Page:The Katha Sarit Sagara.djvu/512

 time mutual separation to which no termination is assigned; hear in proof of this the tale of Rámabhadra and Sítá."

Story of Ráma and Sítá.:— Long ago king Daśaratha. the sovereign of Ayodhya, had a son, named Ráma, the elder brother of Bharata, Śatrughna and Lakshmana. He was a partial incarnation of Vishnu for the overthrow of Rávana, and he had a wife named Sítá, the daughter of Janaka, the lady of his life. As fate would have it, his father handed over the kingdom to Bharata, and sent Ráma to the forest with Sítá and Lakshmana. There Rávana carried off his beloved Sítá by magic, and took her to the city of Lanká, having slain Jatáyus on the way. Then Ráma, in his bereaved state, made Sugríva his friend by killing Bálin, and by sending Hanumán to Lanká, obtained news of his wife. And he crossed the sea by building a bridge over it, and slew Rávana, and gave the sovereignty of Lanka to Vibhíshana and recovered Sítá. Then he returned from the forest, and while he was ruling his kingdom, that Bharata had made over to him, Sítá became pregnant in Ayodhyá. And while the king was roaming through the city at leisure, with a small retinue, to observe the actions of his subjects, he beheld a certain man turning his wife, whom he held by the hand, out of his house, and giving out that her fault was going to the house of another man.* And king Ráma heard the wife saying to her husband, " King Ráma did not desert his wife, though she dwelt in the house of the Rákshasa; this fellow is superior to him, for he abandons me for going to the house of a relation." So he went home afflicted; and afraid of the slander of the people, he abandoned Sítá in the forest; a man of reputation prefers the sorrow of separation to ill-repute. And Sítá, languid with pregnancy, happened to reach the hermitage of Válmíki, and that rishi comforted her, and made her take up her abode there. And the other hermits there debated among themselves; " Surely this Sítá is guilty, otherwise how could her husband have deserted her? So, by beholding her, everlasting pollution will attach to us; but Válmíki does not expel her from the hermitage out of pity, and he neutralizes by means of his asceticism the pollution produced by beholding her, so come, let us go to some other hermitage." When Válmíki perceived that, he said; " Bráhmans, you need not have any misgivings about the matter, I have perceived her by my meditation to be chaste. When even then they exhibited incredulity, Sítá said to them; " Reverend sirs, test my purity by any means that you know of, and if I turn out to be unchaste, let me be punished by