भरतरामसमागमः पुष्पकविसर्जनं च

Hearing that news of supreme joy, Bharata, true in valour, gladly gave orders to Śatrughna, slayer of enemy heroes: “Let men who are pure worship all the gods and shrines of the city with fragrant garlands and with music. Let the bards who know the hymns and the old tales, all the heralds, all the skilled musicians and all the courtesans, the royal ladies and the ministers, the soldiers and the soldiers' women, the brāhmaṇas with the nobles, and the heads of the guilds and companies all go out to see Rāma's moon-like face.” For fourteen years the people had not seen that face, and the sight of it would be their greatest festival. There is an order in Bharata's command: first the gods, then the gifted, then the royal household, and last the people. He himself lived as an ascetic, yet he wanted Rāma's welcome to be fit for a king, and so he summoned people of every class — not only the king's men but singers, dancers, merchants and soldiers' wives — so that the whole of society should share in the welcome; the list shows how the city's society was made up in those days. Hearing Bharata, Śatrughna, a capable organiser, divided many thousands of hired labourers into separate gangs and gave each its task: “Level the low and uneven places and make them smooth. Clear the ground from Nandigrāma onward and sprinkle the whole road with water cold as snow. Let others scatter parched grain and flowers everywhere. Let the streets of this finest of cities have banners flying high, and before sunrise let them deck the houses with wreaths and garlands, loose flowers, gold and five-coloured decorations. Let hundreds of men be posted to keep the royal road clear.” The levelling and sprinkling were to keep down the dust, the flowers were for beauty and the banners a sign of joy, while keeping the royal road clear was a precaution so that no one should be hurt in the press of the crowd, and everything was to be ready before dawn. On Śatrughna's command everyone set to work gladly. A city that had held no festival for fourteen years was made ready in a single night.

Dhṛṣṭi, Jayanta, Vijaya, Siddhārtha, Arthasādhaka, Aśoka, Mantrapāla and Sumantra, the eight ministers, rode out on thousands of rutting elephants, bannered and richly adorned. Their names appear among Daśaratha's ministers in the Bāla and Ayodhyā Kāṇḍas, and Sumantra was the charioteer who had driven Rāma into the forest; today he went out to bring him home. Others rode out on she-elephants with golden girths, with tuskers beside them, and great chariot-fighters went on horseback and in chariots. The heroes went escorted by thousands of standard-bearers with banners and pennants, carrying spears, swords and nooses, by thousands of horses led by their chiefs and the chiefs of chiefs, and by thousands of foot soldiers. The army was complete in all its four parts, elephants, horses, chariots and infantry, but it marched out not for war but to do honour, and its splendour was the royal welcome due to a victorious king. Then all Daśaratha's queens, riding in carriages, went out with Kausalyā at their head and Sumitrā beside her; they rode, for they were aged and they were queens, and Kausalyā led them as Rāma's mother and the chief queen. And all of them, Kaikeyī among them, came to Nandigrāma. In naming Kaikeyī the poet hints that she who had caused Rāma's exile was now going out to welcome him too, and that the royal house of Ayodhyā was one again.

Then righteous Bharata, who knew dharma, went out to meet Rāma. The foremost of the twice-born surrounded him, with the heads of the guilds and the merchants, and ministers carrying garlands and sweets, the auspicious offerings of welcome; conches and kettledrums sounded and bards sang his praises, though his mind was on Rāma alone. He carried his noble brother's sandals on his head, and he took with him a white parasol hung with white garlands and two white yak-tail whisks fit for a king, trimmed with gold. He himself was thin from fasting and worn with sorrow, dressed in bark and black deerskin, yet on hearing of his brother's coming he was happy for the first time in fourteen years. So, with his counsellors, the great-souled Bharata went out to meet Rāma. With the thud of horses' hooves, the rumble of chariot wheels and the sound of conches and drums the earth seemed to tremble, and the trumpeting of elephants and the blare of conches and drums filled everything. The whole city came out to Nandigrāma. Bharata remained in his ascetic's dress, carrying for Rāma only the emblems of royalty — parasol, whisks and sandals; he was not the king, only the keeper of a trust. Though every sign of kingship went before him, he did not put on a king's dress himself, and this was the height of his humility. By carrying the sandals on his head he showed that the kingdom's master was Rāma and he only its bearer. Here brotherly love reaches its peak: Bharata could have taken the royal fortune for himself, yet he stood like Rāma's servant. Looking all around him, Bharata spoke to Hanūmān, son of the Wind.

“Surely,” he said, “this is not just a monkey's fickleness of mind? For I do not see Kākutstha, noble Rāma, scorcher of his foes, nor any of the monkeys who can take whatever form they please.” He feared that a false report of Rāma's coming had been spread. A mind that has waited so long cannot bear even a moment's delay, and so Bharata doubted even the bringer of good news; his doubt was itself a mark of his love, for the more one longs for something dear, the more one fears. Hanūmān was not offended; he answered Bharata, true in valour, by laying out the facts. “By Bharadvāja's grace the monkeys have found trees always in fruit and flower, dripping with honey and loud with drunken bees, and they are lingering there; for Indra gave the sage that boon as well, scorcher of foes, and he has offered Rāma and his army hospitality perfect in every way. Listen — you can hear the fearsome noise of the happy forest-dwellers. I think the monkey army is crossing the Gomatī. Look at that cloud of dust rising towards the sal forest; I think the monkeys are shaking that lovely forest. And there, far off, you can see the aerial car, bright as the moon — the divine Puṣpaka, made by Brahmā's mind, won by the great-souled Rāma when he slew Rāvaṇa and all his kin; shining like the rising sun, Rāma's own vehicle, swift as thought, which came to Kubera, Lord of Wealth, by Brahmā's favour. In it are the two heroic brothers of Raghu's line with Vaidehī, the splendid Sugrīva and the rākṣasa Vibhīṣaṇa.” Hanūmān's answer builds its proof step by step: first the reason for the delay, the monkeys feasting on the fruit, which was no lie; then the sound; then the dust; and last the car itself in plain sight — just as one senses an army approaching from afar, first by ear and then by eye. The car was made by Brahmā or Viśvakarman through the power of the mind, and in telling its history — made by Brahmā, given to Kubera, stolen by Rāvaṇa, won by Rāma — Hanūmān lets Bharata grasp how great Rāma's victory was. His “in it” is like pointing a finger: all the heroes are in that very car. His patience and his skill with words show once more. Then, as the word went round, “This is Rāma!”, a shout of joy went up from women, children, young men and old, and touched the sky.

All the people got down from their chariots, elephants and horses and stood on the ground, a mark of respect for their king, and gazed up at Rāma standing in the car like the moon in the sky. With joined palms, thrilled, his face turned to Rāghava, Bharata worshipped Rāma in due form with water for the guest and for his feet and all the rest. In the car made by Brahmā's mind, Bharata's elder brother with his large, long eyes shone like Indra, the immortal who wields the thunderbolt. Then Bharata bowed low and saluted his brother standing high on the front of the car, as the twice-born salute the sun rising on the peak of Meru. At Rāma's bidding that matchless car, drawn by swans and very swift, came down to the ground. Bharata, true in valour, was taken up into the car, went joyfully to Rāma and saluted him once more; so he bowed three times, first from afar with his offering, then to Rāma in the car, and again when he had climbed aboard. Kākutstha raised up the brother he had not seen for so long, took Bharata on his lap as a father takes a son, and embraced him with delight. Then that scorcher of foes went to Lakṣmaṇa and Vaidehī and saluted them lovingly, and, as a younger brother does before his elder brother's wife, he spoke his own name to Sītā. He honoured Lakṣmaṇa especially, for though the younger, Lakṣmaṇa had lived fourteen years in the forest in Rāma's service. Kaikeyī's son embraced Sugrīva, Jāmbavān and Aṅgada, Mainda and Dvivida, Nīla and Ṛṣabha, Suṣeṇa, Nala, Gavākṣa and Gandhamādana, Śarabha and Panasa, one after another; he embraced them all, not the leaders alone, as if he knew them by name, for Hanūmān had told him everything, and this was his way of showing gratitude. The monkeys, who could take any form they wished, took on human shape, so that the people of Ayodhyā would not be afraid, and joyfully asked after Bharata's welfare, for they too knew good manners. Then the splendid prince Bharata, finest of the righteous, embraced Sugrīva and said: “Sugrīva, you are the fifth brother to us four. A friend is made by kindness, and doing harm is the mark of an enemy.” That was a great honour, counting Sugrīva a member of the royal family; and his words define friendship: affection is where a friend is born and harm the sign of a foe, and since Sugrīva had done them good he was a friend, indeed a brother. To Vibhīṣaṇa Bharata said warmly, “How fortunate that with you as our ally so hard a deed has been done.” Then the heroic Śatrughna, Bharata's companion who had lived like an ascetic in Ayodhyā, saluted Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa and humbly bowed at Sītā's feet. So all the brothers were together again, the four of them side by side as in their childhood, and Rāma's family had grown wide, for monkeys and rākṣasas were now his kin.

Rāma went to his mother Kausalyā, pale and wasted with grief, and bowing low he clasped her feet and gladdened her heart; her face, drained by sorrow, brightened again at the sight of him. He saluted Sumitrā and the glorious Kaikeyī, and then all his mothers, and after that he went to the family priest Vasiṣṭha. The order is that of good manners: first his own mother, then Sumitrā, then Kaikeyī, then all Daśaratha's other queens, and then his teacher. That Rāma greeted Kaikeyī too with respect shows there was no bitterness in his heart, and that is one of his great virtues. “Welcome, mighty-armed one, joy of Kausalyā!” cried all the citizens to Rāma with joined palms; a simple greeting, but fourteen years of waiting lay behind it. And Bharata's elder brother saw those thousands of joined palms raised by the citizens like so many lotuses opening, a picture of the people's joy.

Then Bharata, who knew dharma, took Rāma's sandals himself and fitted them to his king's feet. For fourteen years those sandals had rested on the throne; now they were back on their master's feet, and that act was the sign that the kingdom was given back. With joined palms Bharata said to Rāma: “This whole kingdom, which I held in trust, I give back to you. Today my birth has found its meaning and my wish has come true, now that I see you back in Ayodhyā as king. Let your honour inspect the treasury, the granaries, the palace and the army; by your power I have made them all ten times greater.” A trust is property given into one's keeping, to be returned just as it was; Bharata returned it not as it was but ten times increased, which shows both the success of his rule and his selflessness. His words have three parts: the return of the kingdom, his own fulfilment, and the offer to have the treasury and the rest inspected, as a trustee hands his master a full account. The one purpose of his life had been Rāma's return, and today it was achieved. Seeing Bharata, so devoted to his brother, speak like this, the monkeys and the rākṣasa Vibhīṣaṇa wept. There is a poignancy in Vibhīṣaṇa's tears, for he himself had had to set himself against his own brother; and the tears of monkeys and rākṣasa alike, strangers who had never known Bharata, prove how great his sacrifice was.

Then Rāghava, in his joy, took Bharata on his lap and went with his army in the car to Bharata's hermitage. He went first to the place where Bharata had done his penance, not straight to the royal palace, to honour his brother's renunciation. Reaching the hermitage with his army, Rāghava came down from the car and stood on the ground. Then Rāma spoke to that matchless car as if it were a living thing: “Go now and carry the god Vaiśravaṇa; I give you leave. Go.” Dismissed by Rāma, the matchless car set off towards the north and went to the dwelling of the Lord of Wealth; the divine Puṣpaka, which the rākṣasa had seized, went swiftly back to Kubera, urged on by Rāma's word. Rāma did not keep what belonged to another; he returned the car Rāvaṇa had stolen to its rightful owner, as dharma requires, and so the last trace of Rāvaṇa's wrongdoing was undone. Then, as Indra, lord of the immortals, clasps the feet of Bṛhaspati, the valiant Rāghava pressed the feet of the family priest, his own close friend — Vasiṣṭha, or on another reading Vasiṣṭha's son Suyajña — and sat down beside him on a splendid seat of his own. The bond between king and priest is like that of Indra and Bṛhaspati; even a king is a pupil before his teacher. So the sarga ends in peace, and the consecration follows in the next.