वन्दिजनस्तुतिः दशरथस्य दिवङ्गतिज्ञानं च

In the previous sarga Daśaratha gave up his life at midnight. This sarga begins with the dawn that followed, a dawn that did not know that the one for whom everything was being done was no more. When the night had passed, early on the next day, the panegyrists came and took their places about the king's palace. Bards of perfect training, chroniclers deeply learned in tradition and singers skilled in melody each sang the king's praises in turn. As they praised him and pronounced blessings in lofty voices, the sound of their praise spread through the wide spaces of the palace. Then, as they sang, the hand drummers recited the great deeds of old and beat time with their palms. At that sound the birds woke and called, those on the branches and those in cages, all within the royal precincts. So the auspicious words, the notes of the lutes and the chanting of blessings in the ballads filled that house. The poet describes it all at length so that the reader sees the full picture of happiness, and its breaking will strike all the harder; that is Vālmīki's way, beauty before sorrow. The order is careful too: first human voices, then instruments, then birdsong, until the sound fills the whole palace. Knowing that this praise was being offered to a dead king, the reader feels the grief for himself, though the poet uses not a single word of sorrow.

Then the attendants, pure in conduct and skilled in waiting on the king, most of them women and eunuchs, took their places as they did every day. "As every day" is itself pitiful: the daily routine went on, but that day it was in vain. Those who knew the rules of the bath brought water mixed with yellow sandal in golden jars at the proper time and in the proper way. Auspicious women, many of them young girls, brought the things to be touched for good fortune, the things to be tasted, and the other requisites such as mirrors, ornaments and clothes. The whole morning offering, as this presentation to the king at dawn is called, was complete in every mark of excellence, duly consecrated and bright with fine quality; the poet describes its completeness with four praises, and then with one phrase, "the king did not come", makes it all useless. Right up to sunrise everyone stood waiting eagerly, and the king did not come, and they began to wonder uneasily what it could mean. In one verse the poet shows expectation turning into foreboding: the sun had risen, but the king had not come out. The things were ready and the servants were ready, but the one to be served was not there, and that is the heart of this passage.

Then the women whose place was nearest the bed of the lord of Kosala came together to wake their husband. Well schooled in proper conduct, they touched the bed with courtesy and care, and found no sign of life at all. Those women knew how to tell the state of a sleeping man from his stirrings and movements, so their fear grew strong; they began to tremble, fearing for the king's life. They shook like the tips of grass standing against a current; and then, as the doubting women looked at the king, the evil they had feared became certain. At that very time Kausalyā and Sumitrā, overcome by grief for their sons, lay fast asleep and did not wake, as if their own hour had come. So three lay motionless, one dead and two senseless with grief. The words "they found nothing" hint gently at the truth; the women were experienced, and their fear was itself the proof. The poet draws out the passage from doubt to certainty over a longer verse, showing fear growing step by step.

Here the poet describes the two queens separately. Kausalyā, pale and without lustre, sunk and bowed down with grief, did not shine, like a star veiled in darkness: the light was there, but covered by gloom. Next to the king lay Kausalyā, and next to her Sumitrā, and that queen too had no brightness, her face smeared with tears of grief. Their sleep too came from grief, not rest, and so they had not known the king's state. Seeing the two queens asleep and the king with them, the women of the inner palace concluded that he had died in his sleep. Then those lovely women cried out in their misery, like she-elephants in the forest whose herd leader has been struck from his place. The image fits well: as the she-elephants scatter and cry out when their leader is gone, so did the women of the palace when the king was gone; with one image the poet shows the fear and helplessness of a group without its leader. The palace that had just been filled with the sound of praise was now filled with cries of pain.

At the sound of their wailing, Kausalyā and Sumitrā suddenly came to themselves and woke. Looking at the king and touching him, they cried "Alas, my lord!" and fell to the ground. The daughter of the lord of Kosala, writhing on the ground and covered with dust, shone no more than a star fallen from the sky: in the verse before she was a star veiled in darkness, here a star fallen from the sky, and so one image grows deeper step by step. Now that the king's warmth had gone out of him, all the women saw Kausalyā lying on the ground like a slain she-serpent; the first image spoke of lost light, this one of a creature lying still. With the warmth gone the poet names death gently. Then all the king's wives, Kaikeyī at their head, weeping and burning with grief, fell senseless to the floor. "Kaikeyī at their head" holds a subtle irony: she who was the root of all this sorrow was counted that day among the mourners.

That mighty cry, swelled by their wailing, grew louder still, and the whole house rang with it again. The poet then paints a single picture of the palace: the dwelling of the king who had met his end was full of people terrified, bewildered and distraught, loud on every side with wailing, its kinsfolk stricken with anguish, all joy fallen from it in a moment, wretched and pitiful to see. Fear, lamentation, the anguish of kin and the sudden fall of joy are all gathered in these two verses. The last verse is in a longer metre: knowing that the glorious bull among kings had passed away, his wives gathered round him, weeping bitterly and pitifully, and in their great grief raised their arms and lamented like women with no protector. "Like women with no protector" echoes what was said of the sage's parents in the previous sarga, and so the poet shows the curse's circle complete. At the end of the sarga there is no one to comfort them, no minister, no priest, no son; only the women gathered round weeping. The king was gone, the princes were far away and the kingdom was without a protector: that was Ayodhyā's lowest point. So the poet sets the stage for the next sarga, where Kausalyā's lament and her rebuke of Kaikeyī begin.