भरतस्य अयोध्याप्रवेशः

In the previous sarga Bharata had taken leave of Bharadvāja, crossed the Yamunā and the Gaṅgā and set out from Śṛṅgaverapura towards Ayodhyā; at its end, seeing the city from afar, ruined and joyless, he had spoken to his charioteer. In this sarga he enters the city, and what he sees is the complete reverse of what it once was. Approaching in a chariot whose rumble was smooth and deep, the glorious prince swiftly entered Ayodhyā. The city that once rang with song and music was now a place where cats and owls roamed, and men and elephants kept indoors; it seemed like a black, lightless night overwhelmed by darkness. The rumble of the chariot was the only sound; everything else was silent, the people and even the elephants shut away in their houses and the royal roads empty.

From here the poet shows the state of the city through a chain of fifteen comparisons alone. Each sets former splendour against present ruin, and nothing new happens in the story. The city was like Rohiṇī, beloved wife of the moon, Rāhu's enemy: radiant with her own splendour, yet left alone and afflicted when a hostile planet rose and seized her husband. She was like a mountain stream shrunk in the hot season, its little water warm and troubled, its birds scorched and fled, its fish, carp and crocodiles sunk out of sight in the deep pools. She was like a smokeless golden flame risen from the fire, then drenched with the oblation and sunk away into nothing — first brilliance, now extinction. She was like an army caught in a great battle, its armour shattered, its elephants, horses, chariots and banners broken, its bravest heroes slain. She was like a wave that rose from the sea foaming and roaring and then, when the wind fell, lay flat and silent. She was like an altar abandoned by all the sacrificial implements and by the handsome priests, fallen silent after the hour of the soma-pressing — where the chanting of mantras once sounded, now there is silence. And she was like a cow standing wretched in the pen, not touching the fresh grass, deserted by the bull and restless with longing. In all these images the thing compared is one, Ayodhyā; the images vary, but they share one quality: where once there was light, sound and life, there is none now. Nowhere does the poet say "the city was empty"; he shows it through the comparisons.

The second round of images is more pitiful still, for it describes an ornament parted from what gave it worth. The city was like a new string of pearls from which the finest gems — the prabhākara and the rest, lustrous and blazing — had been taken, leaving only the thread. She was like a star that, its merit spent, has suddenly slipped from its place and fallen from the sky, its spreading brightness drawn in. She was like a forest creeper at the end of spring, laden with flowers and loud with drunken bees, scorched and withered by a racing forest fire. Her trade was at a standstill and her stalls and shops shut, so that she looked like a sky covered with rain-clouds, its moon and stars hidden. Strewn with broken cups whose fine liquor had drained away, she was like a drinking-hall left unswept and ruined after its master is dead. Her ground cut up and sunken and littered with broken vessels, she was like a roadside water-booth that has collapsed, its water used up — the very place where travellers once found water, itself broken. She was like a bowstring, broad and taut, fastened by strong men, cut through by arrows and fallen from the bow to the ground. And at last she looked like a mare ridden hard by a warrior horseman, struck by the enemy's army and brought down. Taken together these images say one thing: the city was not destroyed, but its life had left it; chariot, bow, horse, altar and water-booth — every instrument of life is shown broken. In each image not only the beauty but the purpose is lost: a necklace without its gems is no ornament, a bowstring without its bow is no weapon, a mare without her rider is no mount.

After the chain of images the scene changes, and Bharata himself speaks. Standing in the chariot, Daśaratha's illustrious son said to the charioteer driving that fine chariot: "Why is the deep, swelling sound of song and music not heard in Ayodhyā today as it used to be? The heady scent of wine, the thick scent of garlands, the scent of sandal and aloe — none of it drifts about anywhere. The rumble of fine carriages, the smooth neighing of horses, the trumpeting of rutting elephants, the great clatter of chariots — where have they gone?" Note that Bharata does not describe what he sees; he counts only the absence of sounds and scents. Hearing and smell are the witnesses of a city's life, and their silence speaks its death. The swelling sound and the massed scent that once filled the city are simply no longer there.

The charioteer said nothing; Bharata himself gave the reason. "None of it is heard in this city now that Rāma has been banished. Now that Rāma is gone, the young men, consumed with grief, take no pleasure in sandal and aloe or in costly woodland garlands, and men in bright garlands no longer go out on excursions. No festivals are held in a city stricken with grief for Rāma. Surely the brightness of this city has gone with my brother." In speaking of "my brother" Bharata does not mention his own fault, nor does he name Kaikeyī; he knows the root of all this grief is Rāma's absence. "Rāma banished", "Rāma gone", "a city stricken with grief for Rāma" — three verses repeat the same cause again and again.

"This Ayodhyā does not shine," he said; "she is like a moonlit night dimmed by rain" — even a night in the bright fortnight is darkened by a downpour. "When, I wonder, will my brother come like a great festival and waken joy in Ayodhyā as a cloud does in the hot season? When will the great roads of Ayodhyā glow again with finely dressed young men walking tall and thronging along them?" Here for the first time hope is heard, and lament takes the shape of waiting. The brother himself is imagined as a festival, and the image of the rain-cloud in summer foreshadows the next sarga, where Bharata installs the sandals and waits for Rāma's return. Speaking so with his charioteer, the grieving Bharata went along the royal road.

Having entered Ayodhyā, he went straight into his father's dwelling, empty now of that lord of men like a cave without its lion. The last verse, in a longer metre, sets the scene: that inner palace, stripped of its brightness everywhere, was like a day from which the gods have taken away the sun. Seeing it so, even self-possessed Bharata, in deep grief, let his tears fall; one who does not lose his composure could not hold back his tears here. With this scene the sarga ends; in the next Bharata will leave his mothers in Ayodhyā and go to Nandigrāma.