Jatayu could have rescued Sita, but Ravana had tricked him.

"Where exactly does your strength reside?" Ravana asked Jatayu.

Jatayu didn't reply; he just kept fighting.

"My strength is in my right big toe," Ravana said.

Honor then compelled Jatayu to share his secret, as Ravana had. "My strength is in my wings!" Jatayu said as he swooped down and began pecking at Ravana's toe.

But nothing happened. Ravana had lied: his strength wasn't in his toe but in his navel, where he concealed the pot of immortal nectar.

Ravana then tore Jatayu's wings to shreds, laughing, while Sita wept.

Ravana brought Sita to Lanka and then dragged her to the door of his palace.

"Stop!" shouted Mandodari, his chief wife. "Stop right there! You cannot bring that woman here against her will. All the rest of us love you, but she does not."

"She will love me!" insisted Ravana.

"I'm sure she will," agreed Mandodari. "But until she does, keep her in the Ashoka Grove. Not here."

Reluctantly, Ravana took Sita away to the grove. "And when I win her love," he muttered angrily, "she'll take Mandodari's place!"

Silently, Sita thanked Mandodari for keeping her away from Ravana's palace.

When Rama shot the golden deer, the deer shouted out in Rama's own voice, "Sita! Lakshmana! Help me!"

Then Rama saw Maricha in his rakshasa form arise out of the golden deer and collapse on the ground in a pool of blood. Recognizing Maricha, the son of Tataka whom he had fought in the forest long ago, Rama realized Sita was in terrible danger. He raced back to the hut, as did Lakshmana, but Sita was gone.

They found the wounded Jatayu who, with his last breath, whispered, "He took her."

Jatayu died, and Rama conducted his funeral, weeping bitterly.

When Rama realized Sita was gone, he erupted with angry grief, threatening to destroy the whole world.

"I know where she is," said a goose, "but I won't tell you!"

Rama grabbed the bird by its neck; that's how the goose got a long neck.

"Predator must have prey," said a partridge.

"I curse you to be separated from your beloved," Rama told the partridge, "and your call will be that of a grieving lover."

Then Rama shouted, "If the gods do not return her to me, I will attack heaven itself."

Finally, Lakshmana was able to calm Rama's rage.

As Rama and Lakshmana plunged through the forest, desperately looking for Sita, they passed a cave, and in the entrance there stood a rakshasi, monstrously large and misshapen.

When the rakshasi saw Lakshmana she shrieked with delight. "You!" she shouted as she reached out and grabbed him. "You will be mine! My name is Ayomukhi, and I want for you to be my husband. We will dwell here together in the forest!"

Lakshmana recoiled in horror. Without a word he unsheathed his sword and sliced off the rakshasi's nose, one ear, and one breast.

Ayomukhi fled, screaming, into the forest.

Heading south, Rama and Lakshmana arrived at Lake Pampa where they found a woman, Shabari. She lived there alone in an ashram that had been abandoned long ago.

"You look hungry," she said. "I can offer you fruit."

Shabari took a berry and bit into it. "Sweet!" she said, offering it to Rama, who accepted it gladly.

She bit into another berry. "Bitter!" she said, throwing it away.

Another berry. "Sweet!" she said, offering it to Lakshmana, who recoiled in disgust.

"Do not judge her, Lakshmana," said Rama. "She offers food with love."

Shabari's berries strengthened Rama in his quest.

In the forest Rama and Lakshmana encountered Kabandha, a ravenous monster whose head was in his stomach. He grabbed anything that moved, shoveling it into his stomach-mouth.

Rama and Lakshmana sliced off Kabandha's arms. As he lay dying, the monster thanked them. "I was once a gandharva named Vishvavasu," he said, "ravenous for music, food, drink, everything. My all-consuming greed turned me into a monster, but now I am free."

When they cremated Kabandha's corpse, his gandharva form emerged. "Go to King Sugriva in Kishkindha," the gandharva told them. "The monkeys will help you."

Then he vanished into the sky.

But Sugriva was no longer king of the monkeys in Kishkindha. Vali, his brother, had exiled Sugriva and had taken Sugriva's wife.

Sugriva fled to Rishyamukha Hill, the only place he was safe from Vali, and Hanuman was among the loyal monkeys who followed Sugriva.

One day, Sugriva and Hanuman saw a flying chariot racing across the sky, and they heard a woman screaming.

"Go investigate," Sugriva said to Hanuman.

Hanuman returned with the jewelry that he found on the ground. "She must have thrown this down for us as a sign," Hanuman told Sugriva. "I wonder who she is."

Vali and Sugriva were brothers. Here is one story of their birth:

Beautiful apsaras sang and danced in the court of Indra, god of rain and storms.

The charioteer of Surya, the sun-god, was Aruna. He longed to see the apsaras, so he disguised himself as a woman: Aruni.

Indra was surprised to see a face in the crowd he didn't recognize. "She is beautiful," Indra thought to himself. "I desire her."

So Indra seduced Aruni in that female form, and she gave birth to a child: Vali.

Surya also slept with Aruni in female form; their child was Sugriva.

Others tell a different story about the monkeys:

Gautama left his wife Ahalya and their daughter Anjana alone in the ashram.

Disguised as Gautama, the storm-god Indra slept with Ahalya, and she conceived a son: Vali.

The sun-god Surya did likewise, and Ahalya conceived another son: Sugriva.

Anjana was jealous of her brothers. "They aren't your sons!" she told Gautama.

Enraged, Gautama cursed the boys, turning them into monkeys.

Ahalya then cursed Anjana to stand on one foot atop Mount Kailasha. "Let the wind feed you!"

The wind-god Vayu made love to Anjana there, and she conceived a son: Hanuman.