Sita

Sita is the heroine of the Ramayana. In the epic, King Janaka of Videha finds her in a furrow while ploughing a field for a ritual, so she is called a daughter of the earth. She marries Rama after he wins a contest of strength, and she chooses to share his fourteen years of exile in the forest.

The demon king Ravana abducts her and carries her to Lanka. Hanuman finds her there during his search of the city, and Rama later defeats Ravana and frees her. She then undergoes a trial by fire to prove her faithfulness and flies back to Ayodhya with Rama in the Pushpaka. In the final book, which many scholars regard as a later addition, she is exiled while pregnant, raises her twin sons in Valmiki's hermitage, and at last returns into the earth.

Hindu tradition honors Sita as an avatar of the goddess Lakshmi and as an ideal of devotion and courage. Like Rama, she is known from epic and religious literature, not from independent historical records.