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STORY OF RAMA
123 his austerities. Ravana chooses as his boon that it should not be possible for Devas and Asuras to kill him. In consequence he conquers the whole world.
One day Ravana roaming in the Dandaka forest sees the rishis engaged in their fire sacrifice and meditates on the fact that he has not yet conquered them. He does not wish to kill them, but in token of conquest, with the tip of his arrow draws a little blood from each and collects it in a pitcher.
It happened that one of these rishis Ghritsamada, by name, the father of a hundred sons had before this.been asked by his wife for a daughter who should be an incarnation of Lakshmi. With this object, he has day by day sprinkled milk from a wisp of kusa grass, with certain mystic charms into a pitcher, and on the day of Ravana's arrival he has duly set up the pitcher as usual and has gone off into the forest. It happens that this is the very pitcher that Ravana takes up and fills with the rishis' blood. He takes it home and gives it into the charge of his wife, Mandodari telling her to take special care of it as the contents are more deadly.even than poison.
Ravana having become all powerful neglects his wife and wanders about the Himalaya, the Meru, the Vindhya, sporting with the daughters of the Devas, Danavas, Yakshas and Ghan. darvas. Consumed by jealousy, Mandodari determines to put en end to her own life and in order to accomplish this in the most thorough manner possible drinks the contents of the pitcher of rishis' blood, which, Ravana had assured her, has so deadly a quality. Instead of dying she finds that owing to the pitcher having contained milk that has been dedicated to Lakshmi she has suddenly become enceinte. Dismayed at this happening when her husband has been away from her for a whole year, she hurries off to Kurukshetra under pretence of making a pilgrimage. There 'Garbham Niskrisya' she secretly buries the girl-babe in the ground and after bathing in the Saraswati, returns home with no one any the wiser.
Then in course of time Janaka comes with his golden plough, ploughs up the babe and under the instructions of Saraswati takeş
her home and cherishes her and calls her name Sita." Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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