Hari Om.
Let us begin the sixtieth sarga of the ayOdhyA kAnDam by offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
Minister sumantra dropped rAma, sItA and lakshmaNa at the banks of gangA and then waited for a few days there in the hope that rAma would summon him again, only to be disappointed. He had no other choice but to return to ayOdhyA and convey the message of rAma to the king and others. He unwillingly boarded his chariot and found that even the horses were shedding tears and were unwilling to move. Being an expert charioteer he ensured that the horses carried him to ayOdhyA. Entering ayOdhyA, he saw that he was not welcome at all! People were devastated to find the chariot bereft of rAma. The royal palace was a very picture of misery. King fainted repeatedly while listening to the account of a determined rAma. But he wanted to know even more about rAma. Minister recounted how nature itself was bereft of its own nature suffering from the separation with rAma. King daSaratha plunged into the ocean of grief listening to the uninhibited reporting of sumantra. Onwards…
Listening to the message of rAma and the state of the kingdom and its citizens, along with the king, the queen kausalyA also lost her senses. Now and then she would briefly recover and faint again. She seemed possessed by an evil spirit. Weeping disconsolately she addressed sumantra and said –
“O charioteer, please take me to wherever rAma, sItA and lakshmaNa are. I don’t wish to live here even for a moment without the trio. Come on, get the chariot ready to return to the danDaka. If I don’t follow rAma, I shall goto yama”.
Minister sumantra folded his hands to the fumbling and weeping mother of rAma and said – “Give up your sorrow and the resulting delusion and despair. rAma is determined to stay in the forest brushing aside all sorrow. The righteous lakshmaNa serves rAma in the forest and by that he is assured of a lofty higher world next. Even sItA treats the desolate forest as her home focusing on rAma and devoid of fear she serves him. In her I didn’t see the slightest of self pity or depression and she feels completely at home in the forest. Just like she used to revel in the mini-forests and gardens of ayOdhya, so does she revel in the forests now. Delightful sItA whose face has the brightness of moon delights in the deserted forest in the company of rAma. Her heart is submitted to rAma and her life is dedicated to him, and being so, even if she were in ayOdhyA, without him it would be like forest for her. As their chariot moved past the cities, villages, rivers and trees, sItA enquires about those from either rAma and lakshmaNa to learn about those and appears quite spirited just like having fun in a garden nearby ayOdhyA. She did mention something about kaikEyI but I don’t remember that now”.
Realizing how the inadvertent mention of kaikEyI’s name can bring back the grief, sumantra quickly rolled back his words and superseded the slip of tongue by saying other pleasing words of sItA’s well being and high spiritedness to kausalyA. He continued –
“Neither the tiredness of the travel, nor the wind nor the scorching heat can lesser the radiance of her face just like that of the moon, in fact her face beams like a fully bloomed hundred petaled lotus resembling the moon. Even though her feet are not smeared with the red liquid lac (alata/pArANi) now, they still are red and undimmed like the lotus buds and her graceful gait for rAma to delight him is the same even if she is not bedecked with ornaments and anklets.
She doesn’t get scared upon sighting lion or a tiger or an elephant being under the protection of rAma. Neither you nor the king need to sulk about this – this unfolding story of rAma is going to be etched in the world for eternity.
न शोच्यास्ते न चात्मनश्शोच्यो नापि जनाधिपः।
इदं हि चरितं लोके प्रतिष्ठास्यति शाश्वतम्।।2.60.21।।
O dEvi, you must feel good, they are living an upright life in the forest keeping grief at bay, following on the principles laid down by the mahaRshis, subsisting on the roots and fruits available in the foerst they are happily bringing their father’s promise to fruition and making his words come true”.
Although sumantra’s narrative was befitting to remove the sorrow of kausalyA, she still was lamenting the separation from rAma and kept repeating “O my dear, O my son, O my rAghava” sadly.
Here we conclude the sixtieth sarga of the ayOdhyA kAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
Click on the book for word by word meaning from IITK website
Click on the bow to listen to the audio by SrIrAma ghanApATi
Next: 2.60. In search of silver lining
Previous: 2.59. The ocean of grief
rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 
