{"collection":"Hinduism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rama/ry099.htm","path":"hin/rama/ry099.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry099.htm","text":"While thus Kaus'aly\u00e1 wept and sighed.\n With timely words sad Lakshman cried:\n 'O honoured Queen I like it ill\n That, subject to a woman's will,\n R\u00e1ma his royal state should quit\n And to an exile's doom submit.\n The aged king, fond, changed, and week,\n Will as the queen compels him speak.\n But why should R\u00e1ma thus be sent\n To the wild woods in banishment?\n No least offence I find in him,\n I see no fault his fame to dim.\n Not one in all the world I know,\n Not outcast wretch, not secret foe,\n Whose whispering lips would dare assail\n His spotless life with slanderous tale.\n Godlike and bounteous, just, sincere,\n E'en to his very foemen dear:\n Who would without a cause neglect\n The right, and such a son reject?\n And if a king such order gave,\n In second childhood, passion's slave,\n What son within his heart would lay\n The senseless order, and obey?\n Come, R\u00e1ma, ere this plot be known\n Stand by me and secure the throne.\n Stand like the King who rules below,\n Stand aided by thy brother's bow:\n How can the might of meaner men\n Resist thy royal purpose then!\n My shafts, if rebels court their fate,\n Shall lay Ayodhy\u00e1 desolate.\n Then shall her streets with blood be dyed\n Of those who stand on Bharat's side:\n None shall my slaughtering hand exempt,\n For gentle patience earns contempt.\n If, by Kaikey\u00eds counsel changed,\n Our father's heart be thus estranged,\n No mercy must our arm restrain,\n But let the foe be slain, be slain.\n For should the guide, respected long,\n No more discerning right and wrorg,\n Turn in forbidden paths to stray,\n 'Tis meet that force his steps should stay.\n What power sufficient can he see,\n What motive for the wish has he,\n That to Kaikey\u00ed would resign\n The empire which is justly thine?\n Can he, O conqueror of thy foes,\n Thy strength and mine in war oppose?\n Can he entrust, in our despite,\n To Bharat's hand thy royal right!\n I love this brother with the whole\n Affection of my faithful soul.\n Yea Queen, by bow and truth I swear,\n By sacrifice, and gift, and prayer,\n If R\u00e1ma to the forest goes,\n Or where the burning furnace glows,\n First shall my feet the forest tread,\n The flames shall first surround my head.\n My might shall chase thy grief and tears,\n As darkness flies when morn appears.\n Do thou, dear Queen, and R\u00e1ma too\n Behold what power like mine can do.\n My aged father I will kill,\n The vassal of Kaikey\u00ed's will,\n Old, yet a child, the woman's thrall,\n Infirm, and base, the scorn of all.'\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus Lakshman cried,the mighty-souled:\n Down her sad cheeks the torrents rolled,\n As to her son Kaus'aly?spake:\n \u00a0\u00a0 'Now thou hast heard thy brother, take\n His counsel if thou hold it wise,\n And do the thing his words advise.\n Do not, my son, with tears I pray,\n My rival's wicked word obey,\n Leave me not here consumed with woe,\n Nor to the wood, an exile, go.\n If thou, to virtue ever true,\n Thy duty's path would still pursue,\n The highest duty bids thee stay\n And thus thy mother's voice obey.\n Thus Kas'yap's great ascetic son\n A seat among the Immortals won:\n In his own home, subdued, he stayed,\n And honour to his mother paid.\n If reverence to thy sire be due,\n Thy mother claims like honour too,\n And thus I charge thee, O my child,\n Thou must not seek the forest wild.\n Ah, what to me were life and bliss,\n Condemned my darling son to miss?\n But with my R\u00e1ma near, to eat\n The very grass itself were sweet.\n But if thou still wilt go and leave.\n Thy hapless mother here to grieve,\n I from that hour will food abjure,\n Nor life without my son endure.\n Then it will be thy fate to dwell\n In depth of world-detested hell.\n As Ocean in the olden time\n Was guilty of an impious crime\n That marked the lord of each fair flood\n As one who spills a Br?maa'a blood.'\u00a01\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thus spake the queen, and wept, and sighed:\n Then righteous R\u00e1ma thus replied:\n 'I have no power to slight or break\n Commandments which my father spake.\n I bend my head, dear lady, low,\n Forgive me, for I needs must go.\n Once Kaudu, mighty saint, who made\n His dwelling in the forest shade,\n \n \n A cow--and duty's claims he knew--\n Obedient to his father, slew.\n And in the line from which we spring,\n When ordered by their sire the king,\n Through earth the sons of Sagar cleft,\n And countless things of life bereft. \u00a01\n So Jamadagn\u00ed's son \u00a02 obeyed\n His sire, when in the wood he laid\n Hia hand upon his axe, and smote\n Through Renuk\u00e1 his mother's throat.\n The deeds of these and more beside.\n Peers of the Gods, my steps shall guide,\n And resolute will I fulfil\n My father's word, my father's will,\n Nor I, O Queen, unsanctioned tread\n This righteous path, by duty led:\n The road my footsteps journey o'er\n Was traversed by the great of yore.\n This high command which all accept\n Shall faithfully by me be kept,\n For duty ne'er will him forsake\n Who fears his sire's command to break.'\n \n \n Thus to his mother wild with grief:\n Then thus to Lakshman spake the chief\n Of those by whom the bow is bent,\n Mid all who speak, most eloquent:\n 'I know what love for me thou hast,\n What firm devotion unsurpassed:\n Thy valour and thy worth I know,\n And glory that appals the foe.\n Blest youth, my mother's woe is great.\n It bends her 'neath its matchless weight:\n No claims will she, with blinded eyes,\n Of truth and patience recognize,\n For duty is supreme in place,\n And truth is duty's noblest base.\n Obedient to my sire's behest\n I serve the cause of duty best.\n For man should truly do whate'er\n To mother, Br\u00e1hman, sire, he sware:\n He must in duty's path remain,\n Nor let his word be pledged in vain.\n And, O my brother, how can I\n Obedience to this charge deny?\n Kaikey\u00ed's tongue my purpose spurred,\n But 'twas my sire who gave the word.\n Cast these unholy thoughts aside\n Which smack of war and Warriors' pride;\n To duty's call, not wrath attend,\n And tread the path which I commend,'\n \n \n R\u00e1ma by fond affection moved\n His brother Lakshman thus reproved;\n Then with joined hands and reverent head\n Again to Queen Kaus\u00e1ly\u00e1 said:\n \n \n 'I needs must go--do thou consent--\n To the wild wood in banishment.\n O give me, by my life I pray,\n Thy blessing ere I go away.\n \n \n I, when the promised years are o'er,\n Shall see Ayodhy\u00e1's town once more.\n Then, mother dear, thy tears restrain,\n Nor let thy heart be wrung by pain:\n In time, my father's will obeyed,\n Shall I return from greenwood shade.\n My dear Videhan, thou, and I,\n Lakshman, Sumitr\u00e1, feel this tie,\n And must my father's word obey,\n As duty bids that rules for aye.\n Thy preparations now forgo,\n And lock within thy breast thy woe,\n Nor be my pious wish withstood\n To go an exile to the wood.\"\n Calm and unmoved the prince explained\n \u00a0\u00a0 His duty's claim and purpose high.\n The mother life and sense regained,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Looked on her son and made reply:\n 'If reverence be thy father's due,\n \u00a0\u00a0 The same by right and love is mine:\n Go not, my charge I thus renew,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Nor leave me here in woe to pine,\n What were such lonely life to me,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Rites to the shades, or deathless lot?\n More dear, my son, one hour with thee\n \u00a0\u00a0 Than all the world where thou art not.\n As bursts to view, when brands blaze high,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Some elephant concealed by night,\n So, when he heard his mother's cry,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Burnt R\u00e1ma's grief with fiercer might.\n Thus to the queen, half senseless still,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And Lakshman, burnt with heart-felt pain,\n True to the right, with steadfast will,\n \u00a0\u00a0 His duteous speech he spoke again:\n 'Brother, I know thy loving mind,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thy valour and thy truth I know,\n But now to claims of duty blind\n \u00a0\u00a0 Thou and my mother swell my woe.\n The fruits of deeds in human life\n \u00a0\u00a0 Make love, gain, duty, manifest,\n Dear when they meet as some fond wife\n \u00a0\u00a0 With her sweet babes upon her breast.\n But man to duty first should turn\n \u00a0\u00a0 Whene'er the three are not combined:\n For those who heed but gain we spurn,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And those to pleasure all resigned.\n Shall then the virtuous disobey\n \u00a0\u00a0 Hosts of an aged king and sire,\n Though feverous joy that father sway,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Or senseless love or causeless ire?\n I have no powcr, commanded thus,\n \u00a0\u00a0 To slight his promise and decree:\n The honoured sire of both of us,\n \u00a0\u00a0 My mother's lord and life is he.\n Shall she, while yet the holy king\n \u00a0\u00a0 Is living, on the right intent,--\n Shall she, like some poor widowed thing,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Go forth with me to banishment?\n Now, mother, speed thy parting son,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And let thy blessing soothe my pain,\n \n \n That I may turn, mine exile done,\n \u00a0\u00a0 Like King Yay\u00e1ti, home again.\n Fair glory and the fruit she gives,\n \u00a0\u00a0 For lust of sway I ne'er will slight:\n What, for the span a mortal lives.\n \u00a0\u00a0 Were rule of earth without the right?'\n He soothed her thus, firm to the last\n \u00a0\u00a0 His counsel to his brother told:\n Then round the queen in reverence passed,\n \u00a0\u00a0 And held her in his loving hold.\n \n \n \n \n118:1 The commentators say that, in a former creation, Ocean grieved his mother and suffered in consequence the pains of hell.\n119:1 As described in Book I, Canto XL.\n119:2 Paras\u00far\u00e1ma.","title":"Book II: Canto XXI.: Kaus'aly\u00e1 Calmed.","type":"page"}