When Sita’s companions saw her thus overcome, they all cried in alarm, ‘We are late already.’ We shall come again tomorrow at this same hour!’ so saying one of them smiled within herself.

Sita blushed at this clever hint. It was late and she feared her mother. Then summoning up resolution, she received Rama into her heart and, conscious of her dependence on her father, returned home.

Pretending to look back at a deer or a bird or a tree, she turned again and again, and each time she gazed on the incomparable beauty of Rama, her love grew ever greater.

Considering how hard it was to break the (unyielding) bow of Shiva, she proceeded sobbing silently on her way with the image of the swarthy form in her heart. When the Lord saw Janaka’s daughter going, that fountain of bliss and affection and grace and virtue.

-then with the gentle ink of supreme love he traced her infinite beauty on the tablet of his soul. Sita then sought Bhavani’s temple and, adoring her feet, prayed to her with clasped hands:

‘Glory, all glory to you, O daughter of the Mountain King! Glory to you, who gaze on the countenance of the great Lord Shiva as the partridge on the moon! Glory to you, O mother of the elephant-headed Ganesha and the six-faced Kartikeya, O mother of the universe with limbs as lustrous as the lightning-flash!

Your beginning and end know no ceasing; your infinite majesty is a mystery even to the Vedas. You are responsible for the birth, continuance and ultimate destruction of the world; you bewitch the whole universe and sport independently of others.