# Cradle Tales of Hinduism/The Cycle of the Ramayana/The Capture of Sita

The Capture of Sita
How delightful to Sita, Rama, and Lakshmana were the years of their forest-exile! Wherever they went they were welcomed by companies of hermits, and admitted to the forest ways of life. Thus they were quickly established in huts made of leaves, and carpeted with the sacred grass, like other ascetics. Quickly, too, had they arranged their accessories of worship, and gathered together their small stores of necessaries. And without loss of time Sita fell into the habit of cooking for her husband and brother, like any peasant-woman, and serving them with her own fair hands. Now and then it would happen, during their first years in the forest, that they came upon some great saint, who would recognise Rama at the first glance as the Lord Himself. But more often they met with ascetics of a commoner mould, who understood the personal prowess of the royal brothers, and begged them, with folded hands, to rid the forests of the demons and brigands who were apt to make the life of the ashramas one of danger.
So Rama and Lakshmana, armed with royal ​weapons, ranged through the forests, slaying and maiming the demon-races everywhere. For this reason, all evil beings became their foes. And far away, in the Island of Lanka, Ravana, the ten-headed king of demons, determined to compass the death and destruction of Rama.
While these royal anchorites, therefore, sat in the evening shadows of the forest, watching the last low rays of the setting sun, and talking together on high themes; while Sita fed the birds and called the squirrels to eat from her hands or her lips; or while they all watched the green steeds that go in the dawn before the chariot of Indra, evil was brewing for them in the distant south. One of the kindred of Ravana had been scarred and disfigured by Rama, and not by any means could the Ten-headed forget.
One morning Sita was busied in little household offices, going to and fro about the hermitage, gathering flowers for the day's worship here, or fruits for the noonday meal there. Suddenly she noticed, at some distance, a small and very beautiful deer, feeding and playing in the shadows of the trees. In colour this deer was bright golden. Its hair looked strangely soft and thick, and it was near enough for the Queen to observe the exquisite fineness of its hoofs, and the delicacy of ears and eyes.
Some strange enchantment had surely, that ​morning, fallen upon Sita, for she, who was usually so merciful to all living things—pleading for their lives with her husband and his brother —was now all eagerness that this deer should be caught. She foresaw long years in Ayodhya, when she would keep it as a palace pet. And when at last it should die, its skin should be used, by Rama or herself, as the seat of worship.
Shamefacedly, and in a whisper, she called her husband and brother-in-law to see the little creature and hear her wishes. Lakshmana was by no means taken by the animal. He suspected some magic spell, and warned both Sita and Rama to be on their guard. But these suspicions seemed groundless; Sita’s longing to possess the deer continued; and Rama was so desirous of giving her pleasure that, without loss of time, he attired himself fox the chase, and seizing his weapons, and commending his wife to his brother’s care, sallied forth.
The deer had a curious way of leading him near enough to take aim, and then vanishing, only to reappear in some unexpected direction. This it did time after time, and Rama was led far afield in pursuit. The sun had already passed noon, and the shadows were beginning to grow long, when, at last, the hunter succeeded, and an arrow was lodged in the heart of the quarry. Then the form of the deer dropped away, and out of if rose ​the fiend-wizard Maricha, who exclaimed loudly three times in Rama's own voice, "O Sita! O Lakshmana!" and vanished.
Far away in their distant cottage Sita heard these cries of Rama, and shivered with terror, for she knew not what might have happened to her lord. She turned, therefore, and entreated Lakshmana to leave her and go and seek for Rama, All through the hours of that terrible day, she had dimly felt that evil was drawing nearer and nearer to them all, yet not so distinctly could she foresee its nature as to be able to ward it off. Now, however, all these fears and vague presentiments were concentrated in her anxiety about her husband's fate, Lakshmana, too, had not been without forebodings, but these made him extremely averse to leaving Sita alone. He could not imagine Rama at a loss and requiring his assistance, but he felt gravely responsible for the safety of the young wife. So keen, however, grew the trouble of Sita, and so insistent was her urging, that at last there was nothing for it but to go. So, warning her not to leave the shelter of the cottage during his absence, Lakshmana went forth to seek for Rama.
Scarcely had he gone, when a holy man appeared at the door, asking alms. Dreading to be uncharitable, Sita turned to speak with him and offer him the usual hospitality. She felt ill ​at ease, however. She could not forget that she was alone. And above all, she little liked the looks that the mendicant cast at her from time to time. Trying to conceal her agitation, she looked out in the direction whence she might expect to see Rama return from his hunting, together with Lakshmana. But on all sides she beheld only the yellow forest-lands. Neither Rama nor Lakshmana was in sight.
Soon she discovered that the Brahmin who stood before her was not what he seemed. The rags and matted locks of a holy man were only a disguise adopted by Ravana, the ten-headed Demon-King, who had come, in the hope of carrying her away. Horrified at the dilemma in which she had so rashly placed herself, the courage of Sita, and her confidence in her husband, never wavered for an instant. She warned the Demon-King that he might more safely offer violence to the wife of Indra himself, the Wielder of the Thunderbolt, than to her, the wife of Rama. For an insult done to her, none, she said, should escape death, not though he drank the nectar of immortality.
At these words, Ravana suddenly assumed his proper form, vast, and having ten heads and twenty arms. Having done this, he seized Sita by force, and rose, carrying her, into the sky.
Weeping as she went, Sita cried aloud, charging ​everything around her, the rivers, lakes, and trees—nay, the very deer who must be moving beneath her—to tell Rama, on his return, that she had been seized by Ravana. At her cries, it is said, the king of the eagles awoke from his agelong slumbers in the mountains, and flung himself at Ravana, for the rescue of Sita. Nor was it till every ornament had been riven from Havana's person, his weapons broken, and his flesh made torn and bleeding—nay, not till the lordly eagle himself had received his death-wound, that the king of birds desisted from that fierce encounter. Then Sita darted towards the prostrate body, and, stroking it with her hands, wept in the midst of the forest, calling on Rama and Lakshmana to save her.
Suddenly Ravana swooped down on her once more—as she stood, with her faded garlands falling backwards, vainly clasping a friendly tree—and seizing her by the hair, rose again, bearing her into the sky.
And the veil ot yellow silk that she wore streamed in the wind, looking like sunset clouds against the sky. And when the invisible beings of the upper air saw this sight, it is said that they rejoiced, for to them the capture of Sita meant the death of Ravana, and they regarded the release of the world from his terror, as already accomplished. ​ But the daughter of Janneka, being borne through the air by Ravana, looked like lightning, shining against dark clouds. Like stars dropping from the sky, because their merit is exhausted, so did her golden ornaments begin to fall to the earth. And the anklets flashed as they dropped, like the circling lightning. And her chains shone, even as the Ganges throwing herself from heaven. And showers of blossoms fell from her head to the earth, and were drawn up again by the whirlwind of Havana's swift passage, so that they studded the space about him as he went, in a ring, and looked like rows of burning stars, shining about a sombre mountain.
And the trees, waving their branches in the agitation of this flight, strove to whisper, "Fear not! Fear not!" And the mountains with their waterfalls and their summits towering upwards like uplifted arms, seemed to lament for Sita. And the lotuses faded in the pools, and the fish became troubled, and all the creatures of the forest trembled, for wrath and fear. And the wind wailed, and the darkness deepened, and the world wept, while Sita was borne away by Ravana to his island-kingdom of Lanka in the south.
But she, as she went, seeing Eve great monkeys seated on the top of a hill, conceived a sudden hope that by their means she might send news to Rama, and flung down amongst them, unseen by ​Ravana, certain ornaments, and also her yellow veil.
And Rama, wending his Wiiy homeward through the distant forest, after the slaying of the deer, noticed that the jackals were howling behind him, and had not a doubt that some ill had befallen him. A moment later he met Lakshmana, and knew Sita to be alone.
But when the two heroes, shaken with anxiety, reached their cottage, and found that she had vanished, the anguish of Rama was impossible to describe. At first, hoping against hope, he refused to believe that she was lost. But when at last there was no conceivable hiding-place that had not been searched and found empty, when the silent forest had failed to answer his despairing questions, when every call had been echoed back from the desolate wilderness, then Rama came to the conclusion that Sita had been devoured by demons, and with the bitterest self- reproaches, he fell into a stupor of grief.