Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.54

v2.c20.54

If here, too, the much-sung hero comes before us at first as very weak, nay, base, beside that gracious pearl among women, Sītā, yet this is not the view of the Epic and of the Indian in general, in spite of Lakshmaṇa’s and the monkeys’ disapproving attitude; and one can always forgive him, and even look with sympathetic interest on the struggle in his soul, perhaps even find greatness in his action, setting on one side, of course, a certain brutality which has perhaps been smuggled in by a later hand.¹ For often a ruler cannot, and must not act like an ordinary mortal, and the Indian especially sees, indeed, in the king’s actions and example a curse or a blessing on his whole land. And it needs more than ordinary strength of soul to show oneself as inhuman as Rāma, and to practise such heavy self-denial. It would be a most clumsy and superficial reading of the case to choose to see in it only cowardice. But it is only repugnance that is aroused in us by the casting off of Sītā for the second time. The people now find fault with Rāma for having taken his wife to his bosom again, and it is put to him that this example will loosen morals. He therefore has Sītā taken in a chariot to Vālmīki’s hermitage by Lakshmaṇa, whose heart is almost broken at this, without her having any idea of what is before her. At length with downcast countenance and weeping eyes he discloses to her that Rāma, because of what the people are saying, must give her up, though his heart is torn, and has ordered her to be brought away. In Vālmīki’s penitential grove all will be well with her. In spite of her dreadful sorrow and this awful news she gives only