[Illustration: +THE ABDUCTION OF SITA.+ (From an illustrated Urdu version of the “Ramayana.”)] Rama, on discovering the loss he had suffered, was in despair. Sometimes he would indulge in excessive lamentations, wildly calling upon the trees and streams, the deer of the forest and the birds of the air, to tell him where his love had gone. At other times, assuming a different tone, he would petulantly threaten to destroy “the three worlds,” if the celestials did not restore Vaidehi to his arms. At such moments Lakshmana would address his brother in the most abject terms of flattery, and gently remind him of the necessity of doing his duty and preserving his dignity. Roaming about in search of the lost Sita, the brothers came across Jatayus lying, in mortal agony, amidst the fragments of Ravana’s wonderful car and his shattered umbrella. All that Rama could learn from the dying king of the vultures was the name and rank of the Rakshasa who had carried off his wife, and in a frenzy of grief he rolled upon the ground, uttering vain lamentations. Presently the brothers piously erected a funeral pile for the dead bird, and having cremated the body, proceeded in their search for Sita, when they encountered a horrid deformed monster, named Kabandha; thus described by the poet: “There stood before their wondering eyes A fiend, broad-chested, huge of size; A vast misshapen trunk they saw In height surpassing nature’s law. It stood before them dire and dread, Without a neck, without a head, Tall as some hill aloft in air, Its limbs were clothed with bristling hair, And deep below the monster’s waist His vast misshapen mouth was placed. His form was huge, his voice was loud As some dark-tinted thunder-cloud. A brilliance as of gushing flame Beneath long lashes dark and keen The monster’s single eye was seen.”[32]