In the Valmiki Ramayana, the monkey king Sugriva sees Rama and Lakshmana in the forest and is afraid. He tells his ministers that his brother Vali “must have dispatched them.” His minister Hanuman reports to him about the two brothers.
Hanuman then brings them to Sugriva. Rama and Sugriva “take the oath of friendship before an altar of fire.” Only after this does Sugriva tell Rama that he saw Sita carried off through the sky. He shows him the ornaments she dropped, wrapped in her upper cloth.