468 Analysis of the Rag hu Vans a. [No. 6. 



to dance, the trees cast their flowers, and the goats rejected the cropped 

 grass. The hermit who had gone forth to collect sacred grass and 

 flowers beheld her as a bird stricken by the hunter. Valmiki conduct- 

 ed her in the evening to his hermitage where deer reclined and deli- 

 vered her to holy women — they gave her at the end of the day a tent 

 lightened with a lamp of ingud oil, a sacred skin serving her as a 

 couch. Rama on hearing of his wife, poured forth tears as the moon 

 does snow in the month of Paus. 



The lord of the ocean-encircled land hearing that the Rakhasa 

 Lavana attacked the seers living along the Jumna sent his brother to 

 subdue them. He proceeded through forests laden with flowers breath- 

 ing sweet odours : the army co-operated with him as in the verb 

 adhydyan the preposition adhi. Lakshmana spent a night in the 

 forest shades with Valmiki where Sita gave birth to twins. The next 

 day appeared Lavana black as smoke, with hairs red as flame, moving 

 among his troops as the blaze of a funeral pile, he wrenched a lofty 

 tree as easily as grass and hurled it at Lakshmana, but it was severed 

 in two by his arrows, while an arrow pierced the giant, he fell, bring- 

 ing terror to the earth and removing the terror of the hermits ; flocks 

 of birds pounced on the dead Rakhasa and showers of flowers fell from 

 heaven on Lakhsmana's head which was erect in its strength but low 

 in modesty. After this Lakhsmana founded the city Mathura, from 

 the roofs of which he beheld the Jumna flow by, adorned by the 

 Chakravdkas, wreathed as hairs of the earth with a golden fillet. Rama's 

 sons sang the deeds of their father which soothed their mother, the 

 deer listening to the song. A sacrifice was appointed, Kusa and Lava 

 singing the Ramayana of Valmiki, Rama and the assembly listened with 

 rapture like a forest district unruffled by the wind, dripping with the 

 dews of morn. Next day Sita with her two sons came from the her- 

 mitage of Valmiki. With gentle mien, clad in red, fixing her eyes 

 on her feet, Sita came forward and was acquitted, the spectators stood 

 with downcast head bending as stalks of rice laden with fruit. Sita 

 drinking pure water exclaimed, I am free from this sin and appeal to 

 thee, O earth, to receive me to thyself ; so saying a light burnt from a 

 chasm in the ground, the goddess earth appeared and with her she 

 descended to the lower regions. Rama tried in vain to recover her, 

 but the love he had for Sita, he now reposed in the sons. Yam 



