The later Ramayana tradition tells us that Rama and his brothers had a sister named Shanta. She is quite prominent in the first and last acts of Bhavabhuti’s “Uttararamacharita,” for example, where she is Kausalya’s daughter and a loving sister-in-law to Sita, so loving that she is even willing to be critical of her brother, Rama, and his treatment of his wife.
In the Bala Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, which tells us the story of the great sacrifice that Dasaratha performed for the birth of his sons, Shanta was the daughter of Romapada, king of Anga.
Fierce drought in Anga
Anga had been stricken by a fierce drought because of Romapada’s misdeeds and only a reclusive, virginal, forest-dweller named Rishyasringa, the Horned Antelope (or, the Sage with the Horn), was capable of bringing rain to the parched land. This young man had been raised as an ascetic in the faraway woodlands and would have to be persuaded to come into the city to perform the ritual that Romapada needed.
Rishyasringa is lured out of the forest by a group of seductive young women, such creatures of beauty as he had never seen before. Utterly fascinated, he follows these earthly apsaras into the city and sets about doing what the king wants. The rains come and Anga is fruitful and prosperous again. Somewhere in the bargain, Rishyashringa gets Romapada’s daughter’s hand in marriage.
When Dasaratha wanted to have sons, Rishyasringa, with his special powers, was recommended to him as the man required for the appropriate rituals.
Dasaratha asked his friend Romapada for the ‘loan’ of his son-in-law and brought Shanta and her unusual husband back to Ayodhya where they were treated with love and respect and lived for a time as part of the royal family. Some time later, Rishyasringa performed the sacrifice, which produced the other-worldly sweet dish and Dasaratha’s queens become pregnant, as promised.
It is not clear in the Ramayana whether Romapada promised Shanta to Rishyasringa as a reward for the successful ritual that he performed or whether, having seen the lovely ladies of Anga, who drew him out of the forest, Rishyasringa himself demanded a wife in exchange for his services. We might imagine that, since he had been enchanted by the women who were sent to seduce him, he wanted more of what he saw. Or had. If Shanta was married off to Rishyasringa after he performed the rain-making ritual, the sub-text of the story suggests that it’s his celibacy (or more accurately, his virginity) that gives him his special powers. Shanta as the reward rather than the bait gives us a rare, if not entirely unique occasion, where it is a man’s virginity that has become the case in point.
In some versions of the story, Dasaratha had allowed Romapada to adopt his daughter. As such, Shanta is not only the link between the two kingdoms, she is the single payment that both kings offer Rishyasringa for his magic.
The writer works with myth, epic and the story traditions of the sub-continent
