वाल्मीक्याश्रमे रामचरितश्रवणम्

In the twelfth year Śatrughna wished to go to Ayodhyā, the city Rāma protected, with only a small following of servants and troops, leaving the great army behind to guard the city. He sent back his ministers and chief commanders, entrusting the city to them as a good ruler should, and set out with the finest of his horses and a hundred chariots. Stopping at the seven or eight halts reckoned for the road, the illustrious delight of the Raghus came to Vālmīki's hermitage and stayed there, just as he had on his way to kill Lavaṇa. That bull among men saluted Vālmīki's feet and received from the sage's hand water for his feet, the guest-offering and hospitality. Twelve years had passed, and the reader surmises that in that time Kuśa and Lava had grown up and been taught the Rāmāyaṇa by Vālmīki; so this stay in the hermitage would prove especially significant, and the thread of the story turns once more towards Sītā's sons.

There the sage told the great-souled Śatrughna thousands of stories of many kinds, very sweet to hear, and he spoke of the slaying of Lavaṇa. "You did a very hard thing in killing Lavaṇa," he said. "Many mighty kings, gentle and mighty-armed one, fought Lavaṇa and were slain with their armies and mounts. That wicked one you killed as if in play, bull among men, and by your might the world's fear has been stilled. Rāvaṇa's dreadful death was brought about with great effort; this great deed you have done without effort. The gods rejoiced greatly when Lavaṇa was slain; you have done what is dear to all beings and to the whole world. I saw that battle just as it happened, bull among men, sitting in Indra's hall, Rāghava." Vālmīki encouraged Śatrughna, raising the glory of his deed by comparing it with Rāvaṇa's slaying; and his praise was generous, calling it done "as if in play" though Śatrughna had fallen in a swoon during the fight. His words also reveal his ascetic power, able to go to Indra's hall and watch the battle with divine sight; that more than human knowledge was what enabled him to compose the story of Rāma. Even twelve years later the sage remembered the battle, because its fruit, the world's freedom from fear, had lasted; and praising a guest's deeds is itself part of hospitality.

The sage showed his tenderness. "In my heart too there is the greatest joy, Śatrughna. I will kiss you on the head; that is the utmost affection can do." To kiss the head is, by Indian custom, the highest sign of an elder's love and blessing. With these words the wise Vālmīki kissed Śatrughna on the head, and gave hospitality to him and to all who followed him, honouring not only the king but his servants too, such was the hermitage's generosity. Vālmīki's affection shows his deep bond with Raghu's line: he was Sītā's guardian and her sons' teacher, and now he loved Śatrughna too like a father.

When he had eaten, that best of men heard, in due order, the story of Rāma, sung with the sweetest music. The poet describes the singing with care: it kept time with the strings of the vīṇā; it was voiced from the three places of chest, throat and head, in low, middle and high registers; it was in polished Sanskrit, with all the marks of grammar, metre and poetic art; and it was sung to an even beat, an ideal of both music and poetry. At that time he heard the story of Rāma that had been composed long before, words that were true, telling what had actually happened, in order from the beginning. "True" points to the Rāmāyaṇa's faithfulness to what really occurred. The poet does not say here who the singers were, but the reader knows: Kuśa and Lava, whom Vālmīki had trained there. The Rāmāyaṇa being sung within the Rāmāyaṇa: here for the first time the poem reflects itself.

As he listened, Śatrughna, tiger among men, lost his senses and his eyes filled with tears; for a moment he was as if unconscious, sighing again and again, and in that song he heard what had happened as though it were happening before him. The exile, Sītā's abduction, the war, all became present again, and he was overwhelmed. His swoon may also have come from remembering Sītā, banished twelve years before, who lived in this very place and whose sorrow the song told. The king's followers too, hearing that wealth of song, hung their heads, sad at heart, and said, "A marvel!" The soldiers said to one another, "What is this? Where are we? Is this some vision in a dream? What we saw long ago we are hearing again in this hermitage. Are we hearing this wonderful song in a dream?" Those soldiers had been present in Rāma's battles, so to hear their own experience sung astonished them; and their thought that it was a dream was natural, for they had never heard real events sung so faithfully. Their bowed heads and sorrow show the power of the poem's pathos, and here the power of poetry to bring the past alive in the listener's heart is on display. Filled with the greatest wonder, they spoke to Śatrughna.

"Best of men," the soldiers said, "ask Vālmīki, bull among sages, what this is." But Śatrughna said to them all, curious as they were, "Soldiers, it is not fitting for us to question him about such things here. Many marvels happen in this sage's hermitage, and it is not right to probe the great sage out of curiosity." He held back his own curiosity out of respect, for a seer's secrets are not to be pried into. Having said this to the soldiers, the delight of the Raghus saluted the great seer and went to his own lodging. Śatrughna's restraint matters to the story: he did not reveal the secret here, so that Kuśa and Lava would be made known only at the time of Rāma's horse-sacrifice, and so the poet preserves the story's climax. Though Śatrughna had witnessed the birth of Sītā's sons, he kept silent, honouring the sage's wishes.