रामस्य पम्पाप्रवेशः

When Śabarī had gone to heaven by her own radiance, Rāghava and his brother Lakṣmaṇa fell to thinking. Having reflected on the power of those great sages, the righteous Rāma said to Lakṣmaṇa, his helper, whose mind was fixed on him alone: "I have seen this hermitage of men who had perfected themselves, gentle brother, full of wonders, where deer and tigers trust one another and birds of every kind come to rest. We have touched the water at the fords of those seven seas as the rule requires, Lakṣmaṇa, and the ancestors too have been satisfied. Whatever was inauspicious for us has perished, and good fortune has come. That is why my heart is glad now, Lakṣmaṇa." Here the poet marks a change in Rāma's grief: he who until now had lamented without pause feels for the first time the approach of good. Bathing at a holy ford and offering to the ancestors bring purification, as tradition holds, and seeing Śabarī's divine departure had strengthened Rāma's faith in the power of austerity. From the very start of this sarga the mood changes. Until now the Araṇya Kāṇḍa has been ruled by fear, slaughter, abduction and lament; here there is peace, holy water and hope, and "what was inauspicious has perished and good fortune has come" is the sarga's guiding thread, a sign that the end of sorrow is near.

"Something good is about to rise in my heart, tiger among men," Rāma said. "So come, let us go to lovely Pampā. Not far from it Ṛṣyamūka shines, where the righteous Sugrīva, son of the Sun, lives with four monkeys, always in dread of Vālin. I am impatient to see Sugrīva, that bull among monkeys, for my task, the search for Sītā, depends on him." Those last words matter: capable as he was himself, Rāma sought a helper, and that is a mark both of statecraft and of humility. Sugrīva's plight is shown too: he was in trouble himself, afraid, with only four followers, Hanumān and three others, so that it was natural for each to help the other. As Rāma spoke, Saumitri answered the hero.

"Let us go there quickly; my mind is impatient too," Lakṣmaṇa agreed. Then that lord of men, a protector of his people even in the forest, left the hermitage and came with Lakṣmaṇa to Pampā, looking about at the forest, full of flowers on every side and thick with great trees. That great forest rang with lapwings, arjunaka birds, śatapatras and parrots, and many other birds besides; by naming them the poet paints a living picture of the wood in sound. Looking at trees of every kind and pools of every kind, Rāma came to that finest of lakes, burning with longing. His longing was the ache of separation from Sītā, and here lies the poem's paradox: the more the outer beauty grew, the sharper grew the grief within.

Reaching from afar that lake of sweet water called Mataṅga's lake, Rāma plunged into it. The name recalls the sage Mataṅga, for this was the lake of his place of austerity, and the bath was not only for cleansing the body but for merit, in keeping with the holiness of the place. The two Rāghavas went there unhurried and composed; yet Rāma, son of Daśaratha, was filled with grief as he entered the lovely lotus pool covered with lotuses. Their outward calm set against Rāma's inner state is the beauty of this passage. The pool was bright with tilaka, aśoka, punnāga, bakula and uddālaka trees, hemmed about with delightful groves, its water crowded with lotuses, clear as crystal, and spread with fine sand; shore, water and sand are described in turn. What Kabandha described and Śabarī showed, Rāma now bathed in himself: across three sargas one place has been brought before us step by step, first heard of, then seen, then experienced, a mark of the poet's skill in composition.

Pampā was crowded with fish and turtles, adorned by the trees on its banks and wound about by creepers like companions clinging to her. Kinnaras and serpents, gandharvas, yakṣas and rākṣasas came there; she was thick with trees and creepers of every kind, a fair treasury of cool water. With fragrant lotuses she was copper-red, with circles of water lilies white, with opening blue lilies dark, so that she looked like a many-coloured carpet spread out, three colours meeting in a single lake. She was full of lotuses and lilies, bordered by mango groves in flower and loud with the cries of peacocks, which add sound to the picture. The creepers as her companions make Pampā herself a heroine. This description is a fine example of Vālmīki's painting of nature. But all this beauty was seen through the eyes of a man parted from his love, so it did not console him; it inflamed his longing, and the seed of the lament that follows lies here.

Seeing Pampā with Saumitri beside him, the splendid son of Daśaratha broke into lament; the very loveliness of the sight stirred up the pain of separation. Pampā was adorned like a beautiful woman with tilakas and citrons, banyans and śukla trees, oleanders in flower, punnāgas in full bloom, thickets of mālatī and kunda, bhaṇḍīra and nicula, aśoka and saptaparṇa, ketaka and atimuktaka, and many other trees besides. The naming of trees again and again is no mere repetition: what was heard from Kabandha and shown by Śabarī Rāma now sees for himself. And the last touch of the list matters most: to the separated Rāma, Pampā herself seemed a woman in her finery, the trees her clothes and jewels, and that made his memory of Sītā sharper still. On her shore stood the mountain spoken of before, bright with its ores, and the reference to Kabandha's words ties the story's thread together.

That mountain is known as Ṛṣyamūka, its trees bright with flowers. On it lives the monkey son of the great Ṛkṣarajas, the mighty and renowned Sugrīva. "Go to Sugrīva, lord of the monkeys, bull among men," said Rāma of unfailing valour to Lakṣmaṇa once again; and then, "How can I live without Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa?" Two feelings meet in one moment, the resolve to act and the ache of separation. Rāma was ready to make friends with Sugrīva, yet his heart was still wounded by the memory of Sītā; the poet shows courage and grief living together in one man, and that is Rāma's humanity and his greatness.

So speaking, tormented by love and with no thought for anything else, Rāma said this to Lakṣmaṇa and, giving voice to his great grief, entered the lovely lotus pool Pampā. Then, going on step by step and gazing at the forest, he saw Pampā, her woodland fair to look at and thronged with birds of many kinds, and he entered it with Lakṣmaṇa. With this verse the Araṇya Kāṇḍa ends, its last two verses in a longer metre, as the poet does at the close of other kāṇḍas too. In the story one chapter closes and another opens: the struggle with the rākṣasas is over, and Rāma has come to the shore of Pampā to make friends with the monkeys. The Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa begins right there, with Rāma at that same lotus pool.