Here we shall show them hospitality of every kind; who, sister, would not love the place where such in-laws live? On each such occasion all the people of the city will be delighted to see Rama and Lakshmana.

King Dasharath, my friend, has brought with him two other princes, exactly like this pair, Rama and Lakshmana; one is dark, the other fair, but both are charming in every limb; so say all who have seen them’.

Said another, ‘I saw them today; it appeared to me as though the Creator had fashioned them with his own hands. Bharata is an exact copy of Rama; no man or woman can at sight distinguish one from the other.Said another, ‘I saw them today; it appeared to me as though the Creator had fashioned them with his own hands. Bharata is an exact copy of Rama; no man or woman can at sight distinguish one from the other.

Lakshmana and Shatrughna are indistinguishable from each other, both peerless in every limb from head to foot. They enchant the soul but cannot be described in words, for there is none comparable to them in all the three spheres of creation.’

Says Tulasidasa: ‘Nowhere have they a match, so declare poets and wise men. Oceans of strength, modesty, learning, amiability and beauty, they are their own compeers.’ Spreading out the skirt of their saris (as a beggar would while asking for alms), all the women of the city made their petition to the Creator, ‘May all four brothers be married in this city and may we sing charming marriage songs!’Says Tulasidasa: ‘Nowhere have they a match, so declare poets and wise men. Oceans of strength, modesty, learning, amiability and beauty, they are their own compeers.’ Spreading out the skirt of their saris (as a beggar would while asking for alms), all the women of the city made their petition to the Creator, ‘May all four brothers be married in this city and may we sing charming marriage songs!’

Said the women to one another with streaming eyes and quivering bodies, ‘Friends, the two kings have won such boundless merit that Shiva, the slayer of the demon Tripura, will bring it all to good effect’.v

In this way they all prayed and a flood of joy inundated their hearts. The princes who had come to witness Sita’s swayamvara rejoiced when they saw the four brothers-