Ramayana, Epic of Rama, Prince of India

65
Book IV. Rama-Bharata-Sambada
(The Meeting of the Princes)
[63] The scene of this Book is laid at Chitra-kuta. Bharat returning from the
kingdom of the Kaikeyas heard of his father’s death and his brother’s exile, and
refused the throne which had been reserved for him. He wandered through the
woods and jungle to Chitra-kuta, and implored Rama to return to Ayodhya, and
seat himself on the throne of his father, But Rama had given his word, and
would not withdraw from it.
Few passages in the Epic are more impressive than Rama’s wise and kindly
advice to Bharat on the duties of a ruler, and his firm refusal to Bharat’s
passionate appeal to seat himself on the throne. Equally touching is the lament
of Queen Kausalya when she meets Sita in the dress of an anchorite in the
forest.
But one of the most curious passages in the whole Epic is the speech of Jabali the
Sceptic, who denied heaven and a world hereafter. In ancient India as in ancient
Greece there were different schools of philosophers, some of them orthodox and
some of them extremely heterodox, and the greatest latitude of free thought was
permitted. In Jabali, the poet depicts a free-thinker of the broadest type. He
ridicules the ideas of Duty and of Future Life with a force of reasoning which a
Greek sophist and philosopher could not have surpassed. But Rama answers with
the fervour of a righteous, truth-loving, God-fearing man.
All persuasion was in vain, and Bharat returned to Ayodhya with Rama’s
sandals, and placed them on the throne, as an emblem of Rama’s sovereignty
during his voluntary exile. Rama himself then left Chitra-kuta and sought the
deeper forests of Dandak, so [64] that his friends and relations might not find
him again during his exile. He visited the hermitage of the Saint Atri; and the
ancient and venerable wife of Atri welcomed the young Sita, and robed her in
rich raiments and jewels, on the eve of her departure for the unexplored
wildernesses of the south.
The portions translated in this Book are the whole or the main portions of
Sections xcix., c., ci, civ., cviii, cix., cxii., and cxix, of Book ii, of the original
text.