हेमन्तर्तुवर्णनं भरतप्रशंसा च

The previous sarga ended with Rāma living happily in the leaf hut. In this one, while he lived there in comfort, autumn drew to its close and the welcome season of winter set in; here the passing of time itself carries the story forward, one season leaving and the next arriving. One day, as night turned to dawn, Raghunandana went down to the lovely Godāvarī to bathe — the daily rite unbroken even in exile. The valiant Saumitri, bowing low with a water pot in his hand, walked behind him with Sītā and said: ‘This is the season you love, sweet-spoken brother, the season that makes the whole auspicious year seem adorned.’ In saying ‘the season you love’ Lakṣmaṇa shows that he knew his elder brother's tastes, and the poet's word ‘welcome’ for the winter points the same way. Then in four strokes he summed up the season: ‘The world is harsh with frost, the earth is garlanded with grain, the waters are not fit to enjoy, and fire is a welcome friend.’ That is the seed of the whole description — in the cold, water is shunned and fire is sought, the reverse of summer. With this description of the season the sameness of forest life is broken, and for a moment the story rests.

First the season is shown in the life of the people. Good men, their faults washed away, have honoured the ancestors and the gods with offerings from the new harvest and performed the first-fruits rite in its season; for offering new grain to gods and ancestors before enjoying it oneself is a way of freeing oneself from sin. The country folk have all they could wish for and plenty of milk — in winter the cows give more, a sign of prosperity in a farming land. And kings eager for conquest are on the march, for the science of statecraft too names winter as the season for campaigns, when the roads are dry and the rivers low; so the description of the season is woven into the life of the world. Then the quarters of the sky: since the sun keeps firmly to the southern quarter, the quarter of Death, the northern quarter gives no light, like a woman who has lost the mark on her forehead — a poignant image, for that mark is the sign of a married woman's good fortune. Himavān, rich by nature in hoards of snow and now far from the sun, plainly lives up to its name, ‘the snowy one’: the mountain that in summer is snowy in name only is now snowy in truth, name and quality joined in one. The days are very pleasant for moving about and warm to the touch at midday; their sunshine is welcome but their shade and water are not, the reverse of summer. With the sun grown mild, with mist, biting cold and wind, the forests empty and everything beaten down by frost, so the days appear. And the nights too have changed: sleeping under the open sky is over, and the nights of three watches, reddened by frost, are cold and grown longer.

Then the heavenly lights are described. The moon, its splendour taken over by the sun and its disc reddened by frost, gives no light, like a mirror dimmed by breath — a homely image that touches us all the more. The moonlight, stained with frost, does not shine even at the full moon; like Sītā darkened by the sun, it can be seen but it does not shine. With that single comparison the poet hints at Sītā's hardship in the forest, the one thread of pathos in this sarga; and there is a paradox in the whiteness of moonlight itself being stained. The west wind, cold to the touch by nature and now pierced with frost, blows at this hour, the early morning, twice as cold. The forests are veiled in mist, and so are the fields of barley and wheat; when the sun has risen they are lovely, loud with the calls of curlews and cranes. The rice plants, golden, their heads shaped like date-palm flowers and full of grain, bend a little and are beautiful to see. Here the life of the farm enters the picture; with the barley and wheat fields, the cries of curlews and cranes and the golden rice, the poet blends forest and village and joins the prosperity of the country to the beauty of the season. The sun, its rays creeping slowly out through frost and mist, looks like the moon even when it has long risen — a sight everyone knows, the winter sun at dawn as dim as the moon. The sunlight has no force in the forenoon, is pleasant to the touch at midday, and lies on the earth a little reddened and a little pale.

Next the land and waters are described, touching in turn water, ground, beast, bird, forest and lotus. The floor of the woods, its grass a little damp with dew, is lovely with the young sunlight settled on it — we can almost feel the dew, and the gentle light of the early sun seems to rest in the grass. Then come three living pictures. A wild elephant, though desperately thirsty, touches the broad cold water with pleasure and then draws his trunk back — a most delicate observation, in which desire and cold are set against each other in a single verse. Water birds sit close by the water but will not plunge in, like timid men before a battle; in a heroic poem even the description of a season takes on the colour of war. And the rows of forest trees, bound in the darkness of dew and wrapped in the gloom of mist, stripped of their flowers, look as though they were asleep — the absence of flowers is itself their sleep. The rivers, their water veiled in vapour, their cranes known only by their cries, shine with banks of sand wet with frost; it is hearing, not sight, that tells us of the cranes, so thick is the mist. Because of the falling frost, the mildness of the sun and the cold, even water standing on a mountaintop has become sweet to the taste; the poet himself names the three causes. Last of all, the lotus beds, laid low by frost, their leaves worn out with age and their filaments and seed-cups withered, reduced to bare stalks, have lost their beauty. With the ruin of beauty the description of the season closes, and the ground is prepared for the longing that follows.

From the description of the season Lakṣmaṇa suddenly turned to Bharata: ‘At this season, tiger among men, righteous Bharata, full of sorrow, is practising austerities in the city out of devotion to you. He has given up the kingdom, honour and every kind of pleasure, lives as an ascetic on restricted food, and sleeps on the cold ground.’ The season itself prompts the memory: the cold described here is the very hardship Bharata endures there, and so the description is bound into the story. ‘Full of sorrow’ shows that his austerity sprang not from choice but from the grief of separation. ‘Surely at just this hour he too is making ready to bathe, and goes as always to the river Sarayū, surrounded by his ministers and people. Raised in the greatest comfort, delicate as he is, tormented by the cold — how can he plunge into the Sarayū in the last watch of the night?’ With ‘surely’ Lakṣmaṇa speaks not with certainty but by inference; the state of a distant brother can only be imagined. The poet movingly sets the two brothers' actions side by side, both going down to a river at dawn to bathe. And there is a contrast in Bharata surrounded by his people: the kingdom he had given up, but not a king's duty. Then Lakṣmaṇa counted Bharata's virtues: ‘Lotus-eyed, dark, glorious, slender-waisted, noble, knowing dharma, truthful, modest, master of his senses, kind and gentle in speech, long-armed, a subduer of foes — he has given up every comfort and devoted himself wholly to his noble brother.’ The epithets describe in turn his body, his character, his speech and his strength, and ‘wholly devoted’ gathers them all together. Finally Lakṣmaṇa drew two conclusions: ‘Your great-souled brother Bharata has won heaven, for he shapes his life after yours in penance, though it is you who live in the forest.’ And: ‘The saying famous in the world, that men take after their mother and not their father, Bharata has proved false.’ With that second remark he opens the question about Kaikeyī that follows.

Lakṣmaṇa ended with a question: ‘How could Kaikeyī, whose husband is Daśaratha and whose son is the good Bharata, have become a mother of such cruel outlook?’ Though framed as a question, it was really a condemnation, and Lakṣmaṇa's natural vehemence showed itself again. While righteous Lakṣmaṇa was speaking out of affection, Rāghava could not bear that censure of his mother and said: ‘You must never find fault with our middle mother, dear brother. Speak instead of Bharata, lord of the Ikṣvākus, as you were doing.’ By calling her ‘our middle mother’ Rāma keeps Kaikeyī in the place of a mother, not a rival queen, and ‘never’ makes the prohibition hold for all time. His forbidding any blame of his mother shows the root of his character: he whom she had exiled was the one who would not hear her blamed. Then he revealed his own heart: ‘My mind is settled and firm in its vow to live in the forest, yet when it burns with love for Bharata it becomes childish again.’ This confession, that even a steadfast man is shaken by affection, is deeply human; the mind does not waver of itself but is moved by love. ‘I keep remembering his words, dear and sweet, delightful, like nectar, gladdening the heart. When shall I be together again with the great-souled Bharata, with the heroic Śatrughna, and with you, Raghunandana?’ With that question his lament reaches its height.

Lamenting in this way, Kākutstha reached the river Godāvarī and bathed there with his brother and Sītā; his grief was calmed by action, and the daily rite was not neglected. That all three bathed together makes this the last peaceful picture of the three in this kāṇḍa. Then, having offered the waters to the ancestors and the gods, the three sinless ones praised the risen sun and the other deities — bathing, offering of water and worship of the sun, the daily rite followed in its proper order; ‘sinless’ names the purity that is the fruit of an ascetic's life. His bath done, Rāma, with Sītā at his side and Lakṣmaṇa beside him, shone as the Lord Rudra shines when he has bathed with the daughter of the mountain king and with Nandin. The comparison suggests the divinity of the couple, and by setting the younger brother in Nandin's place it marks him as the ever-faithful servant. So the sarga ends with a peaceful, divine picture — and it is the poet's design that into this very peace Śūrpaṇakhā will enter in the sarga that follows.