कौसल्यायाः विलापः

In the previous sarga Rāma had calmed Lakṣmaṇa's fierce talk of human effort and held fast to carrying out his father's order. Seeing him so resolved, Kausalyā, her voice choked with tears, spoke words full of dharma. "He has never known sorrow," she lamented; "he is righteous and speaks kindly to every creature; he was born to me from Daśaratha. How is he to live on gleanings?" Gleaning means gathering the grains left lying in a harvested field, and the mere thought of a prince living that way tore at his mother's heart. "His servants and slaves eat fine food; how will Rāma eat roots and fruit in the forest? Who could hear this and believe it, and who would not be afraid, that Kākutstha, so virtuous and so dear to the king, is being sent into exile? Surely destiny is the strongest power in the world and orders everything, since even you, Rāma, the delight of the world, are going off wherever the forest is." So his mother thought first of the hardship her son's body would suffer, then of the world's astonishment, and finally of the power of destiny, the very thing Rāma had spoken of in the twenty-second sarga. But in Rāma's mouth that idea had been a ground for equanimity, while in his mother's it became a ground for lament: one and the same principle bore different fruit in two different minds. And there is point in calling him "the delight of the world", for the one who delights everyone is the one going to the forest.

Then Kausalyā described her grief with a striking figure. "This fire of grief is born within me," she said. "Not seeing you is its wind, the pain of my lamenting is its fuel, the tears I weep are the offerings poured into it, the vapour of my anxiety is its great smoke; the worry of waiting for your return has kindled it, and the labour of my sighing keeps it alive. Left here without you, my son, it will wear me away and burn me up, as a blazing fire burns dry brushwood at the end of winter." Every part of the fire ritual, the wind, the fuel, the oblations and the smoke, is imagined here as a part of grief, and this chain of metaphor is the most ornate passage of the sarga. The image of fire consuming dry grass conveys how swift and scorching her grief was: as dry grass turns to ash in a moment, so would the mother parted from her son. Then she simply pleaded. "Does a cow not follow her calf when it goes? So I too will follow you, my child, wherever you go." The cow and calf show how natural a mother's love is; there is no argument here, only nature itself as proof.

Hearing his mother's words, Rāma, the bull among men, answered her in her great sorrow. First he reminded her of how things stood. "The king has been deceived by Kaikeyī, and I am going to the forest. If you abandon him too, he will surely not survive." Rāma did not give an order; he only showed the consequence: his father's life depended on his mother staying at his side. Then he spoke of dharma. "For a woman to abandon her husband is nothing but a cruel act. It is condemned, and you must not do it even in thought. As long as my father Kākutstha, lord of the earth, is alive, let him be cared for; that is the eternal law." "Even in thought" is a fine point: leaving one's husband is ruled out not only in deed but even as an intention. So Rāma did not condemn his mother's love; he showed her where her own dharma lay and so turned her from following him. His argument has two sides, one of compassion, that his father might die, and one of scripture, that abandoning a husband is condemned; and at the centre of both is not his mother's own interest but the protection of someone else.

Spoken to in this way, the gracious Kausalyā was well pleased and said "So be it" to Rāma, who achieved great things without strain. But Rāma, best of those who uphold dharma, was not satisfied with that; he spoke again to his grieving mother. "You and I must both carry out my father's word, for the king is husband, elder, chief, master and lord of us all. When I have roamed the great forest for these nine years and five, I will stand by your word with the greatest joy." By splitting the number into nine and five, instead of saying fourteen in one word, the poet makes us feel how long the time will be; and by promising to "stand by your word" Rāma pledged obedience to his mother. At this, Kausalyā, who loved her son dearly, her face streaming with tears and in deep distress, answered her dear son. Her acceptance had lasted only a moment, and her love rose up again as a plea. The poet paints the swaying of a mother's mind very naturally here: she accepts the teaching and then forgets it again, and that is the mark of grief. The phrase "sunk in grief" is repeated in the tenth and the fifteenth verses, showing that her sorrow had not changed at all.

"Rāma," she said, "I cannot bear to live among these co-wives. If you have made up your mind to go out of regard for your father, then take me to the forest with you, Kākutstha, like a doe of the woods." Seeing her weep, Rāma himself wept as he answered her. "While a woman lives, her husband is her deity and her lord, and today the king is lord over both you and me. With the wise king, lord of the world, alive, we are not without a protector. Bharata too is righteous and speaks kindly to every creature; he will look after you, for he is always devoted to dharma." Rāma gave two comforts: the king was alive, and Bharata was devoted to dharma, so his mother's fear of being left unprotected had no ground. Her words "among these co-wives" reveal her real fear, that once her son was gone she would be at Kaikeyī's mercy, and Rāma quietly answered that fear too without naming it. The poet notes that Rāma wept as he spoke: steady as he was everywhere else, before his mother he did not hold back his tears.

"When I have left, take care, and watch closely, that the king does not suffer the slightest distress through grief for his son, and that this terrible sorrow does not destroy him. Be steady, and always work for the good of the aged king." Then Rāma spoke of a woman's dharma in general. "A woman who is devoted to vows and fasts and of the highest excellence, but does not follow her husband, comes to an evil end. It is by serving her husband that a woman wins the highest heaven. Even a woman who has given up saluting and worshipping the other gods should simply serve her husband, devoted to what pleases him and does him good. That is a woman's lasting duty, as it is heard in the Veda and remembered in the world. For my sake, my lady, always honour the gods with flowers at the fire-rites, and honour the brahmins with respect. Wait for the time in this way, longing for my return." The teaching is given in the form of scripture, but its purpose is to steady his mother's mind. Rāma was not reciting dry rules; he was giving his mother work to do so that her grief could turn into action. And by saying "for my sake" he made his own safety the purpose of her worship, so that she would not feel her days were empty.

"Live restrained, eat sparingly, devoted to serving your husband, and when I return you will have your heart's desire, if the best of the upholders of dharma, the great king, lives on." Spoken to thus, her eyes clouded with tears, Kausalyā, stricken with grief for her son, said to Rāma: "My child, I cannot turn back your mind, so firmly set on going. Surely time cannot be overcome, hero. Go, my son, with a single mind; may good fortune always be with you, my lord." Then she opened her heart's hope: "When you come back again, my weariness will be gone. When you return, greatly blessed, your purpose achieved and your vow fulfilled, freed of your debt to your father, then I will sleep in perfect happiness." Here the mother's words have turned from resistance into blessing; her grief was not stilled, but it now took the form of waiting. "I will sleep in happiness" hints at the sleepless nights to come: until her son returned there would be no peaceful sleep for her. And "freed of your debt to your father" gives the purpose of the exile as his mother saw it: not a punishment but the paying of a debt.

"On this earth, my son, the ways of destiny are always hard to understand, since it brushes my words aside and drives you on, Rāghava. Go now, mighty-armed one; come back safely, my son, and gladden me with gentle, sweet and lovely words. Will that time ever come, my child, when I see you back from the forest again, wearing matted hair and bark?" The question is full of doubt: the mother only hopes to see him again; she cannot be sure, and this shows how frail her heart was. Then the sarga draws to its close. Seeing Rāma so resolved on the forest, the queen looked at him with a collected mind, spoke auspicious words to him and set her heart on performing the rite of blessing. "A collected mind" means that she rose out of her grief and turned to an auspicious rite. In the next sarga that very rite is described at length, as Kausalyā calls on all the gods and seers to protect her son. So this sarga, which began in lament, comes to rest in a rite of blessing: the grief had not gone, but it had found a direction. That is Vālmīki's way: sorrow is eased by action, not by words.