A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

THE RAMAYANA. 499and said?; "Yes,it is Sita s." Poor Lakshmana! Thewif* of the elder brother to us is just like a mother. Somuch reverence he had that he never looked upon thearms and the neck of Sita. You see, it was an ornamentwhichwas round the neck of Sita and he had never seenSita s neck, so he did not know what it was. TJiere is atou$h of the old Indian custom.Then the monkeys told Rama who this demon kingwas and where he lived, and then they wanted to seek forhim. Now, the monkey king and his brother, they werefighting for the kingdom. This brother was helped byRama and he regained the kingdom from the other brotherwho had driven him away, and he in return promised tohelp Rama. And they went in search all around butcould not find Sita. At last, Hanuman by one bou&d fromthe coast of India reached theisland of Ceylon, and therewent searching all over, and nowhere could he find Sita.You see, this giant king had conquered the gods and themen and the women and the whole world and he hadcollected all the beautiful women and put them into aharem. So, Hanuman went about saying"Here cannotbe Sita. Sita would die rather than be in such a place" andiwent seeking somewhere else. And at last, he found Sita,pale and thin,like a bit of a moon that lies low at thefoot of the horizon. Thus she was. She was under a tree.And this Hanuman, he took a little form and crawled upthe tree, and there he was ;and witnessed how the giantess came, and how they tried and how Sita would not evenlisten to the name of the giant king being uttered.And this Hanuman presented himself before Sita, andtold her that he was the messenger of Rama ;that Ramawas well, and that he had been sent to find where Sita was,and that as soon as Rama made it out, he would come with