पम्पादर्शनं रामविलापश्च

At the close of the Araṇya Kāṇḍa Kabandha had shown Rāma the way: go to Pampā, where Śabarī lives, and then on to Ṛṣyamūka, where Sugrīva is. Now, with Saumitri beside him, Rāma reached that lotus pool, crowded with lotuses, water lilies and fish, and there, his senses in turmoil, he broke into lament. At the mere sight of it his senses trembled with joy, and, fallen into the power of desire, he spoke to Lakṣmaṇa. The word "joy" matters here: the beauty of the lake first delights him, and that same delight at once stirs up his grief, for to a man parted from the woman he loves every lovely thing becomes a cause of pain. "Saumitri," he said, "how lovely Pampā is, her water clear as beryl, full of open lotuses and water lilies and graced with trees of every kind. Look at her woods, how fair they are, where the trees rise shining like peaked mountains. But I am burning with grief, and anxieties torment me, for Bharata's sorrow and for the carrying off of Vaidehī." The anxieties he means are pains of the mind, not of the body. "Even to me in my grief," he went on, "Pampā is beautiful with her many-coloured woods, strewn with flowers of every kind, her water cool and kindly, covered with lotuses, wonderful to look at, haunted by snakes and beasts of prey and thronged with deer and birds. And this green and yellow turf shines all the more, as though spread with coverlets by the many blossoms of the trees." In that one line — even to one in sorrow Pampā is beautiful — the poet lays bare the root of love in separation: grief does not destroy beauty, it sharpens it. The image of coverlets spread on the ground will return later in the sarga. This sarga is the doorway to the Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa and one of the finest proofs of Vālmīki's descriptive art. The road Kabandha named begins here, yet the poet does not hurry the story: for some hundred and fifty verses he paints spring and the lake of Pampā, because that picture is itself the mirror of Rāma's longing. Already in the first verse the phrase "his senses in turmoil" warns us that what follows is not the gaze of a calm man but of a troubled one, and the verb "he lamented" sets the tone of the whole sarga: this is not a hymn of praise but a lament.

"On every side," Rāma said, "the treetops are heavy with flowers, and everywhere creepers with blossoming tips embrace them. This breeze is pleasant, Saumitri; this is the season when love runs high; the month is fragrant, and the trees bear flower and fruit together." That last phrase marks the month of Caitra, when the trees blossom and fruit at once. "Look at the woods in blossom, how they pour down showers of flowers as rain clouds pour down rain. On the lovely rocky ledges the forest trees of many kinds, shaken by the wind, strew the ground with flowers. See how the wind seems to play on every side with the blossoms, those fallen, those falling and those still on the trees." One image is unfolded three ways: the wind plays, the wind sings, the wind makes the trees dance. "Tossing the flower-laden branches, the wind is sung to by the bees it has shaken from their places; with the calls of maddened cuckoos it seems to set the trees dancing, and, pouring out of the mountain caves, it seems itself to sing. Tossed hard on every side, these trees stand with their branch-tips clinging together as though woven into one. That same wind blows, pleasant to the touch and cool as sandal, carrying a holy fragrance and taking weariness away. And in these honey-scented woods the wind-shaken trees seem to cry aloud through the humming of the bees." The wind is almost the hero of the passage: it plays, sings, makes the trees dance, carries scent and lifts fatigue; yet this very touch will soon feel to Rāma like fire, and that contradiction is the mark of a scene that inflames longing. Nature is drawn here through every sense — sight in the burden of blossom and the green and yellow turf, smell in the fragrant month and holy scent, touch in the pleasant sandal-cool breeze, sound in the bees and cuckoos, taste in the honey, and the mind in "the season when love runs high" — so that the description becomes a whole experience, not a picture only. In "showers of flowers as rain clouds pour rain" the trees are imagined as clouds, an image Rāma will use again and again, for the rainy season too is the cruellest time for lovers apart. The wind as singer with the bees as its chorus is a picture of a concert; the branch-tips woven together show that to the separated Rāma union is visible everywhere, and that only deepens his pain; and the wind that "takes weariness away", a comfort to ordinary people, will soon prove a torment to the lover. Line after line Rāma says "look" to Lakṣmaṇa — some twenty times in the sarga — so that the description becomes a conversation rather than the poet's narration. Lakṣmaṇa answers nothing; his silence through this long lament is the listener's own place.

"On the lovely slopes," Rāma continued, "the hills with their joined summits shine with great trees delightful in bloom. Their crests covered with flowers, quivering as the wind tosses them, crowned with bees, the trees seem to be singing. Look at the karṇikāras in full bloom all round, like men in yellow robes overlaid with gold." The yellow karṇikāra likened to men in yellow garments is a famous comparison. Then Rāma lays bare his own pain: "This spring, Saumitri, loud with the cries of many birds, kindles the grief of one parted from Sītā. Love torments me, already overwhelmed by sorrow, and the cuckoo calling in its joy challenges me. Here by this lovely forest stream the dātyūha, the water-cock, crying in its delight, will make me, seized by love, grieve the more, Lakṣmaṇa. In days gone by, when she heard this bird's note in the hermitage, my beloved would call me and greet me with the greatest delight." Memory is the sharpest instrument of pain here: the bird's call recalls past happiness and so doubles the present sorrow. "Look how these bright birds with their many cries fly down all about upon the trees, the bushes and the creepers" — the three layers of the forest caught in a single phrase. "Mingling with their mates, welcomed by their own flocks, made joyful by the king-bee, these birds sing sweetly." The commentators take the king-bee to be a kind of bird, though a bee is equally possible, since bees fill the whole passage. "Here on Pampā's bank the birds cry out in delight in their flocks, and with the love-calls of the dātyūhas and the notes of the male cuckoos these trees resound and kindle desire in me. The aśoka is a brazier: its flower-clusters are the coals, the humming of the bees its crackling." Here the movement of the sarga turns: up to this point the description has been outward, and now Rāma begins to open his heart. "This spring kindles grief" is the centre of the sarga — what gladdens others is the cause of his sorrow, which is the very definition of a scene that inflames longing. The cuckoo "challenges" him as an enemy challenges a warrior. The memory of Sītā calling him at the bird's note sets past joy beside present grief. The birds named — the dātyūha, the cuckoo, the king-bee — are real birds of the woods, and it is not only the birds but the trees themselves that kindle desire. The aśoka as a brazier of coals prepares the image of the "fire of spring" that follows.

"This fire of spring, with its flames of copper-red young leaves, will burn me up. If I cannot see her, with her fine eyelashes, her lovely hair and gentle speech, Saumitri, there is no point in my living. This season, with its lovely woods and its borders full of cuckoos, was the season she loved. Born of the torment of love and fed by all the charms of spring, this fire of grief will burn me swiftly and soon, since I do not see that woman and do see these lovely trees. This fire, sprung from my own self, will grow stronger in me still. Vaidehī, unseen, increases my sorrow, and spring, being seen, torments me with the sweat of longing. That doe-eyed woman and the cruel breeze of the Caitra woods together torment me, worn down as I am by anxiety and grief." The contrast is lovely: she who is not seen torments him, and the spring that is seen torments him too. Then comes the picture of the peacocks. "These peacocks are beautiful as they dance here and there, their plumes tossed up by the wind like windows of crystal. Surrounded by their peahens and drunk with passion, they only add to my passion. Look, Lakṣmaṇa: on the mountain slope the peahen dances beside the dancing peacock, herself tormented by love for her mate, and the peacock, his whole mind on her, runs after her, spreading his lovely tail and seeming to mock me with his cries. Surely no demon carried off the peacock's beloved in the forest, and so he dances with his mate in these pleasant woods. But for me, living without her in the month of flowers is almost past bearing." By setting the happiness of the birds beside the grief of the man the poet makes the pity keen. The fire image is now complete: the aśoka is the brazier, its young leaves are flames, the humming bees its crackle, and spring itself the burning fire. Yet when Rāma calls it "sprung from my own self" he speaks a subtle truth — it is not the outward spring that burns him but a fire of grief born within, and in saying so he shows he knows himself. The peacock passage is the loveliest in the sarga: the peacock dances, the peahen dances beside him, the peacock follows her in his heart — a three-step picture of the whole happiness of wedded love. Rāma's own conclusion, that surely no demon stole the peacock's mate, carries a glint of wry humour and deep pity at once: what even the creatures of the animal world enjoy is denied to the best of men. The "sweat" of spring hints that summer is on its way; the season passes, but separation does not. The peacock's plumes, their eye-marks like crystal lattice windows, borrow an image from palace description for a forest scene, and the "breeze of the Caitra woods" gathers season, place and wind into a single word. The peacock's dance belongs usually to the rains, and seeing it here in spring marks something special about the country round Pampā.

"See, Lakṣmaṇa: there is passion even among animals, for this peahen comes to her mate out of love. So too, all eagerness, would my large-eyed Jānakī come to me, moved by love, had she not been carried away. See how the flowers are fruitless for me: at winter's end the woods are heavy with blossom, and yet these lovely flowers, for all their beauty, fall fruitless to the ground along with the swarms of bees." "Fruitless" has two senses here, bearing no fruit and serving no purpose; without Sītā everything is purposeless to Rāma, and nature's very abundance is wasted. "The birds, gathered in flocks in their joy, cry sweetly at their pleasure, as if calling to one another, and drive me mad with desire. If spring has come there too, where my beloved lives, then surely Sītā, in another's power, grieves just as I do. Or perhaps spring does not touch the land where she is — yet how could my dark-lotus-eyed one live on without me? Or if spring does reign there, what will she do, my fair-hipped one, abused by her enemies? My dark-hued beloved, with her lotus-petal eyes and gentle speech, will surely lay down her life at spring's coming." He weighs three possibilities one after another, and every one of them ends in sorrow; this is the restless mind of a man in separation, what poetics calls the passing mood of anxious brooding. "A firm conviction turns and turns in my heart: that virtuous Sītā cannot live on apart from me. For Vaidehī's heart is truly set on me, and mine is set wholly on Sītā." At last his grief comes to rest in the certainty of love. That there is love even among animals is one of the great expressions of pathos in the Rāmāyaṇa: the companionship seen among beasts and birds is out of Rāma's reach. The word "all eagerness" shows the force of Sītā's own love, and the conviction he reaches springs not from grief alone but from the firmness of their love; the mutual devotion he speaks of here will be borne out by Sītā's own words in the Sundara Kāṇḍa. Sītā's eyes are described again and again through the sarga — lotus-petal eyes, eyes like the lotus, doe's eyes, eyes with fine lashes, large eyes, eyes like the dark water lily — each with a different comparison, yet all pointing to the one object of his memory.

"This wind that carries the blossoms, cool and pleasant to the touch, is like fire to me as I brood on my beloved. The breeze I always thought pleasant when I was with Sītā breeds only grief now that she is gone." The same thing is a source of joy in union and of pain in separation: the outward object does not change, only the state of the one who sees it, and that is a deep psychological truth of poetry. "The bird that cried out then, when she was lost — a crow in a tree — now calls out joyfully. This bird was Vaidehī's herald there; this bird will bring me to the large-eyed one." By the lore of omens a crow calling joyfully from a tree foretells reunion with the beloved, so even in the midst of grief a moment of hope flickers, and Rāma seizes on it. The crow also holds a thread of the story, for in the Sundara Kāṇḍa Sītā will tell Hanumān the tale of the crow-demon. "Listen, Lakṣmaṇa, to the chorus in the forest that swells my passion, the twittering of the birds in the flowering treetops. That bee darts suddenly at this tilaka spray tossed by the wind, as at a beloved tossed in her passion." Bee and blossom make yet another picture of a loving pair. "For lovers this aśoka, for all its name, is a great increaser of grief; it stands as though threatening me with its wind-tossed clusters." The play on the name is deliberate: the tree called "griefless" is the one that heightens grief. "These mango trees in blossom look like men smeared with unguents, their minds brimming with amorous play" — even in the forest Rāma draws his comparisons from the life of the city of Ayodhyā. "Look, Saumitri: among the bright rows of trees by Pampā kinnaras are wandering here and there" — the kinnaras, heavenly beings akin to the gandharvas and lovers of song, make Pampā's shores seem a land of the gods. "Look, Lakṣmaṇa, at these fragrant lotuses all around, shining in the water like the newly risen sun" — the red-gold of the young sun matching the colour of the lotuses. "This is Pampā, her water clear, set with lotuses and blue water lilies, crowded with geese and karaṇḍava ducks and rich in white lotuses; ringed on every side by lotuses glowing like the young sun, their filaments struck by bees, she shines." With this the description of the lake begins again, and Rāma's gaze keeps moving between the world outside and the world within.

"Always attended by cakravāka birds, her shores a bright stretch of varied woodland, she shines with herds of elephants and deer that come to drink" — beauty and usefulness both in the poet's eye. "In her clear water, Lakṣmaṇa, the lotuses shine as the wind-driven waves beat against them. Without Vaidehī, whose eyes are wide as lotus petals and who always loved the lotus, life gives me no pleasure." Her eyes are like lotus petals and she herself loved the lotus, so the lotuses on the lake remind him of her twice over. "Ah, how perverse desire is, that it makes me remember that lovely woman, gone now and hard to reach, whose words were lovelier still!" Desire is pictured as a hostile god who brings to mind just what cannot be had. "I might have held back the desire that has come upon me, if this spring with its flowering trees did not strike at me again. The things that were delightful when I was with her become joyless without her." That verse is quoted like a proverb: the delight of things lies not in the things but in the companion who shares them. "When my eyes look at the petals of the lotus buds, Lakṣmaṇa, they take them for Sītā's eyes, and this charming wind, touched with lotus pollen and coming from among the trees, blows like Sītā's own breath." Eyes and lotus buds, breath and breeze: every outward thing recalls some part of the beloved; this is the lover's way of seeing. Then his gaze rises from the water to the mountains. "Look, Saumitri, on the southern slopes of Pampā's hills, at that flowering spray of karṇikāra, so lovely. This king of mountains, adorned with mineral ores, sends up a wonderful coloured dust shaken loose by the force of the wind" — a picture of the mineral-streaked mountain that, the learned say, Kālidāsa too followed in the Meghadūta. "And the mountain ledges everywhere seem ablaze with kiṃśukas, leafless and in full bloom." The red kiṃśuka flowers make the mountainside look as though it were on fire, a further extension of the fire of spring.

"These trees on Pampā's bank, watered by her, are fragrant with honey: mālatī, jasmine, padmaka and oleander are in flower; ketakīs, sinduvāras and vāsantīs are in full bloom; the mādhavī creepers are full of fragrance, and the kunda thickets everywhere. Ciribilvas, madhūkas, vañjulas, bakulas, campakas, tilakas and nāga trees are in flower; the padmakas are beautiful, the blue aśokas are in bloom, and on the ridges the lodhras are tawny as a lion's mane. Aṅkolas, kuraṇṭas, cūrṇakas and pāribhadrakas, mangoes, pāṭalas and kovidāras are in flower; mucukundas and arjunas are seen on the mountain slopes, with ketakas, uddālakas, śirīṣas, śiṃśapās and dhavas, śālmalīs and kiṃśukas, red kurabakas, tiniśas, naktamālas, sandalwoods, syandanas, hintālas, tilakas and nāga trees, all in flower." This list of more than thirty trees is a priceless page from India's botanical lexicon; the poet does not only describe beauty but gives the full portrait of the season, and his long catalogue is evidence of his own close observation, a true picture of the plant life of the south — many of these trees are still known by the same names in South India today. The lodhra "tawny as a lion's mane" captures both the colour and the shaggy form of its blossom clusters, and "watered by her" makes the lake the mother of these woods. "Look here, Saumitri, at Pampā's many lovely trees, flowering and wrapped in blossoming creepers, their boughs tossed by the wind and bent close enough to touch. The creepers cling to them like beautiful women drunk with passion" — the tree as man and the creeper as woman, an age-old figure of Sanskrit poetry, and one that again recalls Rāma's separation. "From tree to tree, from hill to hill, from wood to wood the wind goes, as if delighted by tasting many flavours" — the wind is imagined as a bee, sipping many flowers and wandering from wood to wood, and the triple repetition makes its restless movement heard. "Some trees are laden with blossom and sweet with honey; others, wrapped in buds, look dark" — even in nature not everything is at one stage.

"This is sweet, this is tasty, this is more fully open," the bee seems to say to itself as, red with passion, it sinks into the blossoms; then, having sunk in, it flies up again and suddenly darts elsewhere, and so, greedy for honey, it roams among the trees on Pampā's bank. Imagining the bee's inner voice is a delightful touch: the poet lends even a small creature a power of judgement, and its fickleness comes alive. Its three actions — sinking in, flying up, darting away — take three half-verses, which seems to be why this one verse runs to six lines. "This ground, strewn with heaps of blossom that fell of their own accord, has been made soft like a spread of couches, and those same flowers of many kinds have made the broad rock-slabs on the mountainsides glow yellow and red." The image of coverlets hinted at in the eighth verse is now complete: the earth is made into a bed. "Look, Saumitri, at the flowering of the trees at winter's end: in the month of flowers they have blossomed as though in rivalry" — as if competing to see which would bloom the most. "Loud with bees, the trees seem to be calling to one another; their boughs crowned with blossom, they are very beautiful. And this karaṇḍava drake has plunged into the fair water and plays with his mate, as if to kindle desire." Once more the happiness of a pair makes Rāma's loneliness sharper, and the passage both opens and closes with a picture of mates together.

"Since Pampā, the very likeness of the Mandākinī, is so delightful, it is right that her charms are famous throughout the world." The Mandākinī is the heavenly Gaṅgā, and to compare Pampā with her is to raise her as high as possible. "If that virtuous woman could be found, and if we could live here, best of Raghus, I would not long for Indra's throne or for Ayodhyā. If I could take my pleasure with her on turf as lovely as this, no anxiety would touch me and I would want nothing else. But these trees, with their many kinds of leaves and flowers, only breed anxiety in me here without my beloved." Neither the rank of Indra nor his own kingdom weighs anything against life with Sītā — the highest proof of Rāma's love, and a sign that he grieves not for a lost throne but for his lost wife. "Look, Saumitri, at this cool water full of lotuses, visited by cakravākas and karaṇḍavas, filled with plava and krauñca birds and haunted by great beasts; Pampā is the lovelier for the birds that warble there. These joyful birds of many kinds seem to kindle my desire as I remember my dark, moon-faced beloved with her lotus eyes. Look at the deer on the bright slopes with their does; but I have been parted from doe-eyed Vaidehī, and as they roam here and there they seem to wound my heart." This is the fourth picture of a pair in the sarga — cuckoos, peacocks, karaṇḍavas, deer — and each time Rāma's solitude grows keener. "If on this lovely ridge, alive with flocks of exultant birds, I could see my beloved, all would be well with me. I could surely live, Saumitri, if slender-waisted Vaidehī were to enjoy Pampā's gentle breeze with me. Blessed are they, Lakṣmaṇa, who enjoy the forest breeze of Pampā, carrying the scent of lotus and white water lily, kindly and grief-dispelling." In saying so Rāma sets himself apart from them: the happiness that is within everyone's reach is beyond his. The ridge alive with birds already begins the description of Ṛṣyamūka, where Sugrīva will soon appear, and so the poem slips quietly from description back into story. "Slender-waisted" is a mark of Sītā that the Sundara Kāṇḍa will use again.

"Parted from me, how does my dark-hued, lotus-eyed beloved, the helpless daughter of Janaka, keep herself alive? What shall I say to King Janaka, that righteous and truthful man, when in the assembly he asks me how Sītā is?" He imagines the question put before the whole court, where his only answer would be silence. "She who followed me when my father sent me, wretch that I am, into the forest, holding fast to dharma — where is she now, my beloved Sītā? She followed me when I had lost my kingdom and was broken in spirit; without her, how shall I bear to live in my misery?" Here he calls himself a wretch, and his gratitude shows: when all was lost she did not leave him. "When I cannot see her face, fragrant, fair and flawless, with its lovely curving lotus eyes, my mind sinks. When shall I hear again, Lakṣmaṇa, Vaidehī's matchless words, sweet and kind and full of goodness, broken with smiles and laughter? When I suffered in the forest and she saw me wasted with love, that dark-hued, virtuous woman would speak to me gently, as if her own sorrow were gone and she were glad." Two touches draw her character: she hid her own pain to comfort her husband, a memory from their days in the forest. "And what shall I say in Ayodhyā, prince, to proud Kausalyā when she asks, 'Where is my daughter-in-law?' Go, Lakṣmaṇa, go and see Bharata, who loves his brothers; I cannot live without the daughter of Janaka." Here Rāma's grief reaches its limit: he resolves on his own death and wants to send his brother home. His grief also widens from the personal to the social — he feels shame at what he must say to Janaka and to Kausalyā, and that sense of what he owes his father-in-law and his mother doubles his pain. What he said in the Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, that he could not live without Sītā, he says again here, and "Bharata, who loves his brothers" recalls the nature of Bharata so fully shown in that book. Rāma lamented like one forsaken — though in truth his brother stood beside him, and that contradiction only deepens the pathos. To that great soul, lamenting so, his brother Lakṣmaṇa spoke words that were fitting and sound.

"Take hold of yourself, Rāma, and may all be well with you; do not grieve, best of men. The minds of men like you, whose souls are clear, do not give way. Remember that parting brings sorrow, and let go of this excess of attachment to the one you love: even a wick soaked in water will burn if it is steeped in too much oil." The image is subtle and turns on a double meaning, for the Sanskrit word for affection also means oil: just as too much oil sets even a damp wick burning, too much love becomes a cause of pain. "Even if Rāvaṇa goes down to the underworld or beyond it, my lord, he will not survive. Let us first get word of that wicked rākṣasa; then he will either give Sītā back or go to his death. Even if he hides with Sītā in the womb of Diti, I will kill him there if he does not return the princess of Mithilā." Diti's womb stands for the most hidden place imaginable, a phrase met in similar form in the Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa. "Be yourself again, noble brother, and cast off this wretched thought. Those whose undertakings have failed do not win their object without effort. Energy is strong, my lord; there is no strength greater than energy, and for a man of energy nothing in the world is hard to win. Men of energy do not sink down in what they undertake; relying on energy alone, we shall win back Jānakī." Saying "we", Lakṣmaṇa binds himself to the task. "Give up this lovesick behaviour and put your grief behind you. You are a great soul, a man of disciplined mind, and you are forgetting who you are." This praise of energy is among the most famous pieces of practical wisdom in the Rāmāyaṇa, and it is the bridge from the despair of the Araṇya Kāṇḍa to the action of the Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa. Lakṣmaṇa's argument runs in a careful order — first comfort ("do not grieve"), then a lesson in detachment, then a vow that Rāvaṇa will not live even in the underworld, then a plan (first find news of him), and lastly the praise of energy. His saying that effort is needed to recover what is lost sounds like a maxim of statecraft, and the verses on energy are the central teaching of this sarga and indeed of the whole kāṇḍa, for everything ahead — the alliance with Sugrīva, the killing of Vālī, the search for Sītā — is a matter of action. His last words cut deepest: you have forgotten your own true nature.

Spoken to in this way, Rāma, whose mind had been struck down by grief, cast off grief and bewilderment and recovered his firmness — the immediate fruit of Lakṣmaṇa's counsel, and the moment of passage from the Araṇya to the Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa. Calm now, Rāma of unimaginable valour passed beyond the lovely, delightful Pampā with its swaying trees. Surveying the whole forest with its waterfalls and caves, that great soul, still troubled and stricken with sorrow, took counsel with Lakṣmaṇa and set out; and Lakṣmaṇa, walking with the grace of a rutting elephant, steady of mind and great of soul, doing all that pleased his brother, guarded Rāghava as he went, by righteousness and by strength — he protects him not with force alone but with dharma too. Then the scene changes. Near Ṛṣyamūka the swift lord of the tree-dwellers, Sugrīva, as he roamed, caught sight of those two of wondrous aspect; he was terrified and could not so much as move as he usually did. That great-souled monkey, pacing there with an elephant's slow gait, saw them walking and fell into utter despair; overcome with anxiety, he was crushed under the weight of his fear. The other monkeys too, terrified at the sight of the two mighty Rāghavas, fled to that holy, pleasant hermitage, a refuge always frequented by the tree-dwellers — the hermitage of Mataṅga, where a curse forbids Vālī to enter. So the sarga that began in the longing of separated love ends in fear, and the seed of the next sarga is sown. In the last five verses the metre changes from the steady epic couplet to longer, weightier metres, marking the close of the sarga with solemnity. And there is a fine reversal at the end: Rāma, who was drowning in his own grief, has himself become the cause of another's fear. The second sarga begins from that very fear.