Sita
Indian mythology · heroine · devotion, virtue, endurance
Daughter of the earth, found in a furrow by King Janaka, and wife of Rama. Abducted by Ravana and held in Lanka, she remains steadfast through captivity and ordeal, revered as an avatar of Lakshmi and the ideal of constancy.
Stories
Hanuman's Leap to Lanka
Searching for the abducted Sita, Hanuman leaps across the ocean to Lanka, finds her captive in Ravana's grove, allows himself to be caught, and escapes by burning the city with his flaming tail.
The Abduction of Sita
Ravana sends a golden deer to lure Rama away from the forest hermitage, then carries Sita off to Lanka in his flying chariot. The dying vulture Jatayu, who fought to stop him, tells Rama what happened, setting the war in motion.
Rama's Exile
On the eve of Rama's coronation, Manthara's whispers turn Kaikeyi's love to fear, and two old boons undo a kingdom: her son crowned, Rama banished fourteen years. Rama accepts without bitterness, Sita and Lakshmana follow him into the forest, and Dasharatha dies of grief.
Sita's Ordeal by Fire
Freed from captivity, Sita is met not with welcome but with doubt before the assembled army. She asks Lakshmana to build the pyre himself and walks into it; Agni, god of the fire that consumes everything false, lifts her out untouched and returns her to Rama as the proof she should never have owed.
Lava, Kusha, and the Song of Rama
Banished on a rumor while carrying the king's children, Sita raises twin sons in Valmiki's hermitage. Years later two boys sing a long poem before the court of Ayodhya: the Ramayana itself, learned from its author. Rama recognizes his sons in his own story; Sita, asked to prove herself once more, returns instead to the earth that bore her.