Valmiki’s words, line by line

At Panchavati the rakshasi Shurpanakha, Ravana's sister, sees Rama and asks him to be her husband. Rama, smiling, sends her to Lakshmana, and Lakshmana sends her back; mocked, she rushes at Sita to devour her. At Rama's word Lakshmana cuts off her ears and nose.

Disfigured, Shurpanakha falls before her brother Khara, and he sends fourteen rakshasas to kill Rama, Lakshmana and Sita. Rama warns them off, and when they attack, fourteen arrows kill them all. Shurpanakha shames Khara, and he marches with fourteen thousand rakshasas, laughing at the omens.

Reading the omens, Rama sends Lakshmana with Sita to a mountain cave and faces Khara's fourteen thousand alone. He kills Dushana, then three-headed Trishiras, and at last Khara himself with the arrow Agastya gave him. The gods and the sages hail him: the Dandaka forest is safe again.

Ravana comes to Maricha's hermitage and asks him to become a golden deer, so that Rama and Lakshmana are drawn away and Sita can be taken. Maricha, who has felt Rama's arrows twice, warns him that Rama is dharma in a body and begs him to turn back. Threatened with death, he gives in: death at Rama's hands, he says, is better than death at Ravana's.

A deer of gold and jewels grazes near the hut, and Sita asks Rama to bring it to her, alive or for its skin. Lakshmana warns that it is Maricha's illusion; Rama leaves him to guard Sita and follows the deer deep into the forest. Struck by Rama's arrow, Maricha dies crying out in Rama's voice, “Ha Sita! Ha Lakshmana!”

A cry rings out from the forest in Rama's voice, and Sita begs Lakshmana to run to him. He refuses: no one can harm Rama, and Rama left her in his keeping. Stung by her charges, he commends her to the forest deities and goes.

Ravana comes to the empty hut in the guise of a wandering brahmin, and Sita, honouring a guest, gives him a seat and water and tells him who she is. He names himself and asks her to be his chief queen; she scorns him as a jackal reaching for a lioness. He takes his own fearsome form and seizes her, and she cries out for Rama.

Carried through the sky, Sita cries out to Lakshmana, to the Godavari and to the forest, and calls on the old vulture Jatayu to tell Rama. Jatayu wakes, warns Ravana that no king who keeps dharma lays hands on another man's wife, and challenges him. He smashes Ravana's chariot and throws him to the ground, and all beings cry “well done”.

Jatayu shames Ravana as a coward walking the road of thieves and dares him to fight. Ravana draws his sword and cuts off the old vulture's wings, feet and flanks, and Jatayu falls. Sita clings to the trees and cries for Rama and Lakshmana, but Ravana seizes her by the hair and carries her into the sky, while Brahma says the deed is done.

As Ravana carries Sita south through the sky, all beings lament that dharma and truth are gone. Sita rages at him as a coward and a thief who won her by trickery, not in battle, and warns him that Rama will kill him. Over a hilltop she sees five monkeys, and drops her upper cloth and ornaments among them, crying out to Rama and Lakshmana.

Rama finds the hut empty and searches the forest with Lakshmana, asking the trees and the river Godavari for Sita. On the path they find her flowers, blood and a broken chariot, and Rama's grief turns to fury against the worlds until Lakshmana calms him. They find the dying Jatayu, who tells them Ravana took her south; Rama honours him as a father and gives him the last rites.

At Chitrakuta an army's dust rises, and Lakshmana, seeing Ayodhya's banner, takes Bharata for an enemy; Rama calms him. Bharata comes on foot, falls at Rama's feet and tells him their father is dead, and Rama offers water to the king at the river. Rama will not break his father's word, so Bharata takes his brother's sandals to rule in his name.

Rama and Lakshmana reach the hermitage of the ascetic Shabari, who has waited for them as her teachers foretold. She shows them Matanga's forest and, with Rama's leave, gives up her body to join the sages she served. Rama turns toward Rishyamukha and Sugriva, but the spring at Lake Pampa only sharpens his grief for Sita.

From Rishyamukha, the frightened Sugriva sees two armed strangers and sends Hanuman down in a mendicant's guise to learn who they are. Hanuman's speech wins Rama, Lakshmana tells their story, and Rama and Sugriva swear friendship before the fire. Sugriva brings out the cloth and ornaments Sita dropped in her flight; Rama knows them and weeps, and asks where her captor lives.

Sugriva challenges Vali and is beaten, for Rama cannot tell the brothers apart; marked with a flowering creeper, he calls Vali out again. Tara warns Vali that Rama stands with Sugriva, but Vali goes out to fight, and Rama shoots him from cover. Vali charges Rama with adharma, Rama answers with the king's dharma, and the dying Vali, reconciled, gives Sugriva his golden chain and commends Angada and Tara to him.

For three nights Rama lies on kusha grass by the shore, asking the ocean for a way, and the ocean does not come. In anger he takes up his bow to churn the sea, and the Ocean rises: he cannot go against his nature, but he will bear a bridge, and Nala, son of Vishvakarma, can build it. The monkeys build it, and the gods bless Rama.

Indrajit, unseen in the sky, looses Brahma's weapon on the army, and Rama and Lakshmana, honouring the weapon, let themselves fall. That night Vibhishana and Hanuman search the field, and wounded Jambavan asks first whether Hanuman lives. He sends Hanuman to the mountain of herbs between Rishabha and Kailasa.

Lakshmana, struck down, is revived with the herb from the mountain, and Indra sends Rama his chariot with Matali to drive it. The duel runs on until Matali reminds Rama of Brahma's weapon, and Ravana falls. When Vibhishana will not give his brother the last rites, Rama tells him that enmity ends with death.

After the victory Rama has Sita brought before the army and tells her, harshly, that he fought to clear his name and not for her, and that she may go where she likes. Sita answers him, has Lakshmana build a pyre, and walks into the fire. Agni brings her out unharmed and gives her back; Rama says he knew her heart and did it for the trust of the three worlds, and Dasharatha appears from heaven.

Bharata waits for Rama, and Hanuman shows him the Pushpaka coming from afar; the city cries out that this is Rama. Bharata gives back the kingdom he has kept as a trust, and Rama, who refused it at Chitrakuta, now accepts it. He is crowned, Sita gives her necklace to Hanuman, and Rama asks Lakshmana to share the rule as heir.

At Mithila, King Janaka asks who the two young princes are, and Shatananda tells them of Vishvamitra's power through the tale of Trishanku. Janaka tells how Shiva's bow came to his house and how Sita rose from the furrow, promised only to strength; Rama lifts the bow and breaks it. Dasharatha comes, and the four brothers marry the four princesses of Mithila.

On the eve of Rama's consecration, Dasharatha finds Kaikeyi in the chamber of anger and swears to grant whatever she wants. She claims her two old boons: Bharata crowned, and Rama sent to the Dandaka forest for fourteen years; the king pleads all night in vain. In the morning Rama hears it from Kaikeyi and accepts at once, at her word alone.

At Rama's horse sacrifice, Valmiki sends two boys, Kusha and Lava, to sing the Ramayana before the king; Rama hears his own story and sees his own face in theirs. He sends word that Sita may prove her purity before the assembly. Valmiki brings her and swears to her innocence and to the twins' birth, and Sita calls on the Earth, which opens for her.

On the shore of the ocean, Angada asks who can leap the hundred yojanas to Lanka, and each monkey leader names how far he can go; none can go so far. Old Jambavan turns to Hanuman, sitting silent and apart, and reminds him whose son he is. Hanuman grows, climbs Mahendra and leaps for Lanka.

From the leaves of the Ashoka tree Hanuman finds Sita, and wins her trust by telling Rama's story softly, then giving her Rama's ring. He offers to carry her away on his back; she refuses, for the victory must be Rama's. She gives him a token only Rama knows, the story of the crow at Chitrakuta, and her jewel.

Hanuman wrecks Ravana's grove and fights off the rakshasas, then lets Indrajit's Brahma weapon bind him so that he can face Ravana. In the court he tells the king to give Sita back; Vibhishana saves him from death, and Ravana orders his tail set on fire instead. With the burning tail Hanuman sets Lanka ablaze, fears he has burned Sita too, and learns that she is unharmed.