अशोकवनिकाविहारः सीतायाः तपोवनदर्शनेच्छा च

Having dismissed the gold-adorned Puṣpaka, mighty-armed Rāma went into the Aśoka grove, the pleasure-garden of the inner palace. The poet describes it at length, because it is here, in the latter part of the sarga, that the news of Sītā's pregnancy and her wish will come out. The grove was graced on every side with sandal, aloe-wood, mango, tuṅga and kāleyaka trees and groves of deodar; adorned with campaka, aśoka, punnāga, madhūka, jackfruit and asana trees, and with pārijātas that shone like smokeless fire; overspread with lodhra, nīpa, arjuna, nāga, saptaparṇa and atimuktaka trees, with mandāras and plantains, thickets and nets of creepers; and made beautiful with priyaṅgu, kadamba and bakula trees, rose-apple, pomegranate and kovidāra. The poet names the trees one by one, a picture almost of the whole flora of India — some famous for fragrance, some for fruit, some for flowers, some for shade — and together they show how complete the royal garden was. There were lovely trees always in flower and fruit, rich in heavenly fragrance and savour, with fresh shoots and young leaves; flowers in every season regardless of the time of year are the sign of a heavenly garden. There were heavenly trees shaped by craftsmen too, laden with lovely leaves and flowers and swarming with drunken bees — the grove was the work of human skill as well as of nature. Cuckoos, bhṛṅgarājas and birds of many colours brightened it, and the mango trees crowning it like ear-ornaments made it gay a hundredfold. Some of the trees shone like gold, some like flames of fire, others like dark collyrium, and the three colours show the grove's rich variety. The name Aśoka grove is worth remembering: in Laṅkā too Sītā had lived in an Aśoka grove, in sorrow; here in Ayodhyā, in an Aśoka grove again, she took her pleasure happily with Rāma, and the likeness of name sets past grief against present joy.

There were fragrant flowers and garlands of every kind, and pools of many shapes filled with the finest, clearest water. Their steps were made of rubies and their floors of crystal, so that light shone even beneath the water; they had beds of full-blown lotuses and water-lilies, graced by cakravāka birds, loud with gallinules and parrots and ringing with the cries of swans and cranes — sound joined to sight in the picture — and lined with trees along their banks, dappled with flowers. Rubies, crystal and beryl mingled with nature to show the splendour of a royal garden. The cakravākas are emblems of married love, flying together by day and parted by night, and their mention seems a faint hint of the parting of Rāma and Sītā to come. The pools were set off by enclosures of many shapes and by slabs of stone. In that same part of the grove, rich in lawns green as beryl and groves of flowering trees, the blossoms of trees that seemed to vie with one another in flowering fell on the rocks and dappled them like the sky with its hosts of stars — a lovely image of white flowers on dark stone like stars in the night sky. So the poet brings together water, stone, grass and flower into a complete picture of the garden. As Indra's Nandana, as Kubera's Caitraratha fashioned by Brahmā, such was Rāma's pleasure-grove and residence: Ayodhyā's garden was the equal of the gardens of heaven, and Rāma's kingdom a heaven on earth. The Aśoka grove was furnished with many pavilions for sitting and surrounded by bowers of creepers, places of rest and privacy where the royal couple could take their pleasure.

Entering that rich Aśoka grove, Raghunandana sat down on a handsome seat strewn with heaps of flowers and spread with rugs and coverings. Taking Sītā by the hand, he gave her pure maireya wine to drink, as Purandara gives it to Śacī. The servants quickly brought well-prepared meats and fruits of many kinds for Rāma's meal. Before the king there danced those skilled in dance and song — troops of apsarases, and nāga maidens attended by kinnarīs — and lovely, graceful women, warmed with wine and skilled in dance and song, danced before Kākutstha: the splendour of the heavenly worlds had come to Ayodhyā. Wine, meat, dance and song were the natural pleasures of kings in that age, and the poet describes them without embarrassment. Rāma, best of those who give delight, the righteous one, always pleased those charming, richly adorned women with gifts and marks of favour. But at the centre of all his pleasures was Sītā: he gave her wine with his own hand, sat beside her, and delighted in her. Seated beside Sītā he shone in his splendour like Vasiṣṭha seated beside Arundhatī — an image of the holiness of their marriage: even in their pleasures the bounds of dharma were kept. So, full of joy, Rāma took his delight day after day, like a god, with Vaidehī, who was like a daughter of the gods — theirs was a happiness almost divine. While Sītā and Rāghava sported together thus for a long time, the lovely, bountiful cool season passed; enjoying pleasures of every kind, they saw the winter go by, as time passes quickly in happiness. This picture of happiness is the backdrop to the parting that is coming: the poet shows the peak of joy and then begins the sorrow.

Rāma, who knew dharma, did the business of dharma righteously in the forenoon, and for the rest of the day, its latter half, he stayed in the inner apartments — the proper order of a king's day by the law-books, first his people's affairs in the court, then rest in his home. Sītā too, having performed her morning worship of the gods, served all her mothers-in-law alike — "alike" meaning that she served Kaikeyī just as she served Kausalyā, with no ill will in her heart. Her day too was that of an ideal wife: first worship, then service of the elders, then her husband's company. Then, in bright ornaments and garments put on to please her husband, she came to Rāma, as Śacī comes to thousand-eyed Indra seated in heaven — the image of royal splendour, following the earlier one of holiness, Arundhatī and Vasiṣṭha. Seeing his wife bearing the auspicious signs of pregnancy, Rāghava felt joy beyond compare and cried, "Well done, well done!" — a spontaneous outburst of delight, doubled because he rejoiced both as a husband and as a king at the coming of an heir to his line. And he said to lovely Sītā, who was like a daughter of the gods, "Vaidehī, the blessing of a child has come to you." This news is the pivot of the sarga; from here the whole story moves towards this child, and the birth of Lava and Kuśa.

"What do you wish for, fair lady? What desire of yours shall I fulfil?" Rāma asked — for by custom the cravings of a pregnant woman must be satisfied. Smiling, Vaidehī said to Rāma, "Rāghava, I wish to see the holy groves where the ascetics live — the sages of fierce power who dwell on the bank of the Gaṅgā, living on fruit and roots — and to stay at their feet, my lord. This is my dearest wish: to spend even a single night among those who eat roots and fruit, in their ascetic grove, Kākutstha." Her wish had three parts — to see the holy groves, to stay at the sages' feet, and to spend a night there — and it awakens the memory of the years of exile: amid royal pleasures her heart still delighted in the forest hermitages, drawn by the simple life of the ascetics, the opposite of palace luxury, and remembering the peace she had known in the hermitages of the Daṇḍaka forest. Rāma, whose deeds are done without strain, promised, "So be it. Be at ease, Vaidehī; you shall go tomorrow without fail" — reassuring her and fixing the very day, as a promise to be kept at once. Having said this to Maithilī, Janaka's daughter, Kākutstha left her and went out, surrounded by his friends, to the middle court — and those friends foreshadow the gathering of the next sarga, where Bhadra will report what the citizens are saying. Here lies the story's piteous irony: Sītā's innocent wish would become the occasion of her abandonment, and what Rāma promised in love he would fulfil in sorrow. "Even a single night," she asked — one night was all she wanted, but fate would keep her long in the forest.