number of
children and will acquire undying fame.
One of your wives will give birth to an
only son, and through him your lineage
will be continued. The other queen will
bear sixty thousand strong-armed sons."
Sagara's wives bowed low before the
sage and asked which one of them would
get an only son and which the sixty
thousand children. Sage Bhrigu asked
each of them their own desire.


Kesini said she would be satisfied with
one son who would continue the line;
Sumati chose the other alternative. "Be it
so," said the sage.


Satisfied, the king and his wives took
leave of the sage and returned to
Ayodhya. In course of time, Asamanjas
was born to Kesini; Sumati gave birth to a
fissiparous mass which divided out into
sixty thousand babies. This army of
children was wen taken care of by nurses.
Years rolled by; and while the sixty
thousand grew into strong, handsome
princes, Asamanjas turned out to be a
cruel lunatic. He indulged in the pastime
of throwing little children into the river
and laughed merrily as they struggled and
died.


Naturally people hated this maniac and
banished him from the country. To the
great relief of all, Asamanjas' son,
Amsuman, was the opposite of his father
and was a brave, virtuous and amiable
prince.


King Sagara launched a great horsesacrifice
and prince Amsuman was in
charge of the sacrificial horse, but Indra,
in the guise of a Rakshasa, managed to
carry off the animal. The Devas regarded
yagas by mortals as a challenge to their
superiority, and lost no opportunity of
throwing obstacles in their way. If,
however, all obstruction was overcome
and the yaga was completed, they
accepted offerings made to them. And
then he who performed the yaga got due
reward.


The king was greatly upset when he
heard that the sacrificial horse was stolen.
He sent out the sixty thousand sons of
Sumati to go in search of the animal all
over the earth and to spare no pains to
retrieve it.


"The loss of the horse," he impressed
on them, "not only means obstruction to
the yaga; it casts sin and ignominy on an
concerned. You should, therefore, recover
the horse, wherever it may be kept
hidden."


Eagerly the sons of Sagara proceeded
to search the entire earth, but the horse
was nowhere to be found. They even
started digging the earth as for buried
treasure, and in their anxiety respected
neither place nor person and only
succeeded in earning the hatred of all they
met. The horse was not to be found; and
when they reported their failure to the
King, he bade them ransack the nether
world also. The princes did as they were
told and in Patala they saw the horse
grazing in a corner of an ashrama, not far
from the place where Sage Kapila who
was Vishnu sat in meditation.


The princes at once jumped to the
conclusion that they had not only found
the stolen horse but the thief also, and
they rushed on Kapila shouting, "Here is
the thief pretending to be a yogi." Kapila
thus disturbed opened his eyes and the
sixty thousand princes were reduced to a
heap of ashes. Indra, the real thief, had
artfully left the horse here with this very
intent.