June 2016 issue New
The author writes about the real reason Sita was exiled by Rama.
Mysteries of Ramayana
Shyamasundara Dasa
For some people the episode of Rama exiling Sita
to the forest, while she was five months pregnant, is
one of the most disturbing and incomprehensible events
in the Ramayana.
It seriously tests their faith; and in some cases actually breaks it, leading some to even offend Lord Rama. They forget it is a divine lila and that the Lord has His own reasons for doing what He does, and that they are not always within the purview of our tiny understanding.
Most devotees realize that we cannot always enter into the Lord’s mysteries. That we have to accept Krishna on His terms, and that no matter how it may seem to us, that Krishna always has our best interests at heart. To them Krishna is their Lord no matter what, as exemplified in the last verse of Lord Caitanya’s Siksastaka.
According to Madhavacharya’s Mahabharata Tatparya Nirnaya 2.3-4 the original mula Ramayana was a massive work consisting of 100 crore slokas (1 billion) while the currently available Valmiki Ramayana consists of only 24,000 slokas. Thus we only have an insignificant fraction of the original Ramayana making for a lot of lacuna that need to be filled in. In this current Kali yuga that will not be possible but we do get some help from the Puranas most of which have parts dedicated to Rama-lila and often fill in some details not found in the Valmiki Ramayana...
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