224. Seetha's Suicide attempt stalled by propitious omens.

        Seetha being worried about her fate did not hear Trijata telling about her dream. She was thinking of the repulsive ultimatum of Ravana.Tormented by grief, she was frightened like a tiny female-elephant overpowered by a lion in the middle of a forest. Seetha, who was surrounded by those awful rakshashies and also threatened by Ravana with his words galore, was thinking aloud (as follows) like a young virgin who was left lonely in the midst of a forest "It seems that because I being impure am surviving up to this instance, though being threatened in this way. Devoid of happiness and frequently full of sorrow, I wish to drop dead at this instance. It seems my heart is very hard, else it would have broken into a thousand pieces like a mountain-top struck by lightning. There is no fault of mine in this matter. It seems that I am destined to be killed at the hands of these rakshashies of disagreeable perception. 
        "If Rama  does not come here, the evil Ravana, the king of rakshsas will cut off my limbs with his sharpened weapons, just like a surgeon would cut the limbs of a lifeless fetus. 

        "O Rama, O Lakshmana, O Sumitra, O Kausalya! O mother! I, with a scanty fortune, am going to be destroyed, like a ship driven out of its course by a strong hurricane in a mighty ocean. Some rakshash in the disguise of a deer,  surely killed for my sake, those two energetic sons of Dasharatha, as two excellent lions killed by a flashing thunderbolt.

            "Certainly that destiny, assuming the guise of a deer, allured me and made me a dim-witted woman at that time and to whom I, as a stupid woman, sent forth (far away) Lakshmana and the noble prince Rama the elder brother of Lakshmana. O Rama, the strictly truthful man and the long-armed, O the man whose face resembles the full-moon! You, who is well-disposed of the world of living beings, do not perhaps know me to have been sentenced to death here.

          "My strictly following the pathivritha (i.e. a woman whose God is her husband) dharma, my this patience, my reposing on the floor, my restriction in righteousness, my devotion to the husband - all these have become a waste, like a good act done by men to ungrateful men becoming waste. For me who is not seeing you, who is bereft of you, who is not hopeful of coming into contact with you, who is emaciated and pale in complexion, this righteous act being performed by me has indeed become a waste. Likewise, this state of my being only one wife to you has become useless.

            "Having fulfilled your father's command as per the orders of his words and observed your vow, you return from the forest fearlessly after having accomplished your purpose. I think you will enjoy carnally with many a large-eyed woman. O Rama! Having performed austerity and vow in vain, I for myself who has fallen in love with you, for my own destruction, I can lose my life. Woe to me for my little fortune! I as such will abandon quickly my life by poison or by some sharp weapon. To me, none is seen nor any giver of either a poison or of a sharp weapon in this place."

       Thus lamenting, Seetha was recollecting Rama in all spirits and trembling with an emaciated face, approached an excellent tree in full bloom. Seetha, who was tormented with grief, thus thinking in various ways and thereafter holding her braid of hair looking like a hanging rope told herself "I shall go to the presence of Yama the God of Death by tying my neck quickly with my braid of hair as a hanging rope."

          Thereafter Seetha with all her soft limbs stood seizing a branch of that tree. Then there appeared many omens, which seemed to mollify her grief, which procured courage in the world, which were excellent and which she had heard as thoroughly efficacious and propitious.

             Wondering what they were? She who was in such strained circumstances, who was in distress, who was irreproachable, devoid of joy and dejected but virtuous, was bestowed with auspicious omens, as a prosperous man is bestowed with dependent servants. The beautifully haired Seetha's left eye started to quiver predominantly, like a red lotus quivered by the blow of a fish. Her left shoulder, which was pretty, distinguished, beefy and round, which deserved to be applied with excellent black aloe and sandalwood paste, which had been used for long as a pillow by her most excellently beloved Rama, quickly quivered. Of her two thighs kept together, the left thigh which was beefy and well formed, which resembled the trunk of a princely elephant was predominantly quivering.
       Again, the clothing of Seetha standing there, of spotless eyes and charming limbs, having teeth resembling the buds of jasmine, which (i.e. the clothing) was of golden shade and was slightly soiled as it were with dust, glided down, which appeared auspicious (for her). Bolstered by these and some other omens which Seetha already knew that they auger well for the future. 
       After experiencing very many favourable, timely, promising, encouraging, hopeful, fortunate, propitious and felicitous omens Seetha felt that she had been given a very effective multivitamin  shot. These omens made her shed her  sorrow and her weariness. Her mental affliction alleviated and her consciousness awakened with exaltation, our esteemed heroine Seetha looked more beautiful with her countenance.

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