Unravelling the “Sitavaka” mystery

Multiple locations across Sri Lanka lay claim to the name 'Sitavaka', which distorts the origin story and its significance

- By Rajitha Weerakoon

Was Sita held captive by Ravana in Sitavaka? Was the name Sitavaka coined after this fact? And did Ravana rule Sri Lanka five thousand years ago?

Myth or reality, the debate of the Ramayana epic, continues to capture the imagination of people and the claims made of several Sitavakas as the probable location where Sita was imprisoned, led the late eminent anthropologist and historian Gananath Obeyesekere to attempt to "untangle the multiple references to Sitavaka and bring the "Sitavaka conundrum" into some kind of order."

Towards this end, the late author, in his "Stories and Histories - Sri Lankan Pasts and the Dilemmas of Narrative Representation," had turned to "Vitthi Poth," rather than the classical Pali and Sinhala texts and the major Rajavaliyas that were devoted to the genealogy of Lankan kings. "Vitthi Poth" was a popular text used to understand empirical history and patterns of migration from South India to Sri Lanka.

The late anthropologist, in his previous book "The Buddha in Sri Lanka - Histories and Stories", had dismissed the varied versions of the Rama-Sita-Ravana story he had heard during his field work as absurd. Even "Ravana Rajavaliya," probably of the sixteenth century, had implied that Sigiriya was the abode of our five-headed ancestor - Ravana and that he lived at a time of the previous Buddhas - about five thousand years ago.