Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c9.t1.7

c9.t1.7

⁶ 3. 3647. Cf the Grhva Sūtras (e g Gobhila, IV 4 281, S B L vol xxx) where the goddess Sītā is the rustic deity of the furrows and sacrifice may be offered to her anywhere but preferably on a field of rice or barley (V M Apte, *Social and Religious Life in the Grhya Sūtras*, X, p. 129) In the *Mahābhārata* (VII, 105 19) Sītā is a goddess of harvest. The legend of the birth of Sītā is mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa* (I. 66 14f), and it is by furrowing the earth with a plough that Janaka gives birth to Sītā (Sylvan Levi, *Pre Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India*, pp. 8-15).