The Ramayana (24 page)

Rama lost control of himself. He turned to Sita and cried, “Did you hear what Bharata said? The king is dead. Lakshmana, you have lost your father!” And he sobbed and sobbed.

At last, Bharata said, “Rama, you must offer tarpana for him. Shatrughna and I performed the anjali in Ayodhya. But I know his soul will not find rest until you offer him holy water.”

Rama grew calm; he wiped his eyes. In a moment, he said quietly to Lakshmana, “Bring me a cloth to cover my body; fetch me some ingudi. I will offer tarpana to my father.”

When the cloth and the humble cake of dry fruit were brought, Rama said, “Sita, you walk in front. Lakshmana, you go behind her and I will follow. Let us go to the river.”

From over the crest of the mountain the last rays of the sun fell, scarlet and golden, on the quiet Mandakini. Restraining his grief, Rama stood solemnly, waist deep in the water. Facing south, he raised his arms above his head. He said aloud, “Father, you have been gathered to our ancestors in Pitriloka. Quench your journey's thirst with this water.”

He came out of the river and made the offering of pinda. He broke the ingudi cake, ground it with the flesh of a badari fruit, and set the pinda down on a seat of darbha grass that Lakshmana prepared. He said, “A man's Gods should accept the food he eats. We now eat this fruit in the name of our father, Dasaratha of Ikshvaku. Gods in heaven, be gracious and accept our offering.”

The four brothers ate the fruit and embraced one another. Then, with their arms linked, the princes of Ayodhya returned to the asrama as night fell.

 

31. A question of dharma

Shortly after the princes left the banks of the Mandakini, Vasishta arrived there with the two elder widows of Ayodhya. Kaikeyi had stayed far behind in the forest, her mind a sad fire. By the light of torches that the trackers held above their heads, they saw a faint trail at their feet. Kausalya said, “Look, Sumitra. It is the path Lakshmana has made when he carries water to the asrama.”

They saw the simple pinda Rama had offered to the spirit of his dead father. Kausalya stifled a sob, “Look where the eldest son offered pinda to his father. Dasaratha, who lived like a God on earth, must now be content with a pinda of ingudi and badari.”

Wiping her eyes, Sumitra said quietly, “And he shall be content for the one who offered it.”

They followed Lakshmana's trail, and arrived at the asrama. Rama and Lakshmana came out to meet their mothers. Kausalya clasped Sita in her arms and fondled her as if she were her own daughter. Like Indra greeting Brihaspati, Rama knelt at Vasishta's feet; the rishi raised him up and embraced him.

Their grief binding them closer than ever, they sat together around a fire Lakshmana lit outside the log cottage. Like four flames of another fire sat the princes of Ayodhya around their guru. The other rishis and the ministers waited in a circle around the inner ring of Vasishta, the queens, and the brothers. Save for the cheery crackling of the branches Lakshmana had laid on, silence was upon them: the deep silence of the mountain, the sky above, in which fateful stars hung low, and the forest.

Rama said to Bharata, “I want to know why you have come here dressed like a rishi, when your place is on the throne of Ayodhya.”

Bharata stood up and folded his hands to his brother. He said, “In his last days, our father strayed from dharma. He was separated from you and he died brokenhearted. He ruined his taintless life for the sake of an evil woman, my mother Kaikeyi, who has lost everything now. She does not have what she wanted; and Dasaratha, who loved her like his breath, is gone. Her fate is too horrible even to think of. She is destined for the worst hell of all.

“But I am not here to speak of the past. Come back to Ayodhya, my brother. Be crowned king, as the people want. Let the clouds of despair vanish from our sky, and the sun and the moon shine on us again. You are the jewel of the Ikshvakus, Rama. Return to us.”

He spoke slowly; often, his voice choked with the strain of everything he had endured since he had been called back from Rajagriha. Rama rose and took Bharata in his arms. By now, most of the common people had arrived in that hermitage. Rama spoke loudly, so everyone heard him. He spoke with his arm around Bharata.

“How could anyone have thought for a moment that you wanted the throne for yourself? Noble child, you have more of the divine ancestry of Ikshvaku in you than the merely human. And you are a master of yourself. But as for my returning to Ayodhya, it is out of the question.

“There was never any error in what has happened, Bharata. It was the will of not just one but two of my parents that I spend fourteen years in the wilderness. And here I am. Our father died having made his wishes clear. I believe that one day you will realize what once seemed to be the obscure path was the way of dharma. Dasaratha died for that righteous way; though perhaps even to him the will of fate appeared cruel. Bharata, there are deeper forces at work in our lives than we know. There are greater tasks to be accomplished than we yet understand.

“So, my brother, as my father and my mother Kaikeyi wanted, I will rule the Dandaka vana for fourteen years. And you will rule Ayodhya.”

Bharata began to speak, but Rama held up his hand and said, “It is late now, and our mothers have had a long journey. It is not right that we keep them awake any longer.”

While the queens slept in the cottage, the rest of the people and the army of Ayodhya slept under the stars, most of them thinking how happily they could live here in the wilds as long as they were near Rama. His serenity and strength were like balm to their troubled hearts, and they slept soundly for the first time since he had left Ayodhya.

*   *   *

With sunrise, they gathered again around the ashes of the night's fire.

Bharata began, “Rama, I will grant everything you said last night. I will admit that our father was in perfect possession of his reason when he gave the kingdom to me. Ayodhya is mine, I grant you that. But I have a great desire to lay what is mine at your feet. Take it from me. Ayodhya is a broken dream. Only you can put its pieces together again and heal our kingdom. Accept my offering; it is for the good of everyone. The task is beyond me, and not what I was born for. Help me, Rama: come back home.”

Rama replied, “It is not that I don't understand you, or feel sympathy for you. But fate has ordained that my path lead through the jungle, and yours to the throne of Ayodhya. I grant that common sense might cry out otherwise; but fate is beyond mere common sense. Once I came out into the wilderness, I sensed fate clearly in my heart: the forest calls me more urgently than Ayodhya. For me Ayodhya is far away. I will surely return to it one day; but not yet.

“Think of time, Bharata: how she carries us along, helpless, on her mysterious currents. Her ways and her purposes are always secret, and just hers to know. What is gathered today is scattered without warning tomorrow. Think of our father. He led such a great life; just look at his end.

“Nothing except change is permanent in our lives, and nothing but death is final in this world. Death walks at our side on every trail; he wrinkles our skin and turns our hair white. We delight in each sunrise and sunset, and forget that our lives are shortened by every one. The seasons come, each with its own allurements; but they take great slices of our lives with them.

“The relations of men are like ships passing each other on the ocean; whether with fathers, mothers, wives, or children. We meet and are briefly together, only to part inevitably: if not in life, then surely in death. We must not make too much of our sorrow; it is nature's way. And who are we to question the wisdom of fate?

“Bharata, put away this petty grief. Accept your lot as our father left it to you, as his last dictate. Think of the Lord, who alone is beyond change, and walk the way of dharma without flinching. Go back to Ayodhya; take up the reins of kingdom in your able hands. I know you will be a great king. And our father knew this also, or he would not have left his body.

“Bharata, it is no use trying to swerve me from my path. It is written for me that I live in the jungle for fourteen years, and nothing you can say will change my mind. I can feel my destiny here; now that our father is dead, I can feel it more plainly than ever.”

Rama fell thoughtful. But Bharata was not to be convinced so easily. He let the silence drift for a while, then said, “I flatter myself that I know you better than most, Rama. You are not moved by life's vicissitudes or trials, which shake other men. Leave off your stubbornness in this thing; whether it is the Dandaka vana or Ayodhya makes little difference to you. Come home, if only to save my mother and me from her sin. Let us have at least partial expiation by your return.

“Come home, Rama, out of your love for me if nothing else. Save me from the crime of sitting on your throne. Protect me from the world's censure, as an older brother should, for a sin I have no wish to commit. Everyone knows that when a man nears his end he loses his reason; that is what happened to our father. Your place is in the palace of Ayodhya, on its ancient throne. Only in the twilight of your years must you even think of the forest.”

Bharata paused. When Rama was silent, he thought his brother had relented. He pressed on, “I have brought everything with me for the coronation. We will crown you here and take you back with us in triumph. Every nation must have the best man in it as its king. I am not your equal: the world, you and I, we all know that. Give up your obstinacy; the people have come to see you being crowned. They have come for the joy you robbed them of in Ayodhya.

“If you do not return, I will stay here with you.”

Rama said, “You are a worthy scion of Ikshvaku, and the noble son of a noble father. But there is something you do not know, something not even Kaikeyi knows, which once our father told me. When Kaikeyi was given to Dasaratha, the kanya sulka promised to your grandfather Asvapati was that his grandson would be crowned king of Ayodhya one day.”

A gasp went up from the army and the people. Even Bharata was visibly startled. Rama said, “Dasaratha could not in conscience forget his oath, any more than he could the boons he had granted your mother. It was as if Kaikeyi remembered her boons to remind him of the kanya sulka he had pledged to Asvapati.

“Bharata, it was against his will that he agreed to what Kaikeyi asked. He died of grief for what he had to do. How can you say he had lost his reason? Our father hated what he did for the sake of dharma; but he knew it had to be done. And now, as soon as he is dead, you expect me to break the solemn oath for which he gave his life?”

Bharata had no answer to this.

But now Vasishta said, “Rama, a man has three gurus: his mother, his father, and his master who initiates him into the way of the spirit. Of the three, the third is the most revered because he shows the way to eternal life. As your guru I say to you, for the sake of the House of Ikshvaku, for the sake of this sea of souls gathered here, who depend on you, for your mothers' sake, for Bharata's sake, and to honor what I say: come back to Ayodhya and be crowned. I, Vasishta, tell you that your dharma will not be tarnished even a little.”

Rama grew sad to hear his guru, who loved him. But he said, “From my earliest childhood, my parents have been gurus to me. My debt to them is eternal. The love and generosity with which they brought me up has made me whatever I am today. I cannot break the sacred word I gave my father.”

Bharata could not bear it. He said to Sumantra, “Spread darbha grass on the ground for me, Sumantra. Until my brother agrees to come back to Ayodhya and be crowned, I will fast—to death, if need be!”

But taking his brother by the arm, Rama laughed. “Bharata, this means of persuasion is not for a kshatriya! Only a brahmana may sit fruitfully in prayopavesha. Don't compel me like this. I will not go back and you will just add to my sorrow.”

Bharata cried to the people of Ayodhya, “Why do you stand so quietly? Why don't you force him to return?” But the people replied only with an uneasy silence. Having heard what he had to say, they seemed to agree with Rama about the way of dharma. Or else they saw he could not be moved.

But Bharata cried, “If Rama insists that one of us spend fourteen years in the jungle, let me be the one who stays here. And let him return to Ayodhya and rule from the throne he was born to.”

Rama replied, “When my exile is served I will come home. And then I will sit upon the throne of Ikshvaku, if you still want me to. But now, your place is on that throne and mine is here in the wilderness. It was our father's last wish and you should honor it.”

The rishis murmured among themselves how fortunate Dasaratha was to have sons like these. Finally, Vasishta conceded, “Bharata, child, I am afraid Rama is right. For whatever reason, it was your father's last wish that you rule during the fourteen years of your brother's exile. You are bound in honor to obey your father. Let his death not be in vain.”

Rama's face lit up.

 

32. Parting

When Vasishta spoke on Rama's part, Bharata, forsaken by his last ally, knelt in sorrow at his brother's feet. He said, “How hard you expect me to be that I must sit on Ayodhya's throne while you live in the jungle.”

Rama raised him up. “Don't tell me you are not capable of ruling Ayodhya, for that is not true. You know as well as I do that you can rule the whole world if you set your mind to it. It won't be as hard as you imagine, Bharata. Our father's ministers are all with you, and you will learn quickly.”

Bharata knew his battle was lost. He knew he would have to return to Ayodhya without Rama. He wiped his tears, and said with dignity, “Rama, now that Dasaratha is dead, you have the place of my father. I will do what you tell me to. Only don't ask me to take the kingdom for myself; that would be too cruel.”

He had come prepared for this final exigency. Rummaging among the things he had brought with him for Rama's jungle coronation, he fetched out a pair of wooden padukas. He had brought these for Rama to wear when he was crowned in the forest. He laid them at Rama's feet, while his brother stood bemused.