When she drew near, Mahadeva smiled and asked her how she had fared. ‘How did you put him to the test?’ he said, ‘Tell me now the whole truth.’

Sati remembered the power of Raghunatha and in her awe concealed the truth from Shiva. ‘I made no trial to him, my lord’, she said, ‘but like you, simply made obeisance.

I was confident that what you said could not be false.’ Then Shiva perceived the truth by contemplation and knew all that Sati had done

He (Shiva) bowed his head before Rama’s illusive power, which had been sent forth to put a lying speech into Sati’s mouth. ‘What Hari wills is destiny invincible’, thus reflected the all-wise Shiva in his heart.

‘Sati took Sita’s form’, Shiva thought in deep despondency; ‘if now I treat Sati as my wife, the faith I follow will be all lost, and I shall be committing a sin.

Sati is too pure to be abandoned; yet it were great sin to show my love.’ Mahadeva said nothing openly, but his heart was sore distressed.

Then Shiva bowed his head at Rama’s feet, and as soon as he meditated on his name, he made this resolve: ‘I will not touch Sati in the body she now wears.’