सीतायाः प्रत्युत्तरम् अग्निप्रवेशश्च

Hearing the harsh, hair-raising words Rāghava had spoken in his anger, Vaidehī was stricken to the heart. Her husband's words were dreadful, words such as she had never heard from him before, and she heard them in that great assembly, before all the monkeys and rākṣasas, so that her shame was doubled; Maithilī bowed her head. Janaka's daughter seemed to shrink into her own limbs, as though she would hide inside her own body or sink into the earth, and, as if pierced by those arrows of words, she wept and wept. The very arrows that had slain Rāvaṇa, it seemed, were now piercing Sītā's heart. Yet she gathered her courage, wiped her tear-soaked face, and slowly, in a voice thick with sobs, began to answer her husband, and this is the mark of her inner strength.

“Why, hero,” she said, “do you make me listen to such unworthy words, so harsh and so cruel to the ear, like a common man speaking to a common woman? I am not what you take me for, mighty-armed one. Believe me; I swear it by my own conduct. You suspect all women because of the behaviour of low women; if you have really known me, put this suspicion away. If I came into contact with another's body, my lord, I was helpless; it was not my choice, and fate is to blame. What was in my power, my heart, has always been yours; what could I do, powerless, about limbs that were in another's power? If, after all our love that grew up together and all our years side by side, you still do not know me, you who give honour to others, then I am lost for ever. When you sent the great hero Hanumān to find me, why did you not cast me off then, while I was still in Laṅkā, my king? The moment I heard such words from you in the monkey's presence, I would have given up my life, and then you would not have toiled in vain, risking your own life, and your friends' hardships would not have been for nothing. But you, tiger among kings, have given way to anger like a petty man and seen in me nothing but a woman. I am called Janaka's daughter only in name; I was born from the earth itself. You who know what good conduct is have made little of mine. You did not honour the hand you took in marriage when I was a girl; my devotion and my character, you have put them all behind you.” Sītā does not merely weep; she answers each of Rāma's charges with reason. First, his words are unworthy of him, the speech of a common man. Second, not all women are alike, and the misconduct of some is no ground for suspecting all. Third, her body was touched against her will, but her heart was always his. Fourth, if he meant to abandon her, why did he not send word through Hanumān long before, when there would have been no need for war at all? Fifth, her birth was divine, from the earth, for Janaka was her father only in name, since she rose from the sacrificial ground; and her conduct, her devotion and her character he has forgotten. The hand he took in marriage, with fire as witness, he has not even counted as proof. Her speech keeps its bounds but is sharp: she addresses him with respectful titles — giver of honour, knower of good conduct, tiger among kings — and alongside them delivers a stern reproach. Her answer is the finest example in the Rāmāyaṇa of a woman's self-respect. She does not stop honouring her husband, yet she will not bear injustice in silence, and three feelings run through her words: grief, dignity and unwavering love for him.

Still speaking, weeping, her voice choked with tears, Sītā turned to Lakṣmaṇa, who stood downcast and lost in thought. “Son of Sumitrā,” she said, “build me a pyre; it is the only cure for this calamity. Struck down by a false charge, I cannot bear to live. My husband is not pleased with my virtues and has cast me off before everyone; I will enter the fire, the only path fit for me.” She asked Lakṣmaṇa, not Rāma, for Rāma had rejected her, while Lakṣmaṇa had always attended her like a servant, and for him the command was all but unbearable. Knowing she was innocent, she called the charge false; her entering the fire was not a taking of her own life but a proof of the truth. Lakṣmaṇa, slayer of enemy heroes, revered Sītā like a mother and was wholly devoted to Rāma. Hearing her, he was seized with indignation and looked at Rāghava, as if to ask whether this could be right. But he read Rāma's wish in his face — Rāma said nothing, but gave his consent by his expression — and so, with Rāma's approval, the valiant Lakṣmaṇa built the pyre. At that moment Rāma looked like Yama, the Destroyer at the end of time, and none of his friends dared to plead with him, or speak to him, or even look at him.

Then Vaidehī walked round Rāma, who stood with his face turned down, and went towards the blazing fire. Rāma could not look at her; his own heart too was in pain. Yet she walked round him in reverence, for her husband was her god, and even at this last moment she honoured him. Bowing to the gods and the brāhmaṇas, Maithilī joined her palms and said, close to the fire: “As my heart has never strayed from Rāghava, so may the Purifier, witness of the world, protect me on every side. As Rāghava thinks me corrupt though my conduct is pure, so may the Purifier, witness of the world, protect me on every side. As I have never been false to Rāghava, who knows all dharma, in deed or thought or word, so may the Purifier protect me. And as the sun, the blessed Wind, the quarters, the moon, day and night, the two twilights, the earth and others besides know me for a woman of good conduct, so may the Fire protect me.” Her prayer takes the form of an oath, an act of truth built on “as … so”; in ancient India an act of truth was the solemn speaking of a truth to call forth a result beyond the natural order. In the second of her oaths the contradiction is laid bare: she is pure, yet Rāghava thinks her corrupt, so the Fire must be the judge. She believes that the guardians of the world, the times of day and the earth itself are all witnesses of her character, and the refrain repeated twice, “may the Purifier, witness of the world, protect me on every side,” shows the firmness of her prayer. She does not blame Rāma and she does not curse him; she only wants the truth made plain.

With these words Vaidehī walked round the fire and, with a fearless heart, entered the blazing flames; there was no fear or doubt in her mind, for she knew she was pure. The great crowd gathered there, children and old people among them, watched the radiant Maithilī go into the fire. Glowing like newly heated gold and decked with ornaments of refined gold, she fell into the blazing fire in the sight of all the world. Every being there saw the large-eyed Sītā, like a golden altar, falling into the fire. The sages, gods and gandharvas saw the noble lady enter the fire like the final offering poured at the close of a sacrifice. All the women cried out when they saw her fall into the fire like the unbroken stream of ghee, consecrated with sacred formulas, that is poured at a sacrifice. And the three worlds, gods, gandharvas and dānavas, saw her like a goddess falling from heaven into hell under a curse. As she entered the fire a vast and extraordinary cry of “Alas!” went up from the rākṣasas and the monkeys. Every image but one speaks of holiness — the final offering, the stream of ghee, the golden altar of the sacrifice — so that her entering the fire is no suicide but an act as pure as a sacrifice. The image of the cursed goddess falling from heaven shows how the onlookers saw it: to them it was heartbreaking. The pity of the scene is twofold: an innocent woman is put to the test, and Rāma is forced to watch his beloved tried. Every onlooker — monkeys, rākṣasas, gods and sages — was on Sītā's side, and their cry of grief is the first witness to her purity. The sarga closes on that cry; in the next, the gods will come and reveal Rāma's divinity, and the Fire will give Sītā back.