Note by Griffith:
I omit the 28th and 29th Cantos as an unmistakeable interpolation.
Instead of advancing the story it goes back to Canto XVII, containing a
lamentation of Sítá after Rávaṇ has left her, and describes the the
auspicious signs sent to cheer her, the throbbing of her left eye, arm,
and side. The Canto is found in the Bengal recension. Gorresio translates
it. and observes: “I think that Chapter XXVIII.—The Auspicious Signs—is an
addition, a later interpolation by the Rhapsodists. It has no bond of
connexion either with what precedes or follows it, and may be struck out
not only without injury to, but positively to the advantage of the poem.
The metre in which this chapter is written differs from that which is
generally adopted in the course of the poem.”