Ahalya/Ahilya, is one of the most tragic characters in Indian mythology and has been a
subject of several social debates over the decades. Lord Brahma created Ahalya, a princess of
the Puru dynasty as the most beautiful woman. According to the Valmiki Ramayana, Ahalya
was married to a great sage Gautama, much older than her. When Lord Indra saw Ahalya he
was besotted by her beauty and desired a union with her. He realised this was not possible
because Ahalya was a devoted wife and so Lord Indra seduced Ahalya by treachery.
 

Indra visited Ahalya in the form of sage Gautam who was away for meditation and made
passionate love to his wife. When Gautama returned home and saw Ahalaya and Indra on bed
together, he was enraged and cursed Ahalya to be carved into stone who will regain her
human form when Lord Rama will step in her space.
 
Post Tataka encounter when Rishi Vishwamitra, Lord Ram and Lakshman on their way to
Janakpuri for Sita swayamvar, take a wrong road and come across Ahalya statue. Nobody is
willing to walk that path but Lord Ram on his guru’s insistence moves forward and Ahalya
regains her human form, attains moksha.

Tataka was the daughter of a powerful yaksha named Suketu. The legend has it that Suketu
had no children and prayed to Lord Brahma for an offspring. Lord Brahma granted Suketu a
daughter with the strength of thousand elephants, Tataka. Suketu raised his daughter like a
son. When she came of age, Suketu got his daughter married to Sunanda, a noble man. Over
the years, Suketa and Sunanda bred two sons, Maricha and Subahu. The family lived a
modest life in the forest.
 
One day, the children were hungry but there was no food at home, so Sunanda went looking
for food but could not find anything for his children. He came across an ashram and noticed
that the courtyard was loaded with fruits and grains. A yajya was in preparation but since no
one was around Sunanda saw no harm in taking some fruits and grains for his hungry
children. But the sages emerged from the ashram then and accused him of ruining their yajya.
He tried explaining that he was not a thief and, in that commotion, Sunanda accidentally fell
into the fire and died.

Over a period of time Surpanakha, now a mother of a son, Shambhri, divided her time between Lanka and the forests and it was one such trip to Panchavati, when she spotted Lord Ram and was smitten by him. When Rama did not respond to her overtures, she shifted attention to Lakshmana but he was so affronted that he cut off her nose, her left ear and according to some versions of the story, one breast. A snubbed Suparnakha shared her insult with her brother Khara who sent 14000 warriors to attack Rama. All of were killed except Akampana, Shurpanakha’s uncle who reported facts toRavana and that is when Ravana decided to abduct Sita and take revenge on Ram.

Some versions of the Ramayana state that Surpanakha’s revenge was not against Rama but her own brother Ravana for having killed her husband. Ravana had many axes to grind with Ram – death of his grandmother Tataka, his uncle Subahu and now the rejection of his sister. So Surpanakha very shrewdly laid the trap and patiently waited for the end. 

To be continued

Surpanakha literally means one with sharp fingernails or one whose fingernails resemble winnowing fans. Sister of the main antagonist, Ravana, the demon-King of Lanka, she is the youngest child of Sage Vishravas and Kaikesi. When she was born, her mother named her Minakshi and sometimes called her Diksha as well. Her brothers often called herChandranakha (the one with nails like the moon). She was as striking beauty exactly like her mother Kaikesi and her grandmother Ketumati. 

When she came of age, she secretly married the Vidyutjihvathe Danav prince against the wishes of her family. Ravana was enraged because the Danavas were arch enemies of the Rakshasas. He wanted to perish the brother-in-law but Mandodri stopped him. Ravan maintained his distance with his brother-in-law and visited him after his victory overRasatala (the Underworld) and discovered that the sole intention of Vidyutjihva marrying his sister was to perish him and so he killed Vidyutjihva. Suparnakha was devastated and to overcome her grief she shifted to Lanka in Southern India. 

To be continued

Sita in Ramayan is the incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi and Ram is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.When Lord Shiva looked at their marriage charts, he was surprised that all the 36 planetary positions matched pronouncing them as an ideal couple. Sita is significant in mythology and described as a woman who faced innumerable challenges with grace and fortitude. Our epics describe her as a symbol of strength and resilience. She was given many names and many epithets. She was called Jānaki as the daughter of Janaka and Maithili as the princess of Mithila. As the wife of Rama, she was called Ramā and because King Janaka had earned the sobriquet Videha due to his ability to transcend body consciousness; Sita is also known as Vaidehi.

There are innumerable interpretations of her agnipariksha and also her abduction by Ravana. In some versions of the epic, Lord Agni is said to have created a illusion called Maya Sita and who Ravan abducted was not the Goddess Sita but the illusion. Her suffering in Lanka during her captivity was a process to mislead Ravan for the final climax. Some scriptures mention her previous birth as Vedavati who Ravana tried to molest. Some say she is the daughter of Ravan and Mandodri who was abandoned after birth because Ravan was told that she will be the cause of his death.

After their return from the exile, Ram prompted by a washerman asks Sita to give an agnipariksha to prove her fidelity and Sita takes a trial by fire. Not satisfied Ram sends her to sage Valmiki’s ashram where Sita deliver Luv and Kush. Eventually, Sita returns to mother earth leaving her children in the care of their father Rama.

To be continued

King Janak’s younger brother Kushadhvaja and his wife Chandrabhaga were parents of two daughters, Mandavi and Shrutakirti who married Lord Rama’s younger brothers, Bharata and Shatrughna.  When their marriage was confirmed by the sages, their parents were on a pilgrimage and King Janak took the decision on their behalf. When they were informed about the good news, they were overjoyed to wed their daughters in the Raghuvanshi dynasty.

While Sita is an incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi, her sisters, Urmila, Mandavi and Shrutakirti are believed to be incarnations of Lord Vishnu’s weapons Adisesha, Sudarshan, and Panchajanya.

As per Uttara Kanda, Mandavi and Shrutakirti along with Lord Ram and his brothers immersed their mortal coil into River Sarju better known as River Sarayu (the largest tributary of River Sharada) in Uttarakhand. Originating from Sarmul, Sarju flows through many cities joining Mahakali at Pancheshwar.

To be continued

After King Janaka discovered a child buried in the earth of Mithila who he adopted as his daughter and named Sita, his wife and he were blessed with another child, Urmila. Urmila was married to Lakshman and some historians consider her sacrifice bigger than Sita because while Sita accompanied her husband to exile, Urmila, a newly wed, was separated from her husband for 14 years.

As per Uttara Kanda, Urmila was the only one in the family who did not offer herself to River Sarju and there was a reason. Her sister, Goddess Sita before returning to earth, had extracted a promise from her that she would look after her children Luv and Kush. Urmila kept her promise and groomed Sita’s sons Lava and Kusha to become exemplary kings of Ayodhya. This was her second sacrifice for the family after being separated from her husband Lakshman for many years.

To be continued

All the three queens of King Dashrath were pregnant at the same time and all of them delivered sons. But there is a secret story of King Dashrath and Queen Kausalya’s first born, a daughter called Shanta who did not grow up in the palace of Ayodhya. There are many stories about why she is seldom mentioned in the Ramayan. One of the stories say that Ayodhya witnessed acute famine after her birth and King Dashrath was advised that her planetary charts were not in. favour of the kingdom and so King Dashrath to save his kingdom made a big sacrifice as a father. Shanta was given away to Kousalya’s sister Varshini married to Rompadh, king of Angadesh. Rompadh and Varshini were yearning for a child for years and brought up Shanta as the princess of Anagadesh.

The third story is the most intriguing and according to that, the Kosala kingdom was divided into North Kosala ruled by Dasaratha’s father and South Kosala ruled by Kausalya’s father. When Kausalya and Dasaratha came of age, their fathers decided to get them married and merged the North and South Kosala into one state. A year later, Dashrath and Kausalya’s first born arrived, a deformed baby. In their rush to merge the kingdoms what both the kings forgot was that Dasaratha and Kaushalya came from the same lineage and the deformed bay was a result of the couple coming from the same gotra. It is said that Shanta was a woman of virtues and knowledgeable about the vedas.  She was blessed that her deformity will be eliminated when she marries Sage Rishyashringa, (who performed athe putra kameshti yagna for King Dashratha to beget progeny), after which Shanta, Rama, Bharata, and the twins Lakshmana and Shatrughna were born.

To be continued