Where mystery meets history
Sun-bright, heat-baked, sweat-dripping, glare-straining: is this the scene that greeted Sita when she followed husband Rama into exile? She would've needed a glass of water.
Divine daughter of the earth-goddess Bhūmi; found in a furrow and adopted by King Janaka of Nepal; married to Rama; avatar of Lakshmi and wife of Vishnu: Sita's life story takes pride of place in Valmiki's epic Ramayana.
First she followed Rama and they made a home in the forest. Later, abandoned by him and pregnant, she wandered the forest again, taking refuge in Valmiki's hermitage. He was the Ramayana's author revered as Ādi Kavi, the First Poet. He is credited with inventing śloka, the epic meter that defined Sanskrit poetry.
As a single mother she raised her sons and once they reunited with their father, she sought refuge once more in the arms of Bhūmi. Hearing her pleas, the Earth split open. Bhūmi appeared and took Sita from an unjust world.
Brilliant grassy stretch over hillock and rectangular ruin: Sitakot in Nawabganj of Dinajpur is as shimmering as its legend.
“I heard the name Sitakot from long before, from my grandfather,” says one villager. “I heard Sita was here.”
At the main-road tea shop, noise has come. Any visitor will attract enthusiastic chatter. In the local psyche, a part of neighbourhood identity, Sitakot is like a relative. So, you've come to visit the ancient site? Then you've come to visit us all.
Delighted mention follows of a sal forest further in, the last remnants of Sita's forest so locals say. There's the waterhole, Ashurer Beel, within it; arrangements are quickly made for a cycle van to take you. Meanwhile a shopkeeper gives free betel leaf.
When advised you might never see him again, he says: “That's just why I want to give it.” Friendlier people become difficult to imagine.
Neat mud farmhouse and chicken yard lie along the bright dirt track; Sitakot occupies its sundrenched hillock to the right. Rice field and plough: in quintessential rural Bangladesh it's not hard to imagine one Sita found there somewhere, as a baby in a furrow. If only it had happened that way…
Despite the legend that has long mingled locally, the site has no relation to the Ramayana.
For one thing, Sita's actual forest, the Dandaka, the Panchavati, is near Nashik, beside the Godavari River in Maharashtra. It's not Nawabganj National Park. For another, Valmiki's hermitage is on the bank of the Tamasa in Uttar Pradesh; not beside Ashurer Beel. So what is Sitakot, then?
Historically, Sitakot is not born of Hinduism. It's a Pala-dynasty Mahayana Buddhist monastery from the 7th – 8th centuries. The site features 40 cells around a courtyard. Its broad entrance measures 1.8 metres. Unlike many monasteries there's no evidence of a central temple. Rather, on three sides are larger cells with pedestals that might've housed divine figures.
Beyond that not much is known; two bronze images of Bodhisattva Padmapani and Boddhisattva Manjushri were recovered, helping to give the site an approximate date. Ink pots, terracotta toys and ornamental bricks were found.
Morfidul Islam, 30, of Golabganj village, speaks of an axe's discovery. “When a cowherd pushed his koti [the stick to which cows are tied] into the ground he heard a clang. When they dug they found the axe.”
“Foreigners come once or twice a year,” he says, “Sometimes Hindus perform puja.”
There's further excavation work to do at Sitakot. Islam thinks he knows why the archaeologists don't come. “The earlier diggers dreamt that if they keep digging they will die.”
It might not be that Sita was there – and the Buddhist history is impressive. On the other hand, Bhūmi surely dwells wherever there is soil; and in a landscape so idyllic Valmiki's poetic meter must find its home. In capturing village imagination Sita has nonetheless staked some claim to the place. Sitakot is of her memory if not her slated geography.
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