After embracing Lakshmana, Sumitra said, "Go wake Urmila!"

Lakshmana's wife Urmila had been sleeping all those years so Lakshmana could stay awake.

Lakshmana found his wife fast asleep in their bed. "We have returned," he whispered. Urmila opened her eyes and wept with joy when she saw him.

Rama was then crowned king, and Sita was his queen. The royal priests conducted the ceremony, and the devas showered them with flowers from heaven.

The reign of King Rama had begun. Rama's brothers and their wives rejoiced, as did Hanuman, Sugriva, Jambavan, and Vibhishana, along with all the people of Ayodhya.

After Rama's coronation, Sita honored Hanuman with a pearl necklace.

Hanuman started biting the pearls, cracking them open and looking inside.

"What are you looking for?" Sita asked, laughing, and all the people in attendance laughed too.

"I am looking for you," said Hanuman, "and for Rama. Without you inside, these pearls are useless."

"Rama and Sita are on their thrones!" the people shouted. "How could they be in the pearls?"

"In the same way they are in my heart," Hanuman replied, tearing open his chest; everyone could see Rama and Sita there. "Are they not in your hearts also?"

The rishi Narada came to Ayodhya one day, shortly after Rama's coronation. He saluted Rama and Sita in the throne room, and then he noticed that Hanuman was there.

"O Hanuman!" said Narada, "Sita wears a vermilion dot on her forehead to honor Rama. How do you honor him?"

Hanuman rushed to the marketplace and bought all the sacks of vermilion that were for sale. He returned to the palace, emptied the sacks in a heap on the floor, and rolled in the powder until he was covered all over.

"I honor him this way," Hanuman said, beaming with pleasure.

King Rama delighted in the company of Queen Sita. He would spend the morning occupied with royal duties, and then spend the rest of the day with his queen. Sita, likewise, performed her royal duties in the morning and attended to the queen-mothers, then spending the rest of her day with Rama.

When Rama learned Sita was pregnant, he was overjoyed. "I could not be happier," he said. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"I would like to visit the rishis in their forest ashrams again. Do you remember?" Sita said.

"Of course I remember," Rama said, smiling.

To understand what happens next, listen to the story of Ratnakar:

Ratnakar was a robber, supporting his family by theft and murder.

One day, Ratnakar had robbed a man and was about to kill him. That man was the rishi Narada.

"Stop!" Narada said. "Would your wife and children approve?"

Ratnakar was surprised by this question and went to ask his family.

"I earn my living by robbery and murder," he told them. "Do you approve?"

"The crime is yours alone, not mine," said his wife.

His children said the same.

Enlightened, Ratnakar returned, freed Narada, and renounced crime forever.

After Ratnakar renounced his life of crime, he went deep into the forest to live a hermit's life.

As he sat there, unmoving, deep in meditation, ants built an anthill around him. The anthill, "valmiki" in Sanskrit, became his home. Plants wrapped their tendrils around him, and birds nested in his matted hair and beard.

Meanwhile, he thought only of Brahman, the Cosmic Reality. "All is Brahman, all is God. All this Universe is Brahman, all that live and move and die."

Years later, he awoke, enlightened, and emerged from the anthill.

Ratnakar the robber was now the rishi Valmiki.

Two cranes, devoted to one another, lived by a river near the rishi Valmiki's ashram.

One day as Valmiki watched the birds making love, a hunter shot an arrow from the bushes. One crane fell to the ground, dead, and his mate screamed in grief as she gazed at his blood-spattered corpse.

In anger and sorrow at this reckless slaughter, Valmiki cursed the hunter in verse:

The hunter who this loving bird did slay

For his great crime a grievous price will pay.

These lines of verse were the first poem in the world, and Valmiki was the first poet.

The rishi Narada visited Valmiki in his ashram.

"You're the man I almost killed!" Valmiki exclaimed.

"I'm glad you didn't," said Narada, smiling. "And now, we meet again."

"In your wisdom, perhaps you can tell me: who is the perfect man?" Valmiki asked. "What man possesses strength and a sense of duty? What man is truthful and steadfast in his vows, compassionate and wise, handsome and powerful, free from anger and envy but fearsome when he is roused to righteousness?"

"That rare person is Rama," replied Narada, "the son of King Dasharatha..."

Narada then told Valmiki the story of Rama.

Valmiki composed the Ramayana, the epic story of Rama's journey.

The devas and devis all praised his poem; Valmiki was proud.

But then Narada said, "Hanuman's is better."

Valmiki stared in disbelief.

"Go read it yourself! He lives in an orchard in the Himalayas, and he wrote his Ramayana on banana-tree leaves."

Valmiki went to Hanuman's orchard, and there he read Hanuman's Ramayana on the leaves.

"Hanuman's is better," Valmiki admitted, weeping.

Then Hanuman appeared. "Why are you weeping?" he asked.

Valmiki explained.

Hanuman grabbed the leaves and swallowed them. "Now your Ramayana is the best," Hanuman told Valmiki, smiling.

One day Rama was laughing and joking with the friends of his youth. "Tell me," Rama said, "what is the talk of the town these days?"

"The citizens are still talking about your victory over Ravana, delighting in your triumph," they said.

"Tell me more," Rama insisted. "Not just the good, but the bad also."

"Well," one of his friends admitted, "some men complain that you allowed Sita to come back into your house. They now wonder if they must do the same for their gadabout wives."

This gossip affected Rama deeply. He dismissed his friends and then summoned Lakshmana.