Hari Om.
Let us begin the sixty first sarga of the ayOdhyA kAnDam by offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
Triggered by kausalyA’s piteous accusations, king daSaratha sought her forgiveness. The soft hearted and righteous woman that kausalyA was, at once she felt remorse and treating husband harshly and begged for forgiveness. Memories of the youth, when once the king by mistake committed a terrible sin came gushing. It was the killing of a youngster, son of a sage in darkness, by a sound guided arrow thinking it was an elephant drinking water from the sarayu river. The unerring arrow claimed the life of the boy and the prince daSaratha was numb due to this mindless act. Before passing the boy asked the king to go and convey the news of his death to his old and blind parents who depended on their son for every single need of theirs. The king had no other go but to confess and convey this devastating news to the old parents. Onwards…
King daSaratha felt devastated at the killing of the son of the sage. He grieved for that and in that terrible and pitiable state choked with tears he continued his narration to kausalyA –
“I was contemplating on ways to expiate that sin which I committed inadvertently. Mustering courage, I filled the pot with water and walked on the path directed by the boy to the hermitage to see his parents. There in the hermitage I was his emaciated, old, blind and dependent parents sitting there like birds with clipped wings. They were sitting there talking about their son whom I just deprived them off. Seeing this, my heart was shredded and my grief grew manifold. I was terribly afraid of facing them.
They heard my footsteps and took me for their son and said – O son, why are you so delayed? You seem to be sporting in the waters. Come on, please get me some water. Since you have been out for a long time, your mother is anxious. Please don’t take to heart any inadvertent pain that we might caused since you are an ascetic. You’re the fore of motion for the immobile, you’re the sight for the blind, you’re verily the vital life force for us, please do speak to us.
I was gutted, fear gripped my mind and my voice choked as I prepared to speak to them and relate what had just happened. With some effort, I cleared up and controlled my thoughts and spoke of the disaster that struck them – I am not your son, in fact I am a kshatriya, daSaratha by name. By my act condemnable by the virtuous I have accumulated great sorrow. O lord (sage), wielding the bow I had come to the banks of sarayu desirous of hunting wild elephants that come to drink water. Hearing the sound of a pot being filled, I mistook it for an elephant drinking water and released an arrow. And then when I went to the banks to see my catch, I found your son lying down on the ground in excruciating pain having been hit by my arrow. I pulled out to the arrow and he passed away after that weeping about your welfare in his absence on account of your being blind and old. O sage, by mistake I have killed you son, kindly advise the further course of action.
The sage was shocked and couldn’t react strongly. I was standing there with folded hands and he addressed me sighing deeply and drenched with tears of grief – O king, if you had not broken this terrible news by yourself to me, your head would have split into a thousand pieces. If a kshatriya kills another knowingly, especially in his later years, that can displace him from his position of high merits even if he is the all powerful indra. If intentionally a king kills a brAhmin practicing penance through his weapons, his head would split into seven pieces. You are alive today only due to the unintentional nature of your act. Otherwise, your entire ikshvAku lineage would have been wiped out, what to speak of you! O king, please take us to the place where our son lies on the ground, dead and drenched in blood having reached the god of death.
I led them to the place where their son lay dead on the ground and let them touch the dead body of their son. The grieving old couple stroked the body of their dead son and collapsed on that trying to awaken him! The father addressed his son grieving uncontrollably and said – how come you are not wishing me or speaking to me? Why are you lying thus on the ground; are you angry with me? Alright, if I am not your dear one, please look at your virtuous mother. Why are you not embracing us O dear son. From whom shall I derive the pleasure of being read out the scriptures so dear to my heart? Who will now make me do my ablutions, sandhyA and sacrifice to the fire god? Who will feed me like dear guests the roots and fruits? And how am I to provide solace to this old mother of yours yearning for her son? O son, don’t yet go to the abode of yama, wait for a day and we shall also accompany you. There I will seek you from the lord of death and justice, yama to spare you for us. He shall oblige to that prayer of mine.
O son, since you are sinless and have been slain by a sinner, you shall attain the high worlds attained by those valiant ones wielding weapons and those attained by the ones not returning from the war (martyrs) facing the enemy. May you follow the exalted trail of sagara, dilIpa, janamajEya, nahusha, dhundhumAra. May you attain the exalted worlds attained by the seekers engaged in swAdhyAya (study of the self), those engaged in penance, those who have given earth (land) in charity, those who have practiced monogamy, those who gave away a thousand cows in charity, those who serve their guru and those who happily give up their body. Having been born in our race and wedded to righteousness you cannot attain an undesirable after-world, only the one who has slain you will get that. Wishing their a son an exalted after-world the old couple wept piteously and finally performed the last rites of their son. As they performed the funeral rites, their virtuous son attained an exalted body and began ascent to heaven in the company of indra. He stopped momentarily and addressed his parents and said that he has attained this exalted state thanks to the service he rendered to them and that they can soon join him in the after-world in an exalted state. With those words he went heavenwards in a glorious chariot.
Having performed the obsequies the old parents turned to me and asked me to kill them also with the same arrow that killed their son! Then the father cast a dreadful curse on me that just like him I too shall suffer separation from my son and die miserably. However he said I was spared of the greatest sin of killing an brAhmin as I was a kshatriya and this act was completely unintentional. But he reiterated that the consequence of this was inescapable and that I was going to meet a ghastly end. Having pronounced the terrible curse on me, they wept and wailed and having laid out a funeral pyre, they entered into it and ascended to the heavens.
O kausalyA, now as I reflect on my misfortune I am reminded of this childish act of hitting the target guided by the sound emanating from it. Just like someone consuming bad food falls sick inevitably, so to my past is catching up with me. The dreadful curse the ascetic spelt on me is coming true. O kausalyA, my vision is failing me, I can’t see you, please touch me. What I did to rAma befits me and what he does to me also befits him. Which clear thinking man in this world banishes his son, even of the latter is of bad conduct? And which son will not get angry with his father for having been banished?
Ah, will rAma touch me once before I pass? How I long for that? That’s my only chance, since those who go to the abode of yama cannot see their relations of this world. My vision and memory are failing me and the messengers of the god of death and hurrying me up. Ah, my life forces are drying up like water in the puddles drying up due to heat. What greater misfortune can be there in my life than not beholding the beautiful form of rAma in my last moments. Those who behold rAma in their eyes on the fifteenth year upon his return from exile are verily gods, not men.
Those are fortunate who behold the lovely face of rAma with lotus like eyes, beautiful nose, well laid eye brows, moon like countenance upon his return to ayOdhyA. O kausalyA, I can’t sense anything around me. My life is running out like the flame on the wick that has run out of oil. This self inflicted sorrow is consuming me like the river destroying its own banks.
Oh mighty armed rAma, Oh the vanquisher of my grief, Oh the delight of your father, where are you O rAma! O kausalyA, O sumitrA, O kaikEyI, the destroyer of my race and my enemy, I am passing”.
Thus weeping pitiably in the presence of kausalyA and sumitrA daSaratha breathed his last. Till that moment in midnight he kept brooding and lamenting and in that sheer exhaustion met with his end.
Here we conclude the sixty first 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
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Next: 2.65. The dreadful morning dawns
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rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 