Mithilā
The Aśoka grove
The Aśoka grove is Rāvaṇa's pleasure garden in Laṅkā, and the place where he keeps Sītā. Hanumān hides in a golden śiṃśapā tree there and finds her thin from fasting, in one soiled yellow cloth, among rākṣasī guards. Rāvaṇa has given her two months to accept him or be killed. The grove matters for what Sītā does in it. She puts a blade of grass between herself and Rāvaṇa, and she will not let Hanumān carry her away.
Sundara Kāṇḍa sargas 15, 42Vālmīki (primary text)In the text
Why it matters
Vālmīki gives Sītā the decisive actions here. When Hanumān offers to carry her back, she refuses: she fears falling into the sea and being pursued, she will not willingly touch another man, and Rāma should defeat Rāvaṇa and win her back himself (Sundara Kāṇḍa sarga 37). Hanumān takes home a token and her crest jewel instead (Sundara Kāṇḍa sarga 38).
What Vālmīki describes
In Vālmīki's account Sītā is found among rākṣasī guards, emaciated from fasting, in a single soiled yellow cloth, unadorned, her hair in one braid (Sundara Kāṇḍa sarga 15). Rāvaṇa comes and offers her wealth and rule over his wives, saying he will not touch her without her consent. Sītā places a blade of grass between them, says she is the wife of one husband, inseparable from Rāma as sunlight from the sun, and tells him to turn to his own wives (Sundara Kāṇḍa sargas 20–21).
He gives her two months, after which she must accept him or be killed (Sundara Kāṇḍa sarga 22). When the rākṣasīs press her, she cites devoted wives and goes to the śiṃśapā and stays beneath it (Sundara Kāṇḍa sarga 24).
Key moments
- Hanumān enters the grove, calls it Rāvaṇa's, climbs a golden śiṃśapā tree and hides in its leaves (Sundara 14).
- The old rākṣasī Trijaṭā tells the others of a dream of ruin for the rākṣasas and victory for Rāma, and tells them to stop threatening Sītā (Sundara 27).
- Hanumān tells Rāma's story softly from the tree, and later shows Rāma's signet ring, which Sītā takes with joy (Sundara 31, 36).
- Sītā sends Rāma the story of Indra's son as a crow at Citrakūṭa, as a token only he knows, and gives Hanumān her crest jewel, the cūḍāmaṇi (Sundara 38).
- Hanumān wrecks the grove and waits at its gate to fight. The rākṣasīs report to Rāvaṇa that only the place where Sītā sat and the śiṃśapā were spared, and that they do not know whether this was to protect her (Sundara 41–42).
Primary text: Śrīmad Vālmīkīya Rāmāyaṇa, Gita Press, Gorakhpur. Later traditions and living-tradition associations are labelled as such. Return to the Rāmāyaṇa World.