A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

<$ gold"Neverthey"""""THE RAMAYANA. 501Now, when the bridge was built, the whole army ofmofikeys, led by Rama and his brother, entered Ceylon.Theresas tremendous war and bloodshed for severalmonths ^there.At last, this demon king was conquered ;His capital was built entirely of gold, and the palaces,houses, and other buildings ifere all of gold, solidgoM; everything was of gold ;so much so that there arestill far away villages in the interior of India wj^ere when Itell the*m that I have been (in many places) in Ceylon,"they say The : houses, these are all of gold, are theynot ? If you say they ^,re not, they ask,the bookssay it was all built of gold." So,Why,all the cities were builtand all this fell into the;hands of Rama ;Bfama gave them all over to thg younger brother of thedemon king, who was a good soul, and seated him xfpon thethrone of his brother.And Sita came back to him. But when Sita cameback, then there ran a murmur among his people. Thetest ! the test !" said. Sita must give the test thatshe was perfectly pure. Pure ?" She is chastity itself,"says Rama.mind ;we want the test; theylaid up a huge sacrificial fire, a^nd Sita plunged into the fire,and Rama lamented thinking Sita was lost : and at thatmoment, the god of Fire himself came with a throne uponhis head, and upon the throne was Sita. Then rejoicingwent all over the army, and Rama, his friends and alliesand the whole army were all pleased.And Rama returned back to his capital. He tookthe vows. In old times, the king had to take certainvows for the benefit of his people and had to bow topublic opinion and this poor Rama was simply the slave ofhis people,as we will find later on.So Rama regained his kingdom ;Sita was there, and