{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry005.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry005.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry005.htm","text":"The hermit thus with watchful heed\n Received the poem's pregnant seed,\n And looked with eager thought around\n If fuller knowledge might be found.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n \n \n His lips with water first bedewed, \u00a01\n He sate, in reverent attitude\n On holy grass, \u00a02 the points all bent\n Together toward the orient; \u00a03\n And thus in meditation he\n Entered the path of poesy.\n Then clearly, through his virtue's might,\n All lay discovered to his sight,\n Whate'er befell, through all their life,\n R\u00e1ma, his brother, and his wife:\n And Das'aratha and each queen\n At every time, in every scene:\n His people too, of every sort;\n The nobles of his princely court:\n Whate'er was said, whate'er decreed,\n Each time they sate each plan and deed:\n For holy thought and fervent rite\n Had so refined his keener sight\n That by his sanctity his view\n The present, past, and future knew,\n And he with mental eye could grasp,\n Like fruit within his fingers clasp,\n The life of R\u00e1ma, great and good,\n Roaming with Sit\u00e1 in the wood.\n He told, with secret piercing eyes,\n The tale of R\u00e1ma's high emprise.\n Each listening ear that shall entice,\n A sea of pearls of highest price.\n Thus good V\u00e1lm\u00edki, sage divine,\n Rehearsed the tale of Raghu's line,\n As N\u00e1rad, heavenly saint, before\n Had traced the story's outline o'er.\n He sang of R\u00e1ma's princely birth,\n His kindness and heroic worth;\n His love for all, his patient youth,\n His gentleness and constant truth,\n And many a tale and legend old\n By holy Vis'v\u00e1mitra told.\n How Janak's child he wooed and won,\n Aud broke the bow that bent to none.\n How he with every virtue fraught\n His namesake R\u00e1ma \u00a04 met and fought.\n The choice of R\u00e1ma for the throne;\n The malice by Kalsey\u00ed shown,\n Whose evil counsel marred the plan\n And drove him forth a banisht man.\n How the king grieved and groaned,and cried,\n \n \n And swooned away and pining died.\n The subjects' woe when thus bereft;\n And how the following crowds he left:\n With Guha talked, and firmly stern\n Ordered his driver to return.\n How Gang\u00e1's farther shore he gained;\n By Bharadv\u00e1ja entertained,\n By whose advice be journeyed still\n And came to Chitrak\u00fata's hill.\n How there he dwelt and built a cot;\n How Bharat journeyed to the spot;\n His earnest supplication made;\n Drink-offerings to their father paid;\n The sandals given by R\u00e1ma's hand,\n As emblems of his right to stand:\n How from his presence Bharat went\n And years in Nandigr\u00e1ma spent.\n How R\u00e1ma entered Dandak wood\n And in Sut\u00edkhna's presence stood.\n The favour Anas\u00fay\u00e1 showed,\n The wondrous balsam she bestowed.\n How S\u00e1rabhang\u00e1's dwelling place\n They sought; saw Indra face to face;\n The meeting with Agastya gained;\n The heavenly bow from him obtained.\n How R\u00e1ma with Vir\u00e1dha met;\n Their home in Panchavata set.\n How S'\u00farpanakh\u00e1 underwent\n The mockery and disfigurement.\n Of Tr\u00edgir\u00e1's and Khara's fall,\n Of R\u00e1van roused at vengeance call,\n M\u00e1richa doomed, without escape;\n The fair Videhan \u00a01b lady's rape.\n How R\u00e1ma wept and raved in vain,\n And how the Vulture-king was slain.\n How R\u00e1ma fierce Kabandha slew;\n Then to the side of Pamp\u00e1 drew.\n Met Hanum\u00e1n, and her whose vows\n Were kept beneath the greenwood boughs.\n How Raghu's son the lofty-souled,\n On Pamp\u00e1's bank wept uncontrolled,\n Then journeyed, Rishyam\u00fak to reach,\n And of Sugr\u00edva then had speech.\n The friendship made, which both had sought:\n How B\u00e1li and Sugr\u00edva fought.\n How B\u00e1li in the strife was slain,\n And how Sugr\u00edva came to reign.\n The treaty, T\u00e1ra's wild lament;\n The rainy nights in watching spent.\n The wrath of Raghu's lion son;\n The gathering of the hosts in one.\n The sending of the spies about,\n And all the regions pointed out.\n The ring by R\u00e1ma's hand bestowed;\n The cave wherein the bear abode.\n The fast proposed, their lives to end;\n Sampati gained to be their friend.\n \n \n The scaling of the hill, the leap\n Of Hanum\u00e1n across the deep.\n Ocean's command that bade them seek\n Main\u00e1ka of the lofty peak.\n The death of Sinhik\u00e1, the sight\n Of Lank\u00e1 with her palace bright\n How Hanuman stole in at eve;\n His plan the giants to deceive.\n How through the square he made his way\n To chambers where the women lay,\n Within the As'oka garden came\n And there found R\u00e1ma's captive dame,\n His colloquy with her he sought,\n And giving of the ring he brought.\n How S\u00edt\u00e1 gave a gem o'erjoyed;\n How Hanum\u00e1n the grove destroyed,\n How giantesses trembling fled,\n And servant fiends were smitten dead.\n How Hanum\u00e1n was seized; their ire\n When Lank\u00e1 blazed with hostile fire.\n His leap across the sea once more;\n The eating of the honey store,\n How R\u00e1ma he consoled, and how\n He showed the gem from S\u00edt\u00e1's brow,\n With Ocean, R\u00e1ma's interview;\n The bridge that Nala o'er it threw.\n The crossing, and the sitting down\n At night round Lank\u00e1's royal town.\n The treaty with Vibh\u00edshan made:\n The plan for R\u00e1van's slaughter laid.\n How Kumbhakarna in his pride\n And Meghan\u00e1da fought and died.\n How R\u00e1van in the fight was slain,\n And captive S\u00edt\u00e1 brought again.\n Vibh\u00edshan set upon the throne;\n The flying chariot Pushpak shown.\n How Brahm\u00e1 and the Gods appeared,\n And S\u00edt\u00e1's doubted honour cleared.\n How In the flying car they rode\n To Bh\u00e1radv\u00e1ja's cabin abode,\n The Wind-God's son sent on afar;\n How Bharat met the flying car.\n How R\u00e1ma then was king ordained;\n The legions their discharge obtained.\n How R\u00e1ma cast his queen away;\n How grew the people's love each day.\n Thus did the saint V\u00e1lm\u00edki tell\n Whate'er in R\u00e1ma's life befell,\n And in the closing verse all\n That yet to come will once befall\n \n \n \n \n8:1b Sit\u00e1, daughter of Janak king of Mithil\u00e1.\n8:2b 'I congratulate myself,' says Schlegel in the preface to his, alas, unfinished edition of the R\u00e1m\u00e1yan, 'that, by the favour of the Supreme Deity, I have been allowed to begin so great a work; I glory and make my boast that I too after so many ages have helped to confirm that ancient oracle declared to V\u00e1lm\u00edki by the Father of Gods and men:\nDum stabunt montes, campis dum flumina current, Usque tuum toto carmen, celebrabitur orbe.'\n9:1 'The sipping of water is a requisite introduction of all rites: without it, says the S\u00e1mha Purana, all acts of religion are vain.' COLEBROOKE.\n9:2 The darhha or kus'a (Pea cynosuroides), a kind of grass used in sacrifice by the Hindus as cerbena was by the Romans.\n9:3 The direction in which the grass hould be placed upon the ground as a seat for the Gods, on occasion of offerings made to them.\n9:4 Paras\u00far\u00e1ma or R\u00e1ma with the Axe. See Canto LXXIV.\n9:1b Sit\u00e1. Videha was the country of which Mithil\u00e1 was the capital.","title":"BOOK I: Canto III.: The Argument.","type":"page"}