English Commentaries


Demons advice Sita 5.24.1-5, 21-48


Demons tell Sita, “Withdraw your mind from Rama who is after all a human.”The real meaning is “accept to be the wife of Rama who is now in human incarnation. So, do not withdraw your mind from him. You will be his wife again.”
Real meaning of this is – Rama is one who has abandoned the kingdom to obey his father’s wish. He is Visnu who has accomplished every desire. He is compassionate.
A demoness called Nirnatodari (one who had a slim belly) tells Sita ‘O Sita, give up fear which is the nature of human beings and accept Ravana, who makes all the world weep and is very humble, as your slave.” “Make Rama, who has qualities of valour your lord” is the real meaning.
Three slokas (25-28) starting from divyangaraga makes one sentence. Its real meaning is as follows: ‘O princess of Videha, you will have union with Rama with some difficulty. From today onwards, you be the queen of all the worlds just as Svaha is of Agni and Sachi is of Indra. If you do not do as I said, we will all consume poison.”
“O Sita (Sudurmate)! If you, who have gracious attitude even towards very bad people, do not do our bidding timely, it will not be good for you. The real meaning is – ‘Tolerate what the king of demons has said to you. Do what is comfortable to you. Enjoy once all these gardens, which have been developed by Ravana and accept him as your servant.’
Chandodari, a demoness, says that she has desired to eat the parts of Sita’s body and names the parts she desired to eat- Yakrt a limb on the right side of the heart, Pliha is a limb on the left side of the heart, Krodam, the muscle between the two arms. Vakshas is the chest with meat, which is in the form of the face of a cow or it is a limb above the heart. Utpida is the limb above the pliha, and Hrdaya (heart) is a limb linked to veins and it has the shape of a bud of lotus.

The real meaning of the section starting with Strisahasrani te sapta (35) up to the end of this sarga is “Accept Ravana as your servant. If you do not agree to this, I will extract your heart and eat it.”
In these slokas the maids of Ravana, talk harshly to Sita to change her mind and to become Ravana’s wife. They threaten that they will cut her into pieces and eat all parts of her body. But the commentator does not like this and so tries to extract different meanings. He connects words differently and says that no harm could be meant to be done to Sita even in the words of the demonesses.