Vajrajangha Finds Sita in the Forest and Consoles Her

Seeing his army halted as if the Ganga were held back by a great vidya (magical science), King Vajrajangha, who has himself heard the weeping, asks the reason, and men go ahead to ask the lady who she is and why she weeps alone in a forest so dark and so full of lions, snakes, scorpions and pythons that even gods and Vidyadharas avoid it. They say she seems a great queen, a goddess or a Nagakumari (serpent maiden), and that her words and bearing show her nobility.

Frightened by the armed men, Sita trembles and takes off her ornaments to give them, but the soldiers, in awe of their master, tell her to keep her priceless jewels and trust them, for King Vajrajangha is renowned and adorned with the jewel of samyagdarshana (right faith), which no one can steal, which is free of doubt and other faults and as steady as Meru. They describe him as a knower of the Jina's dharma, protector of all who seek refuge, merciful, a father to his people, a follower of ahimsa (non-violence) who cares for the poor, the orphaned and the weak like a mother, truthful, master of his senses and one who sees other men's wives as mother, sister or daughter, so that praising all his virtues would be like swimming the ocean with one's arms.

Vajrajangha himself arrives, dismounts from his elephant and humbly addresses Sita as his sister, asking what hard-hearted fool could have left her in such a forest without his heart bursting, and urging her to trust him, fear nothing and not worry for her unborn child. When she breaks down weeping, he comforts her again and again until, through her tears, she tells her story.

She tells him she is Janaka's daughter, sister of Bhamandala, lord of the Vidyadharas, and Rama's queen: Dasharatha took diksha after giving Bharata the kingdom because of Kaikeyi's boon, she followed Rama and Lakshmana into the forest, Ravana carried her off by deceit and she ate only on the eleventh day when she had news of her husband, and Rama, after staying with Sugriva, crossed the ocean with the Vidyadharas, conquered Ravana and brought her home. Bharata then took diksha and reached moksha, and Kaikeyi became an aryika and by great austerity cast off the female state and became a god, to be born human again and attain liberation.

While Rama and Lakshmana ruled in Ayodhya like Indra, the wicked there began to say that Rama, wise and just as he is, had taken back a wife carried off by Ravana, so that all restraint was lost among the people. She was then with child and longing to worship the Jina, and Rama had planned to take her on pilgrimage: first to Kailasa, where Rishabhadeva attained nirvana, then to Ayodhya, birthplace of the Tirthankaras, to Kampila for Vimalanatha, Ratnapuri for Dharmanatha, Shravasti for Sambhavanatha, Champapura for Vasupujya, Mithila for Mallinatha, Hastinapura for Shantinatha, Kunthunatha and Aranatha, and Rajagriha for Munisuvrata, whose tirtha (era) now runs, and in the Pushpaka vimana to the temples in the four forests of Mount Sumeru and all the temples of the two and a half continents.

Rama had told her that bowing even once to the Arhat (the omniscient teacher) with true feeling destroys the sins of many births, and had spoken of how Rishabhadeva taught the path of liberation when no one knew dharma in the age of enjoyment, and how Bharata Chakravarti built temples of gold and jewels on Kailasa with gem images five hundred bow-lengths tall, still worshipped by gods, Vidyadharas, Gandharvas and Kinnaras. Then the citizens came with their harsh report, and Rama, judging that people are crooked by nature and that the slander would end no other way, chose to give up his beloved; she says she is faultless and he knows it well, Lakshmana pleaded much in vain, and it is the way of high-born, learned Kshatriyas to fear nothing but public slander.

Moved by the sight of Rama's queen weeping and covered in dust, Vajrajangha comforts her with great respect: one so learned in the Jina's teaching should not give way to arta-dhyana (sorrowful brooding), which only deepens sorrow, but should reflect on the twelve anuprekshas (contemplations) such as impermanence, helplessness, solitude and the otherness of the body. He reminds her how the deluded soul, not knowing the path of liberation, has suffered separation and misfortune in every form of life, as an animal in heat, cold and rain, in hell through cutting and piercing, and even as a lesser god envying greater ones, so that there is no place in the three worlds where it has not been born and died.

By her merit, he says, she won a husband like Rama and great joys, and by bad karma she suffered abduction, eleven days without food until news of her husband came, and life without ornaments or perfume until she saw him again; now bad karma has risen once more, and her husband, as if senseless from the bite of the serpent of slander, has left her in the forest without understanding. Yet her merit is still at work, for it was by the power of her virtue that he came to this lonely forest to catch elephants.

He introduces himself as Vajrajangha, lord of Pundarikapura, son of a virtuous king of the Soma line and Queen Subandhu, declares that by the law of dharma she is his elder sister, and asks her to come to Pundarikapura, for grief achieves nothing. Rama, he assures her, will surely repent of losing so priceless a jewel through his own carelessness, and being wise he will seek her out and call her back with honour.

Comforted as though she had found her own brother Bhamandala, Sita praises Vajrajangha as a famous, brave, wise and gentle man full of love for his fellow believers. Gautama tells Shrenika that Vajrajangha's right faith was adhigamaja (gained through a guru's teaching), and that he was pure of soul, of a sadhu's disposition and rich in vows and virtue. Sita says he must have been her brother or friend in a former life, since every soul has at some time been mother, father, brother or son to every other and merit can turn a foe into a friend, and so he has now made her his sister in dharma and saved her in her hour of need.