रामस्य वनप्रस्थानम्

In the previous sarga Kausalyā had taught Sītā the dharma of a devoted wife, and Daśaratha had had clothes and ornaments brought for the years in the forest. Now Rāma, Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, with folded hands and sorrowful faces, clasped King Daśaratha's feet and walked round him in reverence; clasping the feet and circling are the proper form for the well-bred at a leave-taking. Having taken his father's leave, Rāghava, who knew dharma, though his mind was clouded with grief, saluted his mother Kausalyā together with Sītā; grief had not made him forget what was due. Right after his brother, Lakṣmaṇa too first saluted Kausalyā and then clasped the feet of his own mother Sumitrā. The eldest mother is honoured first and one's own mother after: that is the family's rule, and Lakṣmaṇa did not break it even in that hour of grief. Seeing her son bow to her, Sumitrā, weeping and wishing him well, kissed the mighty-armed Lakṣmaṇa on the head and spoke to him. Kissing the head is the ancient sign of a mother's love, and with it she gave her son to the forest. The sorrowful faces show that their faces were clouded, not that their courage had failed.

Sumitrā did not lament; she gave counsel. "My child," she said, "you were born for this life in the forest, and you love your own people deeply. When your brother Rāma goes, do not be careless of him. Whether he meets misfortune or prosperity, blameless one, he is your only path. It is the dharma of good people in this world that a man should obey his elder brother. And this is the ancient custom of our Ikṣvāku house: giving, consecration for sacrifice, and giving up one's body in battle." So even the forest life was part of the family's dharma. Having said this to Lakṣmaṇa, who was resolute and loved Rāghava, she said to him again and again, "Go, go." And finally: "Think of Rāma as Daśaratha, think of Janaka's daughter Sītā as me, think of the forest as Ayodhyā. Go, my child, and be happy." With these words his mother turned exile into a dwelling for austerity; her love was put to the service of dharma, not used to hold him back, and that is Sumitrā's greatness. Kausalyā had wept as she gave her counsel; Sumitrā gave hers without weeping, and the difference between the two mothers is plain. By it the poet shows that a hero's mother hides her grief and sets her son to his duty.

Then Sumantra, modest and versed in courtesy, spoke to Kākutstha with folded hands, as Mātali, the charioteer of the gods, speaks to Indra. "Mount the chariot, illustrious prince, and may all go well with you. I will take you quickly wherever you tell me. You are to live fourteen years in the forest; the years the queen has laid down must begin to be counted from today." Two things show in the charioteer's words, devotion and a clear reckoning of time. He did not lament or blame Kaikeyī; he simply reminded Rāma of what had to be done. The comparison with Mātali shows that he was no ordinary charioteer but the equal of the gods' own, which is why in this book Sumantra becomes the one Rāma trusts. The chariot is the first means of the exile, and mounting it makes the departure certain.

Then lovely Sītā, wearing her ornaments, mounted that chariot bright as the sun with a glad heart. "With a glad heart" is worth pondering: the cause of her joy was being with her husband, not the forest. Her father-in-law had counted the years of the exile and given her, as she followed her husband, clothes and ornaments to last them all. In the same way the brothers' weapons and armour, and the leather-covered basket and the spade, were stowed in the chariot. Then the two brothers Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa quickly mounted the chariot, which shone like fire and was adorned with gold. Seeing the three of them aboard, with Sītā as the third, Sumantra urged on those fine horses, swift as the wind, and set the chariot moving. Here the poet describes the equipment of the exile: no instruments of pleasure in the chariot, but weapons, armour and a spade, signs of what the fourteen years would be, years in which protection would be needed and toil could not be avoided. Sītā's wearing her ornaments is especially worth remembering: she went to the forest dressed as a bride, for serving her husband was her vow. The clothes her father-in-law gave were enough for fourteen years, which shows Daśaratha's tenderness, for he did not forget even his daughter-in-law. The chariot was the last thing of Ayodhyā; once they stepped down from it they would walk the forest on foot. And the horses' wind-like speed shows how fast they went, so that the citizens' following was in vain.

When Rāghava had set out for the great forest for so long a time, a faintness fell on the city; the troops and the people alike were stunned. The city was in uproar and confusion, its rutting elephants enraged, the harness of the horses jingling, everywhere a great din. Then the whole city, young and old, in extreme distress, ran after Rāma as a creature tormented by heat runs to water; the image suggests that the sight of Rāma was like the quenching of their thirst. Clinging to the sides and back of the chariot, their faces turned up to him and wet with tears, they all cried out loudly: "Driver, hold in the horses' reins, go slowly, slowly; let us see Rāma's face, for soon it will be hard for us to see. Surely the heart of Rāma's mother is made of iron, since it does not break when a son like a child of the gods goes to the forest." The grief described here is not one person's but the single grief of the whole city. Calling Kausalyā's heart iron is not a reproach but an indirect tribute to her unbearable sorrow. And "go slowly, slowly" heightens the pathos: they could not stop his going, they could only beg for a little delay. So the poet proves Ayodhyā's love for Rāma, the same love that will shine out again in later sargas when Bharata comes.

The townspeople went on: "Vaidehī has fulfilled her purpose, for she follows her husband like his shadow; devoted to dharma, she does not leave him, as the sun's light does not leave Mount Meru. And you, Lakṣmaṇa, have gained your end too, for you will serve a brother who is like a god and always speaks kindly. Great is your understanding, great your good fortune; following him is your very road to heaven." As they spoke they could not hold back their tears, and they walked on after the beloved delight of the Ikṣvākus. Here Sītā's and Lakṣmaṇa's self-sacrifice is praised by the people themselves; the poet praises them not in his own voice but through the city's. The images of the shadow and of Meru's light both speak of never being parted. Calling them fulfilled and successful carries the teaching that renunciation is itself the achievement of life's aim, and this praise shows the city's good sense even in grief. And "devoted to dharma, she does not leave him" makes it clear that Sītā's following him was not love alone but the practice of dharma.

Then the king, himself downcast and surrounded by his grieving women, came out of the palace saying, "I will see my dear son." Ahead of him he heard the loud wailing of the weeping women, like the trumpeting of cow-elephants when the great bull of the herd has been captured; the image suggests the captivity of the royal house, for when the leader of the herd is caught, the herd is left without shelter. At that moment his father, the glorious Kākutstha, looked like the full moon overtaken by an eclipse. Yet seeing all this, Daśaratha's son Rāma, whose mind no one could fathom, urged the charioteer on: "Drive quickly." Rāma told the charioteer to go, and the people told him to stop, and pressed both ways on the road, the charioteer could do neither. This is the first sign of Sumantra's dilemma, which will soon be described again with the image of being caught between two wheels. As the king came out he said only one thing, "I will see", which shows that all his thought was bound up in seeing his son. Rāma did the opposite: seeing his father, he hurried the chariot on, because delay would only increase the pain for both. And the eclipsed moon suggests that the king's splendour still existed, but was covered over.

As the mighty-armed Rāma went out, the dust of the road was laid by the tears falling from the townspeople's eyes, an exaggeration that measures the depth of their grief. At Rāghava's departure the city was worn out with weeping, full of cries of woe, senseless and utterly stricken. Tears of distress streamed from the women's eyes as water spills from lotuses shaken by fish stirring beneath them. Seeing the whole city of one mind, the glorious king fell to the ground in his grief like a tree cut at the root. Then, seeing the king sink down in great pain, the people behind Rāma raised a great tumult. The grief of the city and of the king became one here: the king is the root of the city, and when he is cut down the city falls too. These four verses carry four images, the dust laid by tears, the senseless city, water spilling from lotuses and the tree cut at the root, by which the poet leads our eye from the road to the city, from the city to the women, and from the women to the king. "Of one mind" is important: all Ayodhyā shared a single mind, and that mind was fixed on Rāma. Seeing such a city, the king remembered his own fault and fell, and the tumult rose behind Rāma like an echo of the king's fall.

Some cried "Alas, Rāma!", others "Alas, Rāma's mother!", and they lamented over the king, who cried aloud with all his household. Looking back, Rāma saw the king, dejected and bewildered, and his mother, both following him along the road. Like a colt tied with a rope that cannot look at its mother, bound by the rope of dharma he could not look at them openly. The "rope of dharma" is the heart of the sarga: Rāma was bound not by affection but by the duty of keeping his father's word true. Seeing the two of them on foot, who deserved a carriage, who had never known sorrow and were used to comfort, he urged the charioteer: "Go quickly." That tiger among men could not bear the painful sight of his father and mother, as an elephant cannot bear the goads that drive it. And Rāma's mother Kausalyā ran after the chariot, like a cow running home to her tethered calf. The image of the cow shows a mother's helpless love. Rāma looked back: he could neither stop nor bear not to look, and in that conflict the depth of his character shines out. With three images, the tethered colt, the goaded elephant and the cow with her tethered calf, the poet shows the parting of mother and son three times over. That his aged parents were on foot, though they deserved carriages, shows their suffering, and that sight broke Rāma's heart, which is why he hurried the charioteer.

Again and again he looked at his mother, weeping and running after the chariot, crying "Rāma, Rāma! Alas, Sītā! Alas, Lakṣmaṇa!", shedding tears for Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā, and seeming almost to dance in her grief; the image paints her stumbling this way and that. On one side the king cried "Stop!", on the other Rāghava said "Go on, go on!", and Sumantra felt as though caught between two wheels. Then Rāma told him: "If the king reproaches you, you can tell him you did not hear. To draw this out is the worst kind of pain." Here Rāma's compassion shows itself as firmness: he did not want to prolong his father's grief, and thought that going quickly was itself a kindness. Sumantra's position is the most pitiable of all: he was the king's servant and Rāma's charioteer, and the two orders contradicted each other. Rāma's words were meant to protect the charioteer: the fault would be his own, not Sumantra's.

Doing as Rāma said, the charioteer took leave of the crowd and drove the horses, already moving, faster still. The king's people walked round Rāma in reverence and turned back, but though their bodies turned back, their swift minds did not; in spirit they went on with Rāma. Then the ministers said to the great king Daśaratha, "One whom you wish to see return should not be followed far." Hearing their words, which were wise in every way, the wretched king, bathed in sweat and the very picture of dejection, stood there with his wives, gazing after his son. So this sarga completes Rāma's departure, and the next describes the lament of the inner palace and the city. The ministers' words are a maxim of statecraft: following too far only increases the pain of parting. The king neither turned back nor went on; he stood there frozen, and that was his last sight of Rāma. "With his wives" tells us that Kausalyā and the others stood there too.