-all boarded in a mass the great bark of Shiva’s bow, with whose help they sought to cross the boundless ocean of Rama’s strength of arm, with no helmsman to steer them.

Rama first looked at the crowd of spectators, who all stood motionless like painted pictures. The gracious Lord then turned his eyes towards Sita and perceived that she was in deep distress.

He found Videha’s daughter terribly agitated, every moment that passed hung on her as an aeon. When a thirsty man perishes for want of water, of what avail is a lake of nectar to him once he is dead?

What good is the rain when the whole crop has withered? What avails repentence when a chance has been lost? Thinking thus within himself, the Lord looked at Janaka’s daughter and thrilled all over to mark her singular devotion.

He inwardly made obeisance to his preceptor (Vishvamitra) and took up the bow with the utmost agility. The bow gleamed like a flash of lightning as he grasped it, and then it seemed like a circle in the sky.

No one knew when he grasped it in his hands, strung it and drew it tight: everyone only saw him standing (with the bow drawn). Instantly Rama broke the bow in halves, and the dread, harsh crash resounded through all the spheres.

So awful a crash re-echoed through the spheres that the horses of the sun-god strayed from their course, the elephants of the four quarters trumpeted, earth shook, and the serpent-king, the divine boar and the tortoise fidgeted in disquiet. Gods, demons and sages all put their hands to their ears, and all began anxiously to ponder the cause; but when they learnt, says Tulasidasa, that Rama had broken the bow, they uttered shouts of triumph.