रामस्य मूर्च्छा लक्ष्मणस्य अर्थप्रशंसा च

Rāghava, too, heard the great din of battle between the rākṣasas and the forest-dwellers, and said to Jāmbavān: "Gentle friend, Hanumān must surely have done some very hard deed, for a terrible and tremendous clash of weapons can be heard. Go quickly, lord of the bears, with your own army about you, and help that best of monkeys in his fight." Hearing the noise from afar, Rāma guessed that Hanumān was in danger and sent the old and valiant Jāmbavān to him. Saying, "So be it," the king of the bears set out with his troops for the western gate, where Hanumān was. On the way the lord of the bears saw Hanumān coming, surrounded by monkeys who had been in battle and were panting. Seeing that army of bears, terrible as a dark cloud and ready to fight, Hanumān held it back and turned back himself, for in his view there was no longer any point in fighting; that the bears came to fight and Hanumān stopped them shows the trust between the two commanders. Coming quickly with the army into Rāma's presence, the illustrious Hanumān spoke to him in sorrow: "While we were fighting in the battle, before our very eyes, Indrajit, son of Rāvaṇa, killed Sītā as she wept. Seeing it, subduer of foes, I was distraught and dejected, and I have come to report to you what happened." His words were brief but heavy; he added no ornament and only told the truth as he had seen it. "Distraught" shows his own state: he who had done everything so steadily in the Sundara Kāṇḍa was shaken today. By calling Rāma "subduer of foes" he tried to steady his mind by recalling his valour. The story moves quickly here, the din heard, help sent, Jāmbavān setting out, Hanumān returning, and the news told. The reader knows the murdered Sītā was only an illusion, but Rāma and Hanumān do not, and the irony is sharp. Hanumān had seen the real Sītā in the Aśoka grove, so Rāma had no reason to doubt his word; that is exactly why Indrajit's trick succeeded, for the one who knew the true Sītā had vouched for the false one.

Hearing his words, Rāghava, overcome with grief, fell to the ground like a tree cut at the root; the image fits exactly, for as a tree falls at once when its root is cut, so the news of Sītā's death seemed to cut the very root of Rāma's life. Seeing Rāghava, who was like a god, fallen on the ground, the best of monkeys leapt up and ran to him from every side. Though grieving themselves, they cared first for their master: they sprinkled him with water fragrant with lotuses and lilies, for his grief burned him like a fire suddenly flaring up that cannot be put out, and they tried to cool it. Then Lakṣmaṇa, deeply distressed, took him in his arms and spoke to the stricken Rāma words full of reasons and purpose. The poet tells us in advance that what follows is an argument driven by reasoning, not merely by feeling.

"Noble brother, you keep to the good path and have mastered your senses, yet righteousness cannot save you from misfortune; so it is useless. We can see the creatures that move and those that do not, but righteousness cannot be seen in that way, and so I think it does not exist. If it were as plain as moving and unmoving things, this could not have happened; someone like you would not come to ruin. If unrighteousness were real, Rāvaṇa would go to hell, and you, devoted to righteousness, would never meet disaster. Since he has no misfortune and misfortune has come upon you, righteousness and unrighteousness turn out to contradict each other, for their fruits are seen reversed. One would gain righteousness by righteousness and unrighteousness by unrighteousness if those in whom wrong is firmly lodged were bound to its fruit, if those who delight in wrong were cut off from the fruits of right, and those who act rightly reaped the reward of righteousness. But since wealth grows for those in whom wrong is lodged while the righteous suffer, both are meaningless. If the wicked are killed by unrighteousness, Rāghava, then unrighteousness, struck down by the very act of killing, is itself destroyed; whom will it kill? Or if it is by fate that a man is killed or kills another, then fate is stained by the deed, not the man by the sin. How can one reach the highest good, scourge of foes, through a righteousness whose response is never seen, which is unmanifest, which both is and is not? If it were real, first of the good, nothing so unreal would have befallen you; since such a thing has befallen you, it does not hold good." Lakṣmaṇa sounds almost like an unbeliever here, but his purpose was only to rouse his grief-stricken brother to action: by showing that righteousness bears no visible fruit, he meant to turn Rāma's mind from sorrow to anger. These arguments were spoken in the heat of grief, not as settled doctrine. He tests three positions: that righteousness cannot be perceived; that its fruits are seen reversed; and that if fate is the doer, the man bears no guilt, so that "fate is stained by the deed" rejects fatalism too, since if all depends on fate, fate should bear the sin. Such an argument is rare in the Rāmāyaṇa, where everywhere else righteousness is set first; here Lakṣmaṇa argues against it, out of love for his brother mixed with grief. Why does the righteous Rāma suffer while the sinful Rāvaṇa prospers? The question belongs to every age. Lakṣmaṇa gives no answer; he only raises the question sharply, and Rāma will answer it himself by his deeds, killing Rāvaṇa without ever abandoning righteousness. The reader should take these verses as the case for the opposing side, not as the poem's conclusion.

"Or else righteousness is weak and impotent and follows strength; in my view the weak, who have lost their bounds, are not to be served. If righteousness is only the servant of strength and valour, then give up righteousness and act by strength as you once acted by righteousness. And if righteousness means speaking the truth, scorcher of foes, then had you not done what our father asked you would have made his word a lie; was it not because of you that our father was bound? If either righteousness or unrighteousness were real, Indra of the hundred sacrifices, wielder of the thunderbolt, would not have killed a sage and then performed a sacrifice. Righteousness that rests on unrighteousness destroys, Rāghava; a man does all these things as he pleases, Kākutstha. This is my view, dear brother: this was righteousness, Rāghava, yet when you gave up the kingdom you cut off the very root of righteousness." The example of Indra recalls the story of his killing Viśvarūpa: though he killed a sage, he still performed sacrifice and remained king of the gods, so, Lakṣmaṇa means, the fruits of right and wrong are not fixed. The remark about truthfulness recalls Daśaratha's promise: Rāma went to the forest to keep his father's word true, and all it brought him was sorrow, so what had been gained by keeping truth? He reproached Rāma that giving up the kingdom was the root of all their sorrow, since kingdom and wealth are the foundation of righteousness.

"From wealth, grown great and gathered from here and there, all undertakings flow, as rivers flow from the mountains. When a man of little mind is deprived of wealth, all his undertakings dry up like little streams in summer. A man raised in comfort who gives up wealth and still longs for pleasure turns to wrongdoing, and then evil takes hold. He who has wealth has friends; he who has wealth has kinsmen; he who has wealth is counted a man in the world; he who has wealth is learned. He who has wealth is valiant, wise, fortunate, rich in virtues. I have set out, steadfast one, the evils that follow from giving up wealth, as you did when you resolved to renounce the kingdom. For the man who has wealth, righteousness, pleasure and wealth all go well; the penniless man who seeks wealth cannot find it by searching. Joy, desire, pride, righteousness, anger, calm and self-restraint, all these spring from wealth, lord of men. The wealth by which those who walk in righteousness win this world is not to be seen in you, like the planets on cloudy days." The repeated "he who has wealth" betrays the speaker's passion. This praise of wealth follows the worldly outlook of the science of statecraft, in which righteousness and pleasure depend on wealth. He counts seven fruits of wealth, friends, kinsmen, manhood, learning, valour, wisdom and good fortune, for in the world the rich man is thought to have every virtue and the poor man is ignored however good he is. The rivers flowing from mountains make wealth the source of every undertaking, and the streams drying in summer show how a poor man's work withers. By saying that even righteousness springs from wealth he rounds off his earlier argument. The planets hidden on cloudy days are an especially fine image: they are there but cannot be seen behind the clouds, and so in exile Rāma's royal fortune was hidden. Again and again Lakṣmaṇa names the renunciation of the kingdom as the root of their sorrow, to rouse Rāma now towards kingship and victory.

"While you were in exile, hero, keeping to our father's word, the rākṣasa carried off your wife, dearer to you than life. Today, hero, by my deeds I shall wipe out the great grief Indrajit has caused. So rise up, Rāghava. Rise up, tiger among men, long-armed one, firm in your vows. Why do you not recognise yourself as the great Self? Sinless one, I have said all this for your sake. Enraged at seeing the death of Janaka's daughter, I shall bring down Laṅkā with my arrows, its chariots, elephants and horses, and the lord of the rākṣasas with it." So Lakṣmaṇa's long argument ends in action. His aim was not to establish a philosophy but to break Rāma's despair and to voice his own fury at Sītā's killing. By asking why Rāma does not know himself as the great Self he recalls Rāma's divine nature, and by saying "I have said this for your sake" he admits that his arguments were spoken to please Rāma and lift his grief. The last verse, in a longer metre, joins Lakṣmaṇa's rage and his vow.