I am taking part in the Write Tribe Festival of Words – 1st to 7th September 2013.
This post is the fifth of a series of trying to correlate the Seven Sins to characters and incidents referred to in the Ramayana.
Read Post 1 – Kumbhakarna’s sloth
Read Post 2 – Surpanakha’s lust for Rama
Read Post 3 – Vali’s greed
Read Post 4 – Kumbhakarna’s gluttony
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Please note that there are various versions of this great epic and therefore my post might contradict with what you have heard or read of this particular incident in the Ramayana. This is only an attempt to map the seven deadly sins to incidents or behavior of particular characters in the Ramayana in a given situation and I have taken liberties with my own interpretations of the same. No offense is meant to any version of this wonderful epic.
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To enable Ravana to kidnap Sita, Maricha, Ravana’s uncle disguised himself as a golden deer and started grazing near the hut where Rama, Sita and Lakshmana were staying. Upon seeing the beautiful deer with the golden hued fur, Sita immediately asked Rama to capture the deer and bring it back to the hut so that they could keep it as a pet.
Rama immediately took his bow and arrow and started running after the deer which by now had bolted through the woods. Pursuing the deer, which by now was taking him further and further away from his hut, Rama realized that this was no ordinary deer and there was something mysterious about it. Finally when he struck it with an arrow, Maricha died crying out loudly “He Lakshmana, He Sita” in Rama’s voice.
Sita who was already worried at the time it was taking Rama to come back to the hut with the deer, panicked when she heard Rama’s voice screaming out from deep within the woods. She immediately requested Lakshmana to go and find out what had happened to Rama. Lakshmana was under strict orders from Rama not to leave Sita alone under any circumstances and he therefore refused to obey Sita.
Sita who was already anguished now got really angry and in her wrath accused Lakshmana of not being loyal to his elder brother who was in trouble. Lakshmana could not tolerate these harsh words of Sita and reluctantly left the hut to go look for Rama in the woods.
Thus, the wrath of Sita enabled Ravana to approach her in a situation where she was all alone in the hut without anybody to protect her. This one fatal sin of hers set in chain a motion of events which led to her kidnapping by Ravana.
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