When Sita heard the commotion, she was afraid; and then her companions took her away to the queen. Rama advanced composedly to his guru; silently praising Sita’s love.

Sita and the queens were filled with anxiety and wondered what God had now in store for them. On hearing the threats of the princes, Lakshmana glanced this way and that, but for fear of Rama he could not speak.

With fiery eyes and frowning brows he cast an angry look at the kings like a lion’s whelp moved to excitement on seeing a herd of wild elephants.

Seeing the uproar, the women of the city were all distressed and joined in cursing the princes. At that moment arrived the sage Parashurama, the sun of the lotus line of Bhrigu, led by the news of the breaking of the bow.

When they saw him, the kings all cowered down, as a quail shrinks back at the swoop of a hawk. A coat of ashes looked most charming on his fair body; his broad brow was adorned with three horizontal lines sacred to Shiva.

With matted locks on the head, his handsome moon-bright face was a bit flushed with anger; with knitted brows and eyes inflamed with wrath, his natural look gave one the impression that he was enraged.

He had well-built shoulders like those of a bull and a broad chest and long arms; he was adorned with a beautiful sacred thread, with a string of beads and a deerskin. With a hermit’s covering about his loins and a pair of quivers at his side, he held a bow and arrows in his hands and an axe on his fair shoulder.