अयोध्यावर्णनम्

Here the story begins. In former times this whole earth belonged to the kings of the Ikṣvāku line, and from Prajāpati onward every king in that line was glorious in victory. Among them was a king named Sagara, who had the ocean dug out, which is why that body of water is still called sāgara; whenever he set out on a journey, sixty thousand sons surrounded him as he went. In the line of these great-souled kings this great narrative arose, the one known in the world as the Rāmāyaṇa. Notice that the poet does not describe Rāma first but his lineage: a man springs from his line, and a story from its land; that is how the first poem sees things. The word “known,” literally “heard,” also shows that this narrative is no invention of the poet but has come down by tradition.

Kuśa and Lava declare: “This is the narrative the two of us will recite, all of it, from the beginning. It is joined with dharma, with desire and with wealth, so it should be heard without ill will.” The verb is in the dual: the singers are two, but the story is one. And “without ill will” sets out the listener’s duty as well: he should listen without looking for faults. With this verse the entrance to the story is complete, and the description of the land begins.

There is a great country called Kosala, happy and prosperous, lying along the bank of the Sarayū and rich in wealth and grain. In it stood a city famed throughout the world, named Ayodhyā, a city that Manu, the lord of men, had built himself. Three things are signalled here: the river’s water, the abundance of food, and a foundation laid by the first of men. The city was no accident; it was planned by Manu, the first maker of dharma. Even the name Ayodhyā has meaning: the city that no one can make war on is Ayodhyā, “the unassailable.” Its future lies hidden in its very name.

That splendid great city was twelve yojanas long and three wide, and its great avenues were well laid out. It was adorned by a great royal highway, well planned, on which loose flowers were strewn and water sprinkled every day. This daily care of the road speaks of the city’s good order: where the royal road is cleaned and sprinkled every day, one knows the king is watchful. The poet gives the size first and then the road, so the description moves from the outside inward.

King Daśaratha, who enlarged his great realm, peopled that city as Indra, lord of the gods, peopled his heavenly city Amarāvatī. The verb means that he made others dwell there: a king does not merely live in his city but settles his people in it, and that is his proper work. The city had gates fitted with doors and arches, and inside its markets were laid out each in its own place. It held every kind of war engine and weapon, and craftsmen of every sort lived in it. Defence, trade and craft are bound together in a single verse.

The city was thronged with sūtas, who sing praises, and māgadhas, who recite genealogies; so the city’s memory stayed alive. It was splendid and of matchless radiance. Its tall watchtowers flew banners, and hundreds of śataghnīs crowded its walls; the śataghnī, “hundred-killer,” was a great engine mounted on the ramparts that could kill a hundred warriors at once. On every side it had troupes of women dancers and players; it had pleasure gardens and mango groves, and it was great and girdled with sāla trees. Readiness for war, theatre and forest were all in one place.

Its moat was deep and hard to cross, and enemies could not come near the city. It was full of horses and elephants, and of cattle, camels and donkeys. It was ringed by companies of vassal kings bringing tribute, and adorned by merchants who had come to live there from many lands. Statecraft shows here too: the vassals were content and merchants came from afar, and these, not walls and moats alone, are the marks of a stable kingdom. Horses and elephants are the animals of war; cattle, camels and donkeys are beasts of burden; both are counted.

Palaces worked with jewels adorned the city like mountains, and full of pinnacled mansions it looked like Indra’s Amarāvatī. It was colourful and laid out like an aṣṭāpada; it was full of lovely women, strewn with every kind of jewel and graced with tiered mansions like aerial cars. The word aṣṭāpada, a gaming board, describes streets divided into even squares like the board of a dice game: the city was not haphazard but laid out as if by mathematics. Twice here it is compared with Amarāvatī: the city on earth is a reflection of heaven.

It was packed with houses, with no gaps between them, and built on level ground. It was full of fine rice, and its water was as sweet as sugar-cane juice. It rang loudly and ceaselessly with kettledrums and tabors, lutes and small drums, and there was no city on earth to surpass it. It shone like the aerial palace of the siddhas, won in heaven by austerity; its houses were well appointed, and it was filled with the best of men. Food, water, music and people together describe the city’s fullness. The comparison deserves attention too: though it stands on earth, the city is divine; but the siddhas win their palace by austerity, while Ayodhyā was won by dharma.

The archers of that city, quick of hand and skilled, would not shoot at a man who was alone and cut off from his band, or one with no support before or behind, or one who could be hit only by aiming at a sound, or one who lay exposed. Yet they killed with their sharp weapons, and by the sheer strength of their arms, the maddened lions, tigers and boars that roared in the forest. With thousands of such great chariot warriors was the city filled, and King Daśaratha settled it with people then. The warrior’s code is plain: strength is bound by rule, and sparing the defenceless is the hero’s ornament. The poet skilfully begins with what they refuse to do.

Last of all the poet describes the brāhmaṇas. The city was surrounded by the best of them: men who kept the sacred fires, men of virtue who had mastered the Vedas and their six ancillary sciences, who gave gifts by the thousand and delighted in truth, great-souled, like great sages, indeed sages pure and simple. A change to a longer metre signals the sarga’s end. The brāhmaṇas come last because walls, wealth and armies are outward defences; the city’s real protection is austerity. So an ideal city is described here, and leaving it will later be the root of the sorrow that runs through the whole poem.