Hari Om.
Let us begin the seventy fourth sarga of the ayOdhyA kAnDam by offering our prostrations at the lotus feet of SrIrAma and our sathguru.
Prince bharata hurriedly reached ayOdhyA upon the summons of the preceptor. His heart was heavy in anticipation of some tragedy that was going strike the ikshAku clan. His worst thoughts came true when he met his mother and enquired about his father. She nonchalantly broke the news of the king to him. He was struck with untold grief and asked her that he wants to meet rAma, his elder brother who would in the place of father now. The expression of this right before knowing anything else easily demonstrates the unconditional devotion that bharata always had for rAma. Then as kaikEyI apprises bharata of the boons and banishment of rAma to the forest, prince bharata is struck hard by the twin blows. Here mahaRshi uses the phase “rubbing salt on the wound”, a phrase that is use in multiple languages including English today. He categorically tells kaikEyI that there is no way he is going to rule over the kingdom which is the right of elder brother rAma. The knower of traditions, bharata, upheld the highest tradition of the ikshvAku race where the eldest was always crowned as the heir apparent and ruled over the kingdom. He flatly refused to fall in this unrighteous pursuit and roared like a lion that he shall go to the forest and fetch rAma whom the preceptors shall anoint as the king of ayOdhyA and he shall be the servitor of his brother rAma. Onwards…
Having rained his wrath on his mother kaikEyI, prince bharata was not done yet. Seething in anger, he continued – “you have been abandoned by dharma and that is equivalent to my death. You may weep over me. Be deprived of the kingdom. What harm did either the king or the righteous rAma ever do to you that you had to mete out this similar treatment of death or banishment to them? By the destruction of the ikshvAku lineage, you have incurred the sin of destroying an embryo and for that you shall go to hell and never attain the exalted high heavens that my father did. By committing this horrible act of ensuring forest for rAma and death for the king, I am afraid you have earned for me permanent ignominy and infamy in this world. You are a powermonger, wicked an enemy in the form of my mother and murdered of your husband. I shall not be speaking to you. You have inflicted untold misery on my mothers kausalyA, sumitrA and others.
You have singlehandedly caused the banishment of rAma and the death of the king with the sorrow of separation from him. Surely you are not the daughter of the highly righteous aSwapati. You are some ogress born in his family to ruin his clan. Due to this unrighteous and ambitious act of yours I am left without my father and brothers and am an object of scorn for this world. O woman of sinful intentions, you shall go to hell for separating mother kausalyA from her son. Why don’t you understand, O cruel one, the self-restrained and affectionate towards relations, rAma, the son of kausalyA is the most beloved one for her, since the son is born from every limb and the heart of the mother. For this matter the son is much more beloved for his mother than any of the relations who are just affectionate.
Once, the mother of all cows surabhi, respected by all gods, watched two of her sons on the earth ploughing the land and faint due to working no stop till afternoon. She cried piteously watching the two sons from the heavens and shed copious tears. At the time, the thunder-wielder indra was passing by below her in the skies. The tears of surabhi fell on indra and as he looked up he beheld surabhi wailing in despair. He went near her and with folded hands enquired about the fear of any calamity that is haunting her which is causing the distress. Mother surabhi replied – “god forbid, there is no such calamity about to befall on the gods. She is troubled by the state of her two sons on the earth, working in the fields in the hot sun, tortured by the farmer and having fainted by afternoon. The two sons who have emerged from my being are sad and bearing the burden. Seeing them I am troubled and shedding tears since there is none dearer than a son”! Seeing this indra understood that she who has thousands of sons spread all over the world is shedding tears for her two sons on account of their misery and hence there must be none greater than the son and he was moved to tears. The divine wish fulfilling cow surabhi is indeed of peerless conduct, ever desirous of nourishing the worlds, auspicious, abode of prosperity, home of virtues and that is her true nature.
Now, O kaikEyI, if the wish fulfilling mother who has thousands of sons grieves for two bulls who are her sons, what to say of mother kausalyA who has been deprived of her only son? By rendering that virtuous mother of a single son childless you shall be miserable in this birth and the next.
As for me, I shall atone for the sin of every impropriety that was shown to my father and my bother and ensure that I do not incur infamy, there is no doubt about that. I shall bring the mighty and valorous kOsalEndra (rAma) from the forest and shall enter into exile myself. Watched over by the citizens of the state grieving over this and choked with tears, I cannot bear the burden of your sins, O woman of sinful mindset. As for you, you may chose to enter into the fire or consume poison or enter the danDaka forests or give up life by hanging yourself. There really is no other way out for you.
I shall feel accomplished and be rid of slurs when rAma attains and lords over the earth“.
Thus bharata felt miserable like a mighty elephanted goaded and prodded in the forest and collapsed on the floor hissing like a serpent. Prince bharata, the tormentor of enemies lay tormented on the ground with blood red eyes and disarrayed clothes, resembled the unhoisted flag of indra at the close of the festival.
Here we conclude the seventy fourth sarga of the ayOdhyA kAnDam of SrImath vAlmiKi rAmAyaNam and humbly offer it at the lotus feet of SrIrAma. Hari: Om!
jAi SrIrAma.
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Next: 2.75. bharata solemnly swears his innocence
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rAmabhaktisAmrAjyam 