Shloka 5.5.26
चन्द्रप्रकाशे लङ्कानिरीक्षणम् — Moonlit Survey of Lanka and the Unfound Sita
अव्यक्तरेखामिव चन्द्ररेखां पांसुप्रदिग्धामिव हेमरेखाम्।क्षतप्ररूढामिव बाणरेखां वायुप्रभिन्नामिव मेघरेखाम्।।5.5.26।।
avyakta-rekhām iva candra-rekhāṃ pāṃsu-pradigdhām iva hema-rekhām | kṣata-prarūḍhām iva bāṇa-rekhāṃ vāyu-prabhinnām iva megha-rekhām ||5.5.26||
He envisioned her as a faint line of moonlight; as a streak of gold smeared with dust; as the mark of an arrow-wound only superficially healed; and as a strip of cloud torn apart by the wind.
She would be like a barely visible ray of the Moon, like a streak of gold covered with dust, like an unhealed scar of a wound caused by an arrow only superficially covered and like a flake of cloud swept off by the wind.
The verse underscores the harm caused by adharma (unrighteous captivity): Sītā’s radiance is imagined as obscured and fractured, implying that injustice degrades the natural dignity of the virtuous.
Hanumān continues his inward contemplation, using layered similes to imagine how suffering may have diminished Sītā’s outward brightness.
Moral imagination in Hanumān—he uses poetic insight to grasp the depth of another’s suffering, not merely factual observation.