भरतस्य गङ्गातरणं भरद्वाजाश्रमगमनं च

In the previous sarga Bharata had seen Rāma's bed of kuśa grass, lamented, and vowed to live in the forest himself. This sarga shows the first step in carrying out that resolve: crossing the Gaṅgā. Having spent the night on the bank of the Gaṅgā at Śṛṅgaverapura, Bharata of the Raghu line rose at daybreak — he had not slept, only waited for dawn — and said to Śatrughna, “Get up, Śatrughna! Why are you lying there? Bless you — bring Guha, lord of the Niṣādas, quickly; he will ferry the army across.” Even to his younger brother he did not simply command but asked with a blessing; even in sorrow this family did not give up its courtesy. Śatrughna was the same: “I am awake, not sleeping. I too have been lying here thinking of our noble brother.” While those two lions among men were talking, Guha came at just the right moment, with folded hands, and spoke — neither coming unbidden nor delaying when called, which shows his tact. This opening signals the movement of the sarga, from grief to action.

Guha asked, out of affection, “Did you pass the night comfortably on the riverbank, Kākutstha? Is all well with you and your army?” The poet says plainly that he spoke from affection; the Niṣāda king's hospitality was not formal but heartfelt. Hearing him, Bharata, who followed Rāma's will in everything, replied: “Our night passed pleasantly, wise one, and you have honoured us well. Now let your boatmen carry us across the Gaṅgā in many boats.” There is no harshness of royal command anywhere in his words; it is a request. The exchange is charming: Guha asks the prince whether he rested well, and Bharata in answer praises Guha's hospitality; a man burning with grief still does not forget another's kindness. Guha took it as an order, hurried back into his town and called his kinsmen. The boatmen were fishermen and ferrymen by trade, and by their skill that great army would reach the far shore.

Guha said to his kinsmen: “Get up, wake! Good fortune be with you always. Haul the boats down; we are going to ferry an army across.” At their king's command — for the Niṣādas held Guha as their own king — they rose in haste and brought five hundred boats together from every side, a number that shows how large Bharata's army was. Among them were fine craft marked with the svastika, hung with great bells, flying pennants, well fitted with oars and stoutly built — not village boats but vessels fit for royalty. Then Guha himself brought up an auspicious boat marked with the svastika, spread with white blankets and loud with festive music. Bharata boarded it, and mighty Śatrughna, Kausalyā, Sumitrā and the other royal women. Before them the family priest, the elders and the brahmins had gone aboard; after them came the king's women, and likewise the carts and the stores of the market. The poet presents the order of boarding itself as a proper order: brahmins first, then the royal family, then the baggage. So, well ordered, the great host made ready to cross the Gaṅgā.

Now the poet describes the great scene of the crossing. The din of men firing the camp, wading into the ford and taking up their baggage rose and touched the sky — for soldiers leaving a camp burn whatever huts and the like remain, so that no trace is left for an enemy. The pennanted boats, manned by the fishermen themselves, carried the people aboard and sped back and forth like arrows. Some were full of women, some of horses, and some carried carriages, draught animals and costly goods. Reaching the far bank and setting down their loads, they turned back, and the boatmen showed off their skill on the water. The elephants with their banners, urged on by their drivers, swam across and looked like winged mountains — an image that recalls the old tale of mountains that once flew like birds. So the poet sets three pictures one after another: the clamour of the crowd, the movement of the boats and the splendour of the elephants.

Not everyone crossed in the same way: some went in boats, some on rafts, some clinging to jars and pots, and some swam with their arms alone, which shows how vast the army was. That holy host with its banners, ferried over the Gaṅgā by the fishermen themselves, set out in the Maitra hour for the fine forest of Prayāga. The Maitra hour, the third of the day's fifteen divisions, is auspicious for a journey. And the host is called holy because it was not going to war but to win a brother's favour. There the great-souled Bharata reassured his army and settled it as suited it best, and set out with his priests and the members of his court to see Bharadvāja, the foremost of seers. To leave the army at a distance and go with only a small company was to respect the bounds of a hermitage. Coming to the hermitage of that great-souled brahmin, the priest of the gods, he saw the great and lovely forest of that best of brahmins, with its pleasant huts and trees. With this sight the sarga ends; in the next, the conversation with Bharadvāja begins.