Sunayana is the queen of King Janaka of Mithila and the mother of Sita and Urmila. Her name is known mostly from later tradition, as Valmiki rarely names her, but she is honoured as the mother who raised the earth-born Sita.
Who was Sunayana?
Sunayana is the wife of Janaka, the philosopher king of Mithila. When Janaka finds the infant Sita in a furrow of the earth while ploughing for a sacrifice, it is Sunayana who raises her as her own daughter, alongside Urmila.
Valmiki's text gives her little space, and her name is fuller in later retellings such as the Ramcharitmanas, where she appears at the bow ceremony fearing for Rama and at Chitrakoot meeting Kausalya. In these tellings she is a loving, anxious mother who sends both her daughters to Ayodhya on the same day.
