The Fire Ordeal Decreed and the Gods Come to Sakalabhushana Kevali

Vibhishana, Sugriva and Hanuman beg Rama to send for Janaki, who is miserable without him; after a long sigh Rama says he knows her to be spotless and pure of mind, but since she was sent away over public slander, she must take an oath before the kings, Vidyadharas and land-dwellers of every land and then enter his house purified, as Shachi enters Indra's. Kings arrive with children, elders, women and households, even women who had never seen the sun, the Vidyadharas by vimana through the sky and the land-dwellers by chariot, horse and palanquin. At Rama's command officials raise cloth pavilions with windows and every comfort outside the city, men lodging with men and women with women, and the royal court supplies food, clothes, betel, areca nut and ornaments to all who wait to witness the oath.

At Rama's bidding Bhamandala, Vibhishana, Hanuman, Sugriva, Viradhita, Ratnajati and other great kings fly to Pundarikapura in the blink of an eye, leave their army outside the city and come before Janaki with cries of victory, offering flowers at her feet. Weeping, Sita says the slander of wicked men burns her heart like a forest fire that not even the water of the Kshirasagara (Ocean of Milk) could cool. The kings answer that no one can shake the mountain of her virtues any more than shake the earth, drink a flame or lift Mount Sumeru, that the tongues of those who slander a great sati (chaste woman) should split into a thousand pieces, and that they will punish her slanderers anywhere in Bharata-kshetra and rain jewels on the homes of those who love her virtues.

They urge her to board the Pushpaka vimana Rama has sent, since Ayodhya and Rama's palace are as dull without her as the sky without the moon or a temple without a lamp, and a wise and faithful wife must obey her husband. Sita sets out with her chief companions, reaches Ayodhya at dusk and spends the night in the Mahendrodaya garden, which had delighted her when she came there with Rama but now gives her no joy. At sunrise she rides on an elephant towards Rama, her radiance dimmed by sorrow yet her mind pure, looking among her companions like the moon among the stars.

The whole assembly bows to her, and Rama is stirred like the ocean. The people, who had grieved at her going and marvelled at her sons' might, overflow with joy, crying, ‘Mother, may you ever be victorious!’ and praising her beauty, patience, truth, radiance, purity and depth. Vidyadharas in the sky and land-dwellers below gaze unblinking, some at Rama as gods gaze at Indra, some at Lavana and Ankusha seated beside him, whom they find just like their father, some at Lakshmana, Shatrughna, Bhamandala, Hanuman, Vibhishana, Viradhita and Sugriva, but always back again at Sita.

Seeing Rama, Janaki believes her separation is at an end; Lakshmana honours her with an offering and bows, and all the kings salute her. But as she hurries forward, Rama, calm though he is, thinks angrily that this woman he abandoned in a dreadful forest has boldly come back, still clinging to him, and Sita, sensing his displeasure, feels the ship of her mind about to break on the very shore of the ocean of separation and scratches the ground with her toe. Rama tells her to stand away, for his eyes can bear the noonday sun or a venomous serpent but not the sight of her, and asks how it could be proper to keep in his palace a woman who lived for many months in Dashamukha's garden.

Janaki answers that his heart is without mercy: wise as he is, he scorned her like an ignorant man, and when she, pregnant, longed to visit the Jina shrines, he deceitfully sent her off on the pretext of a pilgrimage and left her in a dreadful forest, where she might have died a bad death and been reborn in hell or as an animal. If he wished to abandon her, she says, he should at least have left her with some aryikas (nuns), for the only refuge of the helpless, the poor and the kinless is the Jina teaching. Then, weeping in anguish, she asks him to be gracious and promises to do whatever he commands.

Rama replies that he knows her chastity is spotless, that she is sinless, keeps the anuvratas (lesser vows of a householder), has right faith, knows the Jina teaching and obeys him, but the people of the world are crooked and slandered her without cause, so she must do something that will make them believe. Sita offers to perform every divine oath there is, to drink Kalakuta, the deadliest of poisons, whose mere smell kills even venomous serpents, or to enter fierce blazing flames, or anything else he commands. After a moment's thought Rama says, ‘Enter the fire pit’, and Sita, overjoyed, accepts with a radiant face.

Narada reflects that she is indeed a great sati but fire cannot be trusted and she has chosen death; Bhamandala, Hanuman and the other kings are stricken, and Lavana and Ankusha are distraught at their mother's resolve. Raising both arms, the kshullaka (junior Jain monk) Siddhartha tells Rama that even gods cannot describe the glory of Sita's chastity: Sumeru might sink into the underworld, the oceans dry up, the moon's rays turn hot and the sun's cold, yet her vow could not waver. He adds that, worshipping the Jina daily by his vidyas (magical powers) at the five Merus and the eternal shrines, he has heard sages everywhere praise her vows, and begs Rama not to order her into the fire.

The Vidyadharas in the sky, the land-dwellers on the ground and all the people weep and beg Rama to be gentle and forgiving and not to make his heart as hard as fire, for the queens of great men never fall. Rama retorts that if they are so compassionate they should never have raised the slander, and orders a square pit three hundred cubits across to be dug, filled with dry wood, sandal and black aloe wood and kindled into a veritable pit of death, which his servants prepare with spades.

That same night in the Mahendrodaya garden the fierce Rakshasi Vidyudvaktra assails the sage Sakalabhushana out of an old enmity, which Gautama explains to Shrenika. In the city of Gunja on the northern row of Mount Vijayardha, Sakalabhushana, son of Simhavikrama, had eight hundred queens, chief among them Kiranamandala; once, at a co-wife's urging, she drew a portrait of her maternal uncle's son Hemashikha, angering him until the other queens took the blame, and later, asleep beside him, she murmured that name. Though she was innocent, Sakalabhushana in anger turned from the world and took muni diksha (initiation as a monk), and Kiranamandala too became an aryika, but she hated her husband for the false blame and on dying was reborn as the Rakshasi Vidyudvaktra.

Out of that old hatred she spoiled the sage's alms rounds by loosing tethered elephants on the village, setting fires, raining dust, appearing before him as a horse or a bull and strewing thorns on his path. Once, as he stood in kayotsarga (motionless standing meditation), she cried thief so that wicked men seized and insulted him, and another time she hung a woman's necklace round his neck as he returned from his meal and accused him of stealing it, though each time good people freed him. Last night she assailed him with vyantara spirits, elephants, lions, tigers, serpents and beautiful women, but he stayed absorbed in meditation, destroyed the four ghatiya (destructive) karmas and attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience).

Indra and the Kalpavasi, Bhavanavasi, Vyantara and Jyotishi gods come through the sky towards Ayodhya on their mounts, which are only their own magical forms and not real animals, to worship Sakalabhushana Kevali in the Mahendrodaya garden. Seeing the fire pit being readied for Sita's ordeal, a god named Meghaketu asks Indra why such an ordeal should befall so faithful and pure-minded a shravika (Jain laywoman), and Indra orders him to remove the great sati's ordeal while he himself goes on to the Kevali. Meghaketu takes his place in his vimana in the sky above the pit, gazing at Rama, whose great beauty captivates every heart.