कौसल्याविलापः सुमन्त्रसान्त्वनं च

In the previous sarga the king had fainted in the midst of his lament, and Kausalyā had been seized by fear again; this sarga begins with her words. Trembling again and again as if possessed by a spirit, and lying on the ground as though her life had left her, she said to the charioteer: Take me where Kākutstha is, where Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa are; without them I cannot bear to live a moment longer. Turn the chariot round at once and take me too to the Daṇḍaka forest. If I cannot follow them, I shall go to Yama's realm. A mother's grief takes a different form from the king's: he lamented, but she wanted to act; she did not wish to call Rāma back but to go to him herself. "As though her life had left her" describes the state of her body, "trembling" the state of her mind, and her grief was so great that she saw death as the only other choice. Her order to turn the chariot round is worth noting: she wanted the very chariot that had taken Rāma to the forest to take her there too, so that it was both the instrument of her sorrow and the means of its remedy.

In a voice that caught in his throat and was broken by tears, the charioteer joined his palms and spoke to comfort the queen. Put away grief and confusion, he said, and the panic that sorrow brings; Rāghava will shake off his distress and live in the forest. "Shake off" is well chosen: Rāma did not carry his distress about but quickly cast it aside and accepted forest life. Lakṣmaṇa too, serving Rāma's feet in the forest, knowing his duty and master of his senses, is winning the world to come. The charioteer told no lies; he only showed dharma where she saw sorrow: what in the mother's eyes was punishment was, for her sons, austerity. And by saying that Lakṣmaṇa was winning the world to come, he made his service not merely a brother's love but a means to the highest good. "With joined palms" shows his humility: he did not lecture the queen but entreated her.

Then the charioteer spoke at length about Sītā, since the mother's worry was greatest for her. Even in the lonely forest, he said, Sītā has settled in as if she were at home; she trusts it and is unafraid, for her mind rests on Rāma. I cannot see the slightest sign of dejection in her; Vaidehī seems to me like someone long used to living away from home. Just as she used to enjoy going out to the city's gardens, so she enjoys even the lonely woods. With her face like the new moon, she takes delight like a child; devoted to Rāma and undaunted, she stays by him even in the empty forest. Her heart is set on him and her life depends on him; for her, Ayodhyā without Rāma would itself be a forest. This last thought sums everything up: Sītā's happiness depends not on the place but on being near Rāma, so that for her the forest is not a forest but Ayodhyā itself. The image of one used to living away from home is especially comforting: she who had never left her house seemed accustomed to it.

On the road, he said, Vaidehī asks about the villages and towns, and when she sees the courses of rivers and the many kinds of trees, she asks about them too. When she looks at Rāma or at Lakṣmaṇa, Jānakī feels as if she had come out only a mile from Ayodhyā on a pleasure trip. So the charioteer showed that in Sītā's mind the exile was like a journey, not a banishment. Then he began, without thinking, to say something else: I remember this much of her, something she suddenly came out with, a remark about Kaikeyī; but it does not come back to me now. The poet shows the charioteer's predicament: Sītā had said something bitter about Kaikeyī, and it was not fit to repeat before Kausalyā. So, suppressing the words that had slipped out through carelessness, the charioteer spoke sweet, comforting words to the queen instead. His good sense and restraint of speech deserve praise here: the words had escaped against his will, and he checked them at once.

The charioteer went on to describe how Sītā looked, since that was what her mother-in-law wanted to hear. The road, the force of the wind, alarm and the heat of the sun have not taken from Vaidehī her radiance, which is like moonlight. The face of that gracious lady, like a hundred-petalled lotus and shining like the full moon, never falters. Though they have no lac on them, her feet are as red as if painted with lac, and still glow like lotus buds. Even now, though she has laid aside her ornaments out of love for Rāma, she walks with the same playful grace, as if anklets were ringing at her step. Living in the forest, she sees an elephant, a lion or a tiger and is not frightened, for she relies on Rāma's arms. The contrasts are lovely: without lac her feet are red as if with lac, and without ornaments her step is as graceful as if anklets rang. That was the charioteer's message: nothing had diminished her. And "she relies on Rāma's arms" names the source of her fearlessness, not her own courage but the shelter of her husband.

At last the charioteer struck at the root of her grief: They are not to be pitied, nor should you think yourself pitiable, nor is the king to be pitied. This conduct of theirs will stand for ever in the world. That is, what now looked like disaster would in time become glory. The last two verses are in a longer metre. Shaking off their grief, glad at heart, firmly set on the path the great sages have walked, happy in the forest and living on its fruit, they are keeping their father's noble promise. This is the conclusion of the sarga: the exile of the three was no punishment but the following of the sages' path. But the comfort did not succeed: though the charioteer reasoned so well and tried to calm her, the queen, worn thin by grief for her son, did not stop crying out, calling again and again, "My dear!", "My son!", "Rāghava!" So the sarga ends with the failure of consolation, and the poet shows its limits: reasoning does not quiet grief.