||om tat sat||

||om tat sat||

Sundarakanda
Sarga 19
Tattvadipika

Sarga 19 is all about Sita in separation from Rama.
The poet uses many ways to describe her sorrow.
All of these descriptions have a parallel.
That parallel is a Jeevatma awaiting the union with Paramatma.
Here the inner meaning as well as the external story merge into one,

Here is the Summary of the nineteenth Sarga .

Seeing that Rakshasa king Ravana
adorned with best of ornaments, entering the Ashoka grove,
Sita the blameless princess of slender waist,
endowed with beauty and youth,
was shaken like a banana plant by a strong wind.

The large eyed Sita of golden complexion ,
sat crying while withdrawing her thighs to cover her belly and arms.

The ten headed Ravana saw Vaidehi protected by legions of Rakshasa women.
Sita was immersed in grief like a boat in high seas.

Seated on bare ground,
she was like a branch of tree
that was cut and fallen down on the ground.

Covered with dust yet looking colorful,
without any ornaments though deserving ornaments,
she is like a lotus stem dipped in mud not shining yet shining.

She was yoked to the horses of her conviction
with the chariot of mind racing to Rama.
That Rama who is the lion among kings and the one who has realized self

Emaciated, and sorrowing she was meditating on Rama and only Rama.
Yet she is not seeing the end of that sorrow.

Sitting coiled around,
she is like the wife of Serpent King.
She is like the star Rohini overpowered by the smoking red planet.

Though born in a righteous and traditionally virtuous family,
and married into a equally famous family
she is looking like one born in a family of lower strata.

She is like the fame lowered by false scandals,
She is like the unused Vedic knowledge..
She is like the education that is rusted
She is like great fame which is dimmed,
like a faith that is slighted,
like a worship that is impeded,
like a hope that is dashed.

She was like a prospect that is destroyed,
like a order that is disobeyed,
like a direction set aflame at the time of catastrophe

She was like creeper destroyed,
like an army with its warriors killed,
like radiant light blocked by darkness,
like a stream that is dry.

She was like the altar of worship that is defiled,
like the blazing flame that is contained,
like the night of full moon eclipsed by Rahu.

She is like the lotus pond with excellent lotuses destroyed by the trunks of the elephants
She is like a lotus pond surrounded by frightened birds

Stricken with grief created by separation from her husband,
she is like river which is dry with its water grown thin not fit for ablution ,
She is like the night during the dark fortnight.

The delicate lady with beautiful limbs,
who deserves to be in a house gems,
she is like a lotus stem plucked out and scorched.

Like a royal elephant king's consort,
separated from her lord,
held and tied to a pillar,
she was sighing heavily with intense grief.

Looking beautiful, with a long single plait of hair carelessly made,
which looked like a dark row of trees at the end of rainy season on the land ..

She was like a goddess tormented in grief.
With folded hands, she was mentally supplicating Rama.
Supplicating the foremost of Raghu line to destroy Ravana.

That Sita was desired by Ravana
who tries to win her over with deceitful words,
though that desire ultimately leads him towards his death..

Thus ends Sarga 19 of Sundarakanda in Ramayana.

||om tat sat||
|| This is what we understood from Tattva Dipika of Shri Bhashyam, Appalacharyulu garu"||
|| om tat sat||