So saying, he looked once again in that direction, and lo ! his eyes feasted themselves on Sita’s countenance even as the partridge gazes on the moon. His beauteous eyes became immovably fixed, as though Nimi (one of the ancestors of Janaka) had deserted his eyelids in modest confusion.

When we saw Sita’s beauty he was filled with rapture; he admired it in his heart, but utterance failed him. He felt as though Brahma the Creator had put forth all his creative skill in visible form and revealed it to the world.

“She lends charm to charm itself,” he said to himself, ‘and looks as if a flame of light is burning in the house of loveliness. The similes already employed by the poets are all stale and hackneyed; to whom shall I liken Videha’s daughter?’

Thus describing to himself Sita’s loveliness and reflecting on his own emotions, the Lord innocently addressed his younger brother in terms appropriate to the occasions.

‘Dear brother, this is no other than Janaka’s daughter, to win whom the contest of the bow is being held. She has been escorted by her girl-companions to worship Gauri and is moving about in the garden diffusing light all about her.

My heart which is by nature pure is agitated by the sight of her divine beauty-God alone knows why! But I tell you, brother, the throbbing of my lucky (right) side betokens good fortune!

Men of the house of Raghu never even in thought set their heart on evil course; that is their nature. As for myself, I am fully confident of my mind, which has never looked on another’s wife even in a dream.