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Re: Rama's banishment of Sita

From the Bhakti List Archives

Jaganath.Bharadwaj • January 18, 1996 


One point that seems to have been missed in the discussions so far is
that there were two instances when Sita entered a fire.  One was
before Ravana showed up to kidnap her and the second time was in
Lanka after Ravana was killed.  In the first instance Mahalakshmi
left the earth and was replaced by a Jivatma Vedavati.  Ravana did
not have the Bhagyam of carrying away Mahalakshmi.  In the second
instance Vedavati was replaced and the original Sita was reunited
with Rama.  Incidentally Vedavati was raped by Ravana long time ago
which led to Ravana being cursed by Brahma.  It is for this reason
alone that Ravana waited for Sita to voluntarily marry him.  Rama due
to his Ekapatni Vrata could not accept Vedavati as His wife.  But
because of His Parama Karuna, He married Vedavati when she came as
Padmavati in the Srinivasa Avataram.  This is told in the Puranas
dealing with Venkatesha avataram as published by TTD.

Lord Krishna on the other hand married 16,000 princesses who had been
imprisoned by an evil king and who would have been shunned by the
rest of society if Lord Krishna had not married them.

It is important to note that Ramanujacharya in more than one work has
described Narayana as the "Lord of Sri" and "opposed to all that is
inauspicious".  Narayana whether in Vaikuntham or as an avatAra on
earth can never do anything wrong and He always has a reason for
whatever He does.  He can never be accused of doing anything that is
not right.  Just as the supreme court is not bound by the precedent
that it sets, Rama is not bound by the rules that He has made for us.
 In fact even Mukta jivatmas are not bound by these rules.

Jaganath.