Ramakien: Tosakanth's abduction of Sita

At a Glance

• Central figures: Phra Ram, rightful king of Ayutthaya exiled to the forest; Nang Sida, his wife; Tosakanth, the ten-headed, twenty-armed demon king of Longka; and Phra Lak, Phra Ram’s devoted younger brother.
• Setting: The forests south of Ayutthaya and the demon kingdom of Longka, in the Thai Ramakien tradition - the national epic of Thailand, derived from the Indian Ramayana but reshaped through centuries of Thai court performance and khon mask-dance drama.
• The turn: Tosakanth, inflamed by his sister’s description of Nang Sida’s beauty, devises a scheme using a golden deer to lure Phra Ram and Phra Lak away from the forest hermitage, leaving Sida unprotected.
• The outcome: Tosakanth seizes Nang Sida and carries her through the sky to Longka, where she refuses him absolutely; the great bird Sadayu dies trying to stop the abduction.
• The legacy: The abduction sets in motion the great war between Phra Ram and Tosakanth - the central conflict of the Ramakien, depicted on the gallery murals of Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok and performed in khon drama at the Thai royal court.

Tosakanth’s sister Sammanakkha came back to Longka with her nose cut off and her face streaked in blood. She had gone into the forest where the exiled prince Phra Ram lived with his wife Nang Sida and his brother Phra Lak. She had tried to seduce Phra Ram. When that failed, she had attacked Nang Sida. Phra Lak drew his blade and slashed her face.

She knelt before her brother - the demon king on his throne of gold, ten heads crowned, twenty arms resting on the carved armrests - and she told him what had happened. But she did not lead with her humiliation. She led with Nang Sida. She described Sida’s skin, her hair, her bearing, the particular way light gathered around her as if she carried her own dawn. Tosakanth, who had a thousand concubines in his palace, who had taken women from every kingdom between the mountains and the sea, sat forward on his throne.

The Golden Deer

Tosakanth summoned Maricha, one of his demon lords, and gave him a single task: become a deer. Not any deer. A deer made of gold, with gem-colored eyes and a coat that shimmered like sunlight on temple glass. Maricha was reluctant. He had encountered Phra Ram before and knew the prince’s arrows did not miss. Tosakanth did not ask again. He told Maricha what would happen to him if he refused, and Maricha went.

The golden deer appeared at the edge of the forest clearing where Phra Ram and Nang Sida kept their hermitage. It stepped between the trees like something that had wandered out of a mural. Nang Sida saw it first. She called to Phra Ram.

Catch it for me.

Phra Ram took his bow and followed the deer into the forest. It stayed just ahead of him - visible, glittering, always a bowshot away. It led him deeper. The trees closed behind him. The hermitage fell out of hearing.

When Phra Ram finally loosed an arrow and struck the deer, Maricha died in his true demon form but with his last breath screamed in a perfect imitation of Phra Ram’s voice - a scream of agony, a cry for help, carrying through the forest canopy back to the clearing.

The Circle on the Ground

Nang Sida heard the scream and turned to Phra Lak.

Your brother is hurt. Go to him.

Phra Lak did not move. Phra Ram had given him one instruction before leaving: stay with Sida. Do not leave her. Phra Lak knew the cry was wrong. Something about it carried too far, too cleanly. He told Sida he would stay.

She pressed him. She accused him of cowardice, of wanting his brother dead so he could take the throne. The words were unjust and she would later know it, but the scream still rang in the air, and fear had its fingers around her throat.

Phra Lak took a stick and drew a circle in the dirt around the hermitage.

Stay inside this line. Do not step beyond it for any reason. Nothing can cross it to reach you.

He went into the forest after his brother.

The clearing was silent. The circle glowed faintly in the packed earth. Nang Sida stood alone inside it.

The Monk at the Edge

An old monk appeared on the path. His robes were saffron. His begging bowl was empty. He approached the hermitage and called out in a thin, courteous voice, asking for rice and water. He looked frail. He looked hungry.

Nang Sida prepared food. She brought it to the edge of the circle. The old monk stood just outside, holding his bowl forward, but his arms were short and he could not reach. He asked her, politely, to step closer.

She stepped across the line.

The monk’s body split open like a husk. Tosakanth rose from inside it - ten heads stacked, twenty arms unfolding, his true form towering above the trees. He seized Nang Sida before she could scream and lifted into the sky, his demon chariot appearing beneath them as if the air itself had been waiting to carry them south.

Sadayu

They did not fly unchallenged. Sadayu, the great bird - old, enormous, his wings wider than the Chao Phraya - saw the chariot from his perch on the highest peak. He recognized Nang Sida. He had been a friend of Phra Ram’s father, and loyalty to that house ran through his bones like marrow.

Sadayu threw himself into the chariot’s path. He tore at Tosakanth with his talons. He broke one of the chariot’s wheels. For a span of sky the fight was real - Tosakanth bled from his arms, and feathers the size of palm fronds rained onto the forest below.

But Tosakanth had twenty arms and each one held a weapon. He cut Sadayu’s wings. The great bird fell. He hit the earth among the roots of a banyan tree and lay there, breathing slowly, his blood soaking into the ground. He did not die immediately. He held on.

When Phra Ram and Phra Lak returned to the hermitage and found the circle broken and Sida gone, they searched the forest. They found Sadayu beneath the banyan. The bird told them everything - Tosakanth’s disguise, the direction of flight, the kingdom of Longka far to the south across the sea. Then Sadayu died in Phra Ram’s arms, and Phra Ram built a fire and gave him funeral rites there among the roots, the smoke rising straight into the windless sky.

Longka’s Garden

In Longka, Tosakanth placed Nang Sida in a garden surrounded by demon guards. He came to her in his finest form - one head, two arms, handsome, draped in silk and gold. He offered her everything. Queen of Longka. Jewels that had no names. Power over every demon in the southern kingdoms.

Sida sat beneath a tree and would not look at him. She told him she was Phra Ram’s wife and would remain so. Tosakanth’s courtship turned to threat, then back to courtship, cycling through rage and charm like monsoon weather. Sida did not move. She did not eat the food he sent. She spoke to no one.

Tosakanth set a deadline. He gave her a period of days to accept him. If she refused at the end, he would kill her.

Far to the north, Phra Ram stood over Sadayu’s ashes and turned his face south. The war that would break Longka open had not yet begun, but it had already been decided - in a circle drawn in dirt, in a scream that carried too far, in a monk’s empty bowl held out at the edge of a line.