Rama and Sita Reunited

Gautama tells Shrenika how Rama and Lakshmana enter Lanka with aerial cars, elephants, horses, chariots, hosts of Vidyadharas, great kings and thousands of gods, radiant like gods themselves. The people of Lanka rejoice to see the fruit of past merit before their eyes, and women watch from balconies, windows and doorways, talking excitedly among themselves.

The women point out Rama, son of Dasharatha, with a face like the full moon and lotus eyes, and praise Sita, daughter of Janaka, who must have earned great merit to win such a husband, being to Rama what Shachi is to Indra. They admire Lakshmana, the discus-bearing Vasudeva who slew Ravana: dark as a blue lotus beside the golden Baladeva, the two brothers look like the meeting of the Ganga and Yamuna at Prayaga.

They also name Viradhita, son of King Chandrodara, who rose to glory by joining Lakshmana; Bhamandala, Sita's brother, raised by the Vidyadhara King Chandragati; Angada, son of Sugriva, who disturbed Ravana while he was mastering the Bahurupini vidya; and handsome Hanuman, Anjana's beloved son, riding a chariot drawn by elephants under a banner with the monkey emblem, who wrought such havoc in Lanka.

Honoured all along the royal road with garlands of flowers and gold, Rama asks a chowrie-bearer where Bhamandala's sister, burning in the grief of separation, is staying. Pointing with a hand bright with jewelled bangles, she shows him Mount Pushpaprakirnaka, laughing with waterfalls, where in a garden lovely as Nandana the daughter of Janaka waits with her attendants.

Sita's dearest companion Urmika tells her that her husband, the best of men, is coming, as weighed down by the grief of separation as a great elephant. Sita at first thinks it a dream. Rama steps down from his elephant among the Vidyadharas like the moon coming out of the clouds, and Sita, dusty, with loose hair and a face wasted by long sorrow, rises joyfully to meet him, bathing him in the light of her eyes.

Weary from the long parting, Rama, tears of love in his eyes, takes his beloved in his arms and cannot let her go, as if afraid of being parted again, while Sita garlands his neck with her arms like a wish-fulfilling vine clinging to a wish-fulfilling tree. The gods rain flowers and fragrant water from the sky and proclaim that Sita, best of faithful wives, never even in a dream desired any man but Rama nor looked at another with longing.

Lakshmana bows at Sita's feet, and weeping she embraces him, recalling that a wise muni had foretold he would become a Vasudeva; now he holds the realm of a half-chakravarti, for the words of a nirgrantha (unattached) muni never fail, while his elder brother, the Baladeva, has drawn her out of the fire of separation. Her brother Bhamandala, lord of the Vidyadharas and a hero of the battle, then comes to her.

Sugriva, Hanuman, Vibhishana, Nala, Nila, Angada, Anga, Viradhita, Chandra, Sushena, Jambunada and other great Vidyadharas announce their names, bow, and lay garments, ornaments and jewelled garlands in golden vessels at her feet, hailing her as famed in the three worlds and worthy of the praise of gods. The chapter promises that whoever reads or hears it will be reunited with the one they long for, even one gone abroad or carried away.