रामलक्ष्मणसंवादः

This sarga steps back in time behind the previous one: the poet signals that the conversation took place on the way, before the brothers reached the hermitage. The delight of the Raghus questioned Saumitri, who had turned back from the hermitage, speaking out of his grief. "Why have you come, leaving Maithilī behind? It was because I trusted you that I left her alone in the forest. The moment I saw you coming to me without her, Lakṣmaṇa, I feared some great evil, and to tell the truth, my mind is deeply troubled." Trust is the word that now stands in question, the trust Rāma had placed in Lakṣmaṇa. Yet his words were not an accusation, only a fear; he was simply laying open the state of his heart. He added a sign in his own body: "Seeing you far off on the road without Sītā, my left eye throbs, and my left arm and my heart as well." A throbbing on a man's left side is a well-known omen of misfortune, and here eye, arm and heart, all on the left, all foretold evil, so that the outward omen and the inward grief became one. Addressed in this way, Lakṣmaṇa, who bore every auspicious mark, was filled with fresh grief, his sorrow doubled because, though blameless, he was being reproached, and he spoke to his grieving brother.

He explained plainly why he had left. "It was not of my own will that I left her and came here. It was her own harsh words that drove me to you. A cry rang out, loud and strangely pitched, as if from you, my noble brother, 'Lakṣmaṇa!' and 'Save me!', and those words reached Maithilī's ears. Hearing that cry of distress, out of her love for you she wept and, beside herself with fear, at once said to me, 'Go, go!'" It was her very love for Rāma that robbed her of judgement, and her doubled "Go, go!" shows her haste and fear. By saying the cry was "as if" from Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa made clear it was not Rāma's voice, only one like it. "Again and again she urged me to go, and I answered her with words to reassure her: 'I see no rākṣasa who could put him in danger. Be at ease; it is nothing. Someone else called out.'" Lakṣmaṇa did not go at once; first he tried to calm her with reasoning. There was no counter-accusation in his account, only a faithful telling of what had happened, and that itself reveals his character.

He had reasoned with her. "'How could my noble brother, who could protect even the gods, say anything so contemptible and low as "Save me!", Sītā? Someone, for some purpose of his own, has borrowed my brother's voice and cried out in a strange tone, "Lakṣmaṇa, save me!" It was a rākṣasa, fair lady, who cried "Save me!" in fear. You must not distress yourself; such distress is for women of a low sort.'" The last words were harsh but reasoned: such wavering belongs to lesser women. Then he had reminded her of Rāma's might: "'Enough of this agitation; be calm and untroubled. There is no man in the three worlds, none born or yet to be born, who could defeat Rāghava in battle. He cannot be conquered in war even by the gods with Śakra at their head.'" To call Rāma the protector of the gods was to hint at his divinity, for how could the gods' protector ask to be protected? And "born or yet to be born" gathers past, present and future into one sentence. So Lakṣmaṇa offered reason first, then comfort, and last Rāma's greatness; nowhere in his words did he praise himself, everywhere he sang his brother's glory. But Sītā, overcome by fear, would not be persuaded.

"When I said this," he went on, "Vaidehī, her mind quite clouded, wept and spoke cruel words to me." By saying her mind was clouded the poet lessens her fault; the words were her bewilderment speaking, not she. Her words held three charges. "'You have fixed your heart on me with a sinful desire. You think that once your brother is dead you will have me, but you never shall. It is by some pact with Bharata that you follow Rāma, for though he cries out so bitterly you do not go to help him. You are an enemy in disguise, following him to get me; you are watching for a chance against Rāghava, and so you do not go to him.'" The charges grow sharper one after another, desire, a plot with Bharata, open enmity, and together they struck at Lakṣmaṇa's character, his loyalty to his family and his love for his brother. "Spoken to like that by Vaidehī," Lakṣmaṇa said, "I flared up, my eyes red and my lips trembling with anger, and I went out of the hermitage." He had given her no answer; his silence was his reply, and the poet shows his anger only through his body, the flush, the red eyes, the quivering lips. The reader knows Sītā's suspicion was groundless, and yet her fear was natural too, and there lies the poet's compassion.

As Saumitri spoke, Rāma, bewildered with distress, said to him: "You did wrong, gentle brother, to come here without her. You knew I was well able to keep the rākṣasas off, and still you left at an angry word from Maithilī. I am not at all pleased that you left her and are here, that you came away on hearing the harsh words of an angry woman. It was wrong of you in every way that, stung by Sītā, you gave in to anger and did not carry out my command." His reproach was a matter of justice: by "my command" he reminded Lakṣmaṇa of his order not to leave Sītā. Yet he knew too that Lakṣmaṇa had been caught in a conflict of duties, the command of the lady against the command of his brother. Then Rāma gave proof, so that Lakṣmaṇa would see for himself how he had been deceived. "The rākṣasa who carried me away from the hermitage in the shape of a deer lies there, struck down by my arrow. I drew my bow, fitted the arrow and hit him with a shaft sent as lightly as in play, and he cast off his deer's body and became a rākṣasa wearing armlets, his voice faltering. It was as the arrow struck him that he borrowed my voice and, in tones of pain, uttered those terrible words so that they would be heard far away, the words that made you leave Maithilī and come here." So both brothers were shown to be blameless, and yet Sītā was lost; such is the play of fate. By the end of the sarga both knew the truth, but the knowledge had come too late, and that is the root of the sorrow of this whole episode.