अग्निना सीताप्रत्यर्पणम्

When he heard the auspicious words spoken by the Grandsire, Vibhāvasu, the Fire, took Vaidehī in his lap and rose up. Shaking the pyre off him, the bearer of oblations stood up at once in bodily form, holding Janaka's daughter. She shone like the young morning sun, adorned with ornaments of refined gold, dressed in red, youthful, her dark hair curling; her garlands and ornaments were unfaded and her beauty was as flawless as before. Holding her so in his lap, the Fire gave Vaidehī to Rāma. She had entered the fire and yet was neither burnt nor withered — not even her garland of flowers was faded — and this was the plainest witness to her purity. The poet describes every part of her appearance, her colour, her dress, her hair, her garland, to make it clear that the fire had not touched her at all. The Fire's rising is itself a marvel: the Fire that burns all things appears holding Sītā in his lap like a mother and shakes off the pyre as if it were dust. And here Brahmā's hymn bears immediate fruit: no sooner has he said “Sītā is Lakṣmī” than the Fire gives her back. In the last sarga Sītā fell into the fire like the stream of ghee poured at a sacrifice; here she rises out of that same fire like the rising sun. The Fire himself gives her to Rāma as a father gives a bride, just as fire was the witness at their wedding.

Then Pāvaka, the Purifier, witness of the world, said to Rāma: “Here is your Vaidehī, Rāma. There is no sin in her. Neither in word nor in mind nor in thought, nor even by a glance, has this good woman, steadfast in her conduct, been untrue to you. When she was parted from you, helpless and wretched, a faithful wife alone in a lonely place, Rāvaṇa, that rākṣasa swollen with pride in his strength, carried her off. Shut up and guarded in the inner apartments, her mind was always on you and she lived only for you, though fearsome rākṣasīs with cruel minds watched over her. Tempted in many ways and threatened, Maithilī never gave that rākṣasa a thought, for her inmost self was wholly yours. So take back Maithilī, pure in heart and without sin. Not one harsh word is to be spoken to her. I command you.” That the Fire is the witness is an old Vedic belief: he moves within all beings, and so his word is the final proof. His last words, “I command you,” show a god's authority; here the Fire does not plead, he commands. In his speech Sītā's purity is established three ways: by the faculties — word, mind, thought and sight; by her circumstances — carried off by force, helpless in a lonely place; and by her conduct — tempted and threatened, she never thought of Rāvaṇa. The paired words “her mind always on you, living only for you” show her undivided devotion. The suffering in the Aśoka grove that Hanumān had witnessed in the Sundara Kāṇḍa is recalled here from the Fire's own mouth, so that her long endurance is set plainly before Rāma.

Hearing this, Rāma, finest of speakers and righteous at heart, was glad, and for a moment he stood lost in thought, his eyes clouded now with joy. At the start of the last sarga his eyes had been clouded with grief; now they were clouded with happiness. Then the mighty and resolute Rāma, great in valour, spoke to that foremost of the gods: “Sītā truly had to be shown pure before the worlds, for this good lady had lived a long time in Rāvaṇa's inner apartments. Had I taken Janaka's daughter back without her being proved pure, people would have said, ‘Rāma, Daśaratha's son, is a fool, a slave to desire.’ I too know that Maithilī, Janaka's daughter, has no heart for anyone but me and has kept her mind faithful to me. Rāvaṇa could no more overstep this large-eyed lady, guarded by her own radiance, than the great ocean can overstep its shore. It was only to convince the three worlds that I, who stand by the truth, looked on while Vaidehī entered the fire.” Rāma's harshness, then, came not from doubt but from the need to win the world's trust. Here he himself explains the hard words he had spoken to Sītā: he did not say them out of distrust but to silence the world's reproach, and he even quotes the charge people would have made, that he was a fool ruled by desire. A king holds his people's trust to be the root of everything; this is the ideal of Rāma's reign, and it will be tested again in the Uttara Kāṇḍa. The image of the ocean and its shore shows that Sītā's own radiance was the armour that guarded her.

“That wicked Rāvaṇa could not have violated Maithilī even in his thoughts; she was beyond his reach, like a blazing tongue of flame. This faithful lady could never be brought low, even living in Rāvaṇa's inner apartments, for she is no more separate from me than sunlight is from the sun. Maithilī, Janaka's daughter, is pure in the eyes of the three worlds, and I can no more abandon her than a man of self-respect can abandon his good name. And I must surely follow the kind counsel of all of you, guardians of the worlds, who speak to me out of affection.” The image of the flame recalls Sītā's own words in the Sundara Kāṇḍa, that she could have burnt Rāvaṇa to ashes with her own radiance. The image of the sun and its light shows that Rāma and Sītā are not two, which agrees with Brahmā's words in the last sarga, “Sītā is Lakṣmī, and you are Viṣṇu.” Rāma honours the gods' words as the counsel of loving guardians of the worlds; he does not make his decision on his own will alone. Having spoken, the victorious Rāghava, mighty and famous, praised for what he had done, was reunited with his beloved Sītā and knew happiness, he who so deserved it. So the harshness of the ordeal turned into the joy of reunion, and in calling him one who deserved happiness the poet hints that after fourteen years of sorrow Rāma had truly earned it.