Sita’s Monologue: Words for the Wordless Suffering

In the sacred grove of Valmiki’s ashram, as the earth trembles beneath her feet for the final time, Sita speaks:

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Aham Sita. Aham dharma-patni. Aham janani. I am Sita. I am the wife of dharma. I am mother. Yet in this moment, as Bhumi-devi calls her daughter home, I am simply the one who has learned that truth needs no witness but the eternal sky.

From Bhudevi’s womb I came, not crying like other children but silent, already knowing the weight of words unspoken. Janaka found me in the furrow of his yajna-field, tiny hands clutching earth that would never wash away. Even then, I carried the scent of rain-soaked soil and the strength of mountains. They called it blessing. I knew it as preparation.

When first I saw Rama in Mithila’s hall—purusha-uttama, lion among men—my heart recognized what my past births had always known. He lifted Hara’s dhanush as easily as lifting a lotus, and in that moment, the cosmic wheel turned. Not mortal love alone, but shakti finding its shiva, the eternal dance beginning again.

Our marriage was not mere union but yajna—sacred fire around which the very devas gathered. In Ayodhya’s golden halls, they adorned me with silk and called me rajni, but I was already wed to something larger than kingdoms. I was wed to the path itself, to dharma’s unforgiving beauty, to love that burns away everything false until only truth remains.

Vanavas—fourteen years the rishis called punishment, but I knew it as gift. In Panchvati’s groves, eating roots and wild honey, sleeping on beds of kusha grass under star-jeweled skies, I was most truly Sita. No subjects to inspire, no court to navigate, only the ancient rhythms: sunrise prayers, sacred rivers, the evening fire around which Rama would speak of dharma while I listened, weaving those words into my very soul.

There, in the forest’s embrace, I learned that happiness is not pleasure but santosha—contentment that asks nothing of tomorrow. Rama would return from gathering fruits, his arms full of purple jamuns, and we would laugh like children, purple-stained and free. Lakshmana would jest about my insistence on feeding every hungry creature that crossed our path. Those were the golden days when dharma was not duty but delight.

But even in Swarga, serpents crawl.

Maricha—the golden deer that danced at the edge of sight, beautiful and impossible. How my heart leap toward it! Not from greed for possession, but from that eternal feminine longing to nurture beauty, to bring the wild and wondrous close. I asked Rama to catch it as I might ask him to pluck the moon—knowing it was foolish, knowing it was dangerous, but unable to silence the voice that whispered, “Let there be more beauty in this world.”

When he left, when Lakshmana followed, when Ravana came in his beggar’s guise, I chose hospitality over suspicion. Atithi devo bhava—the guest is god. Even when that guest was the ten-headed king of Lanka, I offered water, I offered food. For how could Sita, daughter of dharma, turn away any who came seeking?

The moment his true form blazed forth, magnificent and terrible, I knew my testing had begun. Not by him—by existence itself. As his vimana rose above the earth, carrying me toward Lanka’s golden towers, I tore flowers from my hair and let them fall—not breadcrumbs for rescue, but prayers to the earth below: “Remember your daughter. Remember she goes not willingly, but she goes without fear.”

In Ashoka Vatika, surrounded by Lanka’s women sent to break my resolve, I learned that tapasya is not always sitting cross-legged in mountain caves. Sometimes it is standing upright in the midst of temptation, radiating the quiet fire of absolute certainty. Ravana offered me kingdoms, offered to make me empress of all three worlds. But what are kingdoms to one who has tasted the sweetness of dharma? What are crowns to one who has been crowned by her beloved’s trust?

Each dawn I would touch the earth and whisper, “Mata, give me strength not to waver.” Each sunset I would look toward Ayodhya and send my heart-prayers: “Rama, I am unchanged. I am your Sita still.” The rakshasis spoke of shame, of ruin, of how no husband could accept me back. But shame belongs only to those who have betrayed their own truth. I had not.

When Hanuman came—blessed Maruti, son of Vayu—carrying Rama’s ring like a small sun in his palm, I wept not from sorrow but from gratitude. Someone had seen through the lies to the truth of me. Someone knew I was not Lanka’s captive but dharma’s guardian, not victim but warrior, holding the flame of righteousness steady in darkness’s heart.

The war came. The earth shook with the footsteps of armies, the sky burned with arrows like falling stars. And when it ended, when Ravana lay slain and Lanka’s towers crumbled, I thought the testing was finished. How little I understood.

Agni-pariksha—the trial by fire. When Rama’s voice, beloved above all sounds, asked me to prove my purity, I felt not betrayal but a strange, terrible clarity. This too was dharma’s design. Not because I needed proving, but because the world needed teaching.

I walked into Agni’s embrace as I had once walked into marriage—with complete surrender, absolute trust. The flames became cool as moonlight, the fire-god himself rose to proclaim what every star already knew: “This is Sita, pure as the Ganga, constant as the North Star, chaste as the dawn itself.”

And for a time, it was enough.

But dharma’s wheel never stops turning. Years later, in our second reign, the whispers began again. A washerman’s careless words, repeated and multiplied until they became the voice of the people. And Rama—my dharmic Rama, bound by duty to his subjects—spoke words that cut deeper than Ravana’s sword ever could: “Go.”

Pregnant with his sons, I walked again into exile. But this time, I walked in joy. For I had learned the secret that even scriptures rarely speak: that moksha begins not when the world accepts you, but when you no longer need the world’s acceptance.

In Valmiki’s ashram, I bore Luv and Kush—pieces of my heart walking in the world. Teaching them to string bows, to recite shlokas, to find the divine in every breath, I discovered motherhood’s fierce tenderness. They would ask about their father, and I would tell them: “He is dharma incarnate, the light by which all righteousness measures itself. You are born of that light.”

When they grew strong and learned their own story, when they stood before Rama in his court and sang our tale in verses that moved even the stones to weep, I knew the cosmic play was reaching its crescendo.

One last time, he called for me. One last time, the world demanded proof. And in that moment, standing before the assembly of Ayodhya, I finally understood the gift hidden in all my suffering.

I had been given the supreme privilege: to show that moksha is not escape from the world but the freedom to choose your relationship with it.

“Matra Bhumi, if I have been true, if I have walked dharma’s path with unwavering feet, then take your daughter home.“

The earth opened not in anger but in welcome. The ground beneath was not cold but warm as a mother’s lap. As I descended into Bhudevi’s arms, I felt the completion of the great circle: from earth to earth, from truth to truth, from love to love.

I leave behind the story they will tell—of suffering, of sacrifice, of woman’s duty and woman’s pain. But I take with me the story that really was: of choice at every turn, of dignity maintained in every trial, of love that transformed from personal to universal, from moha to moksha.

They will say Sita was tested by fire, by doubt, by exile. But I know the deeper truth: Sita was not tested. Sita was the test. For dharma itself, for love itself, for the eternal question of how divinity moves through human form.

I am the furrow in the cosmic field from which dharma grows. I am the space between breaths where truth resides. I am the earth’s daughter returning to the earth, carrying within me the seeds of all the stories yet to be born.

Let them remember not my suffering, but my choice. Let them remember not my tears, but my triumph. For I have loved completely, served fully, and at the end, chosen my own liberation.

Aham Sita. Aham mukta. Aham ananta.

I am Sita. I am free. I am eternal.