रावणेन आकाशमार्गेण सीताहरणम्

Sītā, her face lovely as the moon, lord of the stars, looked at the king of the vultures lying struck down by Rāvaṇa, and in her deep grief she lamented. "Omens and signs, dreams, the cries of birds and the way they show themselves: these always appear to men in their joy and in their sorrow. And yet, Rāma, you surely do not know of the great disaster that has fallen on you. It is on my account, Kākutstha, that these beasts and birds are running about, foretelling evil. This bird came here out of pity, to save me, and it is through my ill fortune alone that he lies struck down on the ground." Her grief turned into self-reproach. She did not blame Rāvaṇa, nor fate, but only her own bad luck, as is the way of a faithful wife; and the moon-faced woman streaming with tears is itself a striking contrast. In counting the five parts of the lore of omens, portents, bodily signs, dreams, bird-cries and sightings, the poet leans on a common belief to deepen the pathos: the omens are always there, but only one who can read them can protect; and Rāma was far away, chasing the deer. The word "struck down" sounds twice over, for with Jaṭāyu's body Sītā's hope too was struck down. When she said the birds and beasts ran on her account, she was making herself the very cause of the ill omens, the height of self-blame. By saying that Jaṭāyu came "out of pity" she made his death the fruit not of a battle but of compassion, so her grief was mixed with gratitude, and this is what will later establish his greatness before Rāma. She called to Rāma as though he were in front of her; in separation, speaking to him was all she had to lean on. And she said the bird "lies" on the ground, in the present tense, so that his state stands before our eyes rather than being merely reported.

"Save me, Kākutstha! Save me, Lakṣmaṇa!" the lovely lady cried out in terror, as if someone near by might hear her; but there was no one near. Her garlands and ornaments crushed, she was lamenting like a woman with no protector when Rāvaṇa, lord of the rākṣasas, rushed at her. She clung to the great trees and wound herself about them like a creeper, crying "Let me go, let me go!" again and again, but he reached her. A creeper lives by leaning on a tree, and Sītā leaned on the trees because her husband was far off. As she cried "Rāma, Rāma!" in the forest without Rāma, he, like Death himself, seized her by the hair, and by that act brought on the end of his own life: in the very moment of the deed the poet proclaims its fruit, and that grip on her hair was Rāvaṇa's death warrant. When Vaidehī was violated in this way, the whole world, with all that moves and all that does not, lost its bounds and was wrapped in blind darkness; the outrage to one faithful woman broke down all order. The wind stopped blowing there and the sun lost its light, two of the great elements standing witness, as though wrong done could disorder nature itself. Seeing with his divine eye that Sītā had been seized, the glorious Grandsire Brahmā said, "The thing is accomplished." That word is the linchpin of the whole story: the abduction of Sītā is the very cause of Rāvaṇa's death, and it tells the reader that this calamity is really the beginning of a great good. The great sages who lived in the Daṇḍaka forest saw her carried off and were at once glad and grieved: glad because they understood that Rāvaṇa's destruction had come of its own accord, grieved at the sight of Sītā's plight. That two opposite feelings could stand together in them shows their discernment.

Then the lord of the rākṣasas took her up as she wept, crying "Rāma, Rāma!" and "Lakṣmaṇa!", and rose into the sky. Her limbs had the colour of burnished gold ornaments and she wore yellow silk, and the princess shone like lightning flashing from Sudāman's peak. The first epithet sets the tone for the whole description: her very limbs were the colour of heated gold. With her yellow garment streaming above him, Rāvaṇa himself shone the more, like a mountain lit by fire; yet that splendour was borrowed, stolen, and a mountain ablaze is also burning. The fragrant, coppery lotus petals she wore were scattered down over Rāvaṇa, so that the beauty of the one carried off covered the one who carried her. Her silk, blown up in the air and golden in sheen, glowed in the sun's red light like a copper-coloured cloud in the sunshine. But her clear face, held in Rāvaṇa's lap in the sky, did not shine without Rāma, just as a lotus does not shine when it is torn from its stalk; beauty, the poet suggests, lives in a bond, not in form alone. It was like the moon rising after it has broken through a dark cloud: a face with a fine brow and lovely hair, bright as the heart of a lotus, without a blemish, adorned with white, flawless, shining teeth, and with beautiful eyes. The poet takes all his comparisons from the sky, lightning, cloud, moon and copper cloud, because the scene itself is played out in the sky, and this harmony of image and setting heightens its beauty. At the root of every one of them lies the contrast of colour between Sītā's yellow garment and Rāvaṇa's dark body.

Weeping, her tears wiped away, lovely as the moon, with a fine nose and charming coppery lips, glowing like gold, that fair face of hers, shaken by the lord of the rākṣasas, did not shine without Rāma, like the moon risen by day. Again and again, like a refrain, the poet returns to "she did not shine without Rāma," so that in the very midst of the description it is separation that rules. Golden Maithilī clinging to the dark-limbed rākṣasa lord was like a golden girth-band on a dark elephant. Janaka's daughter, yellow as a lotus and bright as gold in her burnished ornaments, shone against Rāvaṇa like lightning entering a cloud. With the jingling of her ornaments he became like a clear dark raincloud full of thunder; the likeness rests on sound, the tinkling of jewels becoming the rumble of the cloud. The shower of flowers that fell from Sītā's head as she was carried off scattered on every side and dropped to the earth, but whirled up again by Rāvaṇa's speed it came back upon Daśagrīva himself. This double movement, first falling and then being swept back, shows both the speed of his flight and the breaking of her adornment. The stream of blossoms settled on the younger brother of Vaiśravaṇa like a clear garland of stars on lofty Meru; the image grants Rāvaṇa his greatness, yet a mountain is also something fixed, and what cannot move must fall. A jewelled anklet slipped from Vaidehī's foot and fell to the ground, bright as a ring of lightning. That anklet is the seed of what comes next: these are the very tokens Rāma will later find, and by them the way will be known. And Vaidehī, red as the young shoots of trees, adorned the dark rākṣasa lord as a golden girth adorns an elephant.

Blazing in the sky with her own splendour like a great meteor, Sītā was borne away through the air by Vaiśravaṇa's younger brother. The image cuts both ways: a meteor is radiant, but it is also something that falls, so good and ill are mixed in it. Her ornaments, bright as fire, fell jangling to the earth like stars dropping spent from the sky, and the necklace that slipped from between her breasts, gleaming like the moon, looked as it fell like the Gaṅgā coming down from heaven. Then all of nature took up her grief, in four orders one after another. The trees, lashed by the winds of that evil hour and full of every kind of bird, shook their tops and seemed to be saying "Do not be afraid"; it is only the poet's fancy, but it makes her loneliness sharper still, for things without minds comforted her while no one with a mind was there. The lotus pools, their lotuses ruined and their fish and water creatures terrified, seemed to mourn for Maithilī as for a friend who had lost heart. Lions, tigers, deer and birds gathered from every side and ran in fury after Sītā's shadow; even the beasts were angry, and their anger shows only that no men were there. And the mountains, their waterfalls the tears streaming down their faces and their peaks raised like arms, seemed to cry aloud as Sītā was carried away. This giving of human feeling to the whole of nature, trees consoling, pools mourning, beasts pursuing, mountains wailing, is a mark of Vālmīki's art.

Seeing Vaidehī carried off, the glorious sun grew wan: his light was shattered and his disc turned pale, as though the one who sees everything could not bear to see this. "There is no dharma," all beings lamented, company by company, "and where then is truth, where is uprightness, where is mercy, when Rāvaṇa carries off Sītā, the wife of Rāma?" That cry is the central question of the sarga, and the whole Rāmāyaṇa is its answer: dharma may be delayed, but it is not destroyed. The fawns, frightened and piteous, wept aloud, and with the weeping of these young creatures the pathos reaches its height. The goddesses of the forest, who in the previous sarga had fled, now could only watch; again and again they looked up with eyes strange with fear, their bodies trembling violently. Sītā was crying out loudly, brought to such misery, calling "Lakṣmaṇa! Rāma!" in her sweet voice and gazing down at the earth again and again, her hair loose and the mark on her forehead rubbed away; and that spirited lady Daśagrīva carried off to his own destruction. Once more the poet names the end at the end: what Rāvaṇa thought his gain was his ruin. Then Maithilī, with her lovely teeth and pure smile, cut off from all her kin and able to see neither Rāghava nor Lakṣmaṇa, grew pale of face and was crushed under the weight of her fear. The sarga closes on her alone: without her family, without sight of her husband, her face drained of colour, it ends in sorrow.