Now, the story of Ahalya is only one instance of the trickery that Maya is guilty of. Remember I told you about Rama, the one who saved Ahalya? His own wife was a victim of Maya, just to keep her reputation intact... the legend goes something like this:
As Rama, his beautiful and chaste wife Sita, and his brother Lakshmana grew closer and closer to the kingdom of Lanka, where the Demon King Ravana lived and ruled, they were put into more and more danger. Fearing that something might happen to taint the beautiful Sita's chastity, the fire god Agni paid a visit to Rama. Knowing that the destruction of Lanka and the death of Ravana were imminent, Agni decided to cut Rama an offer he couldn't refuse.
"Rama," he began, "I wouldn't feel right having the incarnation of Lakshmi, your beautiful wife, defiled at the hands of Ravana. Why don't you let me make a clone of her, so that she may retain her virtue? You have my promise that I will give her back to you when the battle is over."
Rama contemplated this for just a moment, then agreed. A Maya (phantom) Sita would be created, and Rama's virtuous wife would remain in the custody of Agni for the duration of the fighting. Sita would be returned to her husband (and the Maya-Sita to Agni) upon Rama testing her chastity by throwing her into a fire. Not even Lakshmana knew that the Sita in his presence was not the real Sita. This was just a secret between Rama and the fire god Agni.
The battle of Lanka raged, bloody, brutal, and horrible, with Ravana finally falling to his death at the hands of Rama's bow. Rama and his friends began to return to the kingdom of Ayodha, but the villagers questioned the chastity of Sita upon their return - as expected. To prove her virtue to them, Sita (in actuality, the Maya-Sita) walked through Agni's fire, where the rightful Sita emerged - chaste as ever. Nobody besides Rama and the fire god Agni ever knew the difference, that there was a Maya-Sita and the real Sita in their presence... or so they hoped. Lakshmana and a few villagers felt at this moment that they were in a parallel universe, that as she walked through the fire, Sita split into two people! It must be an illusion, they thought. Illusion, indeed! Upon her passing this chastity test, Ayodha accepted her as queen, knowing that the rakshasa Ravana had never touched her.
As for the Maya-Sita, she was told by Rama and Agni to perform penance at Puskara (in the most sacred Sarasvati river region,) for protecting Sita. When she had completed her penance, she would become Svarga-lakshmi - another incarnation of Lakshmi. Siva granted the Maya-Sita a boon, and she wished for a husband - ending up with five husbands in her next life! I could hardly handle one in this life.
I'd love to tell you how Rama and Sita lived happily ever after with a million perfect children in a huge mansion, but come on. You know they didn't. Every step of the way, it's drama with these two. That, however, is a story for another day...
Author's Note: In the versions of the Ramayana that we have read, both Buck and Narayan, there is not much real attention paid to the Phantom Sita. There is a small part of the text that talks about it in context with Indrajit, but a little bit of research on the topic showed me that in Indian culture, the story of the Maya-Sita is quite a big deal involving many reincarnations spanning both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. I tried to take the main elements and important points of this incredibly complicated, wordy, ancient story of chastity and virtue and turn it into a sort of business deal between Rama and Agni to keep Sita's virtue intact. My main goal in my stories, aside from trying to clearly explain the concept of Maya, is to cut down the large and detailed versions of the stories into more streamlined versions of my own. The idea that an illusion of Sita was created just so that she would remain "virginal" in the eyes of people who judged her really piqued my interest, for some reason - I liked how it fit the theme of Maya creating havoc and pretty much implementing Jedi mind tricks on people.