śrī sītā kavacam (ānanda rāmāyaṇa)

An armour spoken by Agastya, and its first verse is a list rather than a description: the several Sitas of the several tellings, all at once. Born out of the earth and raised by Mithila's king; daughter of Padmaksha; the one who went into the fire; the one born from a citron; the one who dissolved into a jewel, who went into the sea, who went past the far side of the Veda, who went to Lanka. The viniyoga then turns those same epithets into the working parts of the mantra — Rama for the seed, Janaka's daughter for the power, the earth-born for the pin, the citron-born for the armour itself. Its dhyana is domestic in a way armours rarely are: seated at Rama's left, two-armed in yellow silk, sun and moon at the parting of her hair, and in her hands not weapons but a mandara flower and a citron.