लक्ष्मणस्य विलापः

At the end of the previous sarga Rāma lay on the ground with Sītā while Lakṣmaṇa stood awake leaning against a tree, and the scene continues here. Seeing Lakṣmaṇa keeping watch for his brother's sake without any show, Guha, himself burning with grief, said to him: Dear prince, here is a comfortable bed made ready for you; lie down and rest as you please. All my people are used to hardship, but you are used to comfort; we will stay awake through the night to guard Kākutstha. The word "without any show" deserves notice: Lakṣmaṇa's vigil was not for display but came from pure affection. Guha's words show his humility, for he himself draws the line between his own people, fit for hardship, and his guest, fit for comfort. And "to guard" makes the purpose plain; the niṣādas were bowmen and masters of the forest.

There is no one on earth dearer to me than Rāma, Guha went on; I tell you this truly, and I swear it to you by truth itself. It is by his favour that I hope to win great fame in this world, a rich harvest of dharma, and wealth and pleasure in full measure. So I will stand bow in hand with my kinsmen and guard my dear friend Rāma in every way as he sleeps beside Sītā. I range this forest always and there is nothing in it I do not know; we could hold off even a great and mighty army of all four divisions. These words show Guha's threefold strength: love, devotion to dharma and knowledge of the land, for to one born and raised in the forest, knowing the forest is itself an army. His oath is worth noting: he calls to witness neither gods nor wealth but truth alone, which shows the influence of Rāma's company. And by saying "by his favour" he counts all his good fortune as depending on Rāma.

Then Lakṣmaṇa said: Blameless man, guarded by you who look only to dharma, none of us here feels any fear. But while the son of Daśaratha lies on the ground with Sītā, how could I sleep, or live, or know any comfort? Look at him: the man whom all the gods and asuras together could not withstand in battle lies sleeping soundly on grass beside Sītā. His answer had two parts: first he set aside Guha's concern, saying they were not afraid, and then he confessed that sleep was impossible for him. Remembering Rāma's greatness, unconquerable even by gods and asuras, and seeing him asleep on a bed of grass, his grief was doubled. The contrast itself is the figure of speech: he whose strength the three worlds could not withstand sleeps on grass.

The one son of Daśaratha who bears all the marks worthy of him, Lakṣmaṇa said, was won by our father through mantras and austerity and all kinds of striving. Now that he has gone into exile the king will not live long, and surely the earth will soon be a widow. The image is fierce: the king is the husband of the earth, and when he dies she is left unprotected like a widow. "Won by mantras and austerity" recalls the sacrifice for sons, by which Rāma was obtained only after long effort. What had been gained with such difficulty had now been sent to the forest, and that was the cause of Lakṣmaṇa's grief. The word "one" is pointed too: there were four sons, but only one bore the marks and had the strength to carry the burden of the kingdom.

The women, he said, must have raised one great wail and then fallen silent from exhaustion; I think, my friend, the king's palace is now hushed of every sound. Kausalyā, the king, and my own mother too: I have little hope that any of them will live through this night. My mother might live on to look after Śatrughna, but it will be a grief indeed if Kausalyā, mother of a hero, dies. That city, crowded with people devoted to Rāma, a city whose very sight brought happiness, will perish, struck by the king's misfortune. Lakṣmaṇa's view widens step by step: first the inner palace, then the three dearest to him, and finally the whole city. "Hushed of every sound" is telling: where once there had been auspicious music, now even the weeping had died down from weariness. And calling Kausalyā "mother of a hero" is moving, for though she bore a heroic son, she was parted from him.

How, he asked, will the breath of that great-souled king stay in his body when he cannot see his great-souled eldest son? When the king dies, Kausalyā will die after him, and then my mother too will meet her end. Crying out "All is gone, all is gone!", without winning what he longed for, without setting Rāma on the throne, my father will die. Fortunate are those who, when that hour comes, will perform all the funeral rites for my dead father. The repeated cry "all is gone" suggests the king's final lament, that everything has slipped from his hands. Knowing that he himself would be far away in the forest, Lakṣmaṇa grieved that he could not even take part in his father's last rites, and by calling the others fortunate he spoke of how he himself was deprived.

Happy indeed, he said, are those who will walk at ease in my father's capital, with its lovely squares and broad, well-laid avenues, rich in mansions and palaces, graced by the finest courtesans, crowded with chariots, horses and elephants, ringing with the sound of trumpets, full of everything auspicious, thronged with prosperous, well-fed people, rich in groves and gardens and bright with festivals. In these three verses the picture of Ayodhyā is drawn again: streets, palaces, carriages, music, gardens, festivals. But the description brings no joy; it only sharpens the pain of separation, since Lakṣmaṇa recalls the city while he keeps watch at the foot of a tree in the forest. He praises the good fortune of others, not his own. The passage echoes the earlier descriptions of Ayodhyā, but here it is painted on a background of grief.

Will Daśaratha live? he asked. Shall we come back from our exile and see that great-souled man of noble vows again? When this exile is over, shall we enter Ayodhyā safe and well with Rāma, whose promise is truth? So the night passed for that great-souled prince as he stood there lamenting, worn out with sorrow. Three questions in a row show how thin his hope had worn: there was no certainty, only hope. And "as he stood" tells us that Lakṣmaṇa did not so much as sit down all night but kept watch on his feet, and that was his service. The night that in the fiftieth sarga passed so slowly for Rāma passed here for Lakṣmaṇa in lament: the poet describes the one night through the eyes of both.

As the king's son, devoted to the good of the people, spoke these true words, Guha, out of deep friendship, was overwhelmed by distress and shed tears, racked with pain like an elephant in the grip of fever. This last verse is in a longer metre, marking the close of the sarga. The comparison is poignant: as a great elephant, strong as it is, lies helpless and weeping when fever grips it, so the mighty king of the niṣādas wept for love. So the sarga begins with Lakṣmaṇa's lament and ends with Guha's tears, and the root of both is love for Rāma. It suggests too that one who was a niṣāda by birth was, in love, the equal of a kṣatriya prince; in Vālmīki's eyes friendship is the measure that deserves honour.