Part 9: Rāma’s grief

Because of his brother’s death and the separation from his sons, Rāma swooned again and again and said from delusion: “Some disrespect was shown today by me, brother, that you suddenly adopted such a silence. While you are in this condition, brother, I have been abandoned by my sons. Verily, hundreds of evil spirits enter men’s hundred weak points.” Bibhīṣaṇa and the others together went finally to Rāma talking in this unbalanced way and said with sobs: “You are the resolute among the resolute, like a hero among heroes, lord. Therefore put aside this shameful weakness. Now it is said by the people that Saumitri’s funeral ceremonies together with the perfuming and anointing of the body must be held at a suitable time.”

Rāma, angry with them for saying this, his lips trembling, said: “My brother lives, certainly. What speech is this of yours, villains? The funeral rites together with burning in a fire of you all with your brothers must be made. Let my younger brother be long-lived. Brother, brother, speak quickly, Lakṣmaṇa dear. Surely this is an intrusion of wicked people. Why do you disturb me so long? Or yet, anger on your part before base people is not suitable, friend.” With these words Rāghava put him on his shoulder and went elsewhere;

Rāma sometimes took him to the bath-house and bathed him himself and then anointed him with ointments 'with his own hand. Sometimes he had divine food brought and a dish filled and he himself set it before him. •Sometimes he set him on his own lap, kissing his head repeatedly; and sometimes he put him to sleep on a couch covered with bed-clothes. At times he talked to him and answered himself. Sometimes he became a masseur and rubbed him himself. Six months passed as Rāma, all duties forgotten, performed such confused acts, crazed from affection.

Hearing that he was thus crazed, the sons of Indrajit and Sunda and other hostile Vidyādharas came, wishing to conquer Rāma. They besieged with soldiers Ayodhyā, whose chief Raghu was crazed, like hunters, strong in trickery, besieging a mountain-cave whose lion was asleep. Rāma took Lakṣmaṇa on his lap and twanged his bow, Vajrāvarta, the cause of the end of the world unseasonably.

Then at the trembling of his throne Jaṭāyus came to Rāma with gods from Māhendra because of his strong friendship from a former birth. Saying, “Even now the gods are on Rāma’s side,” the Vidyādharas, the sons of Indrajit and others, fled quickly. “Rama, a friend of the gods, who has Bibhīṣaṇa in front of him, will kill us here,” terrified and ashamed, they reached a strong desire for emancipation. They, feeling the desire, for emancipation, approached Muni Ativega and took initiation, their faces averted from the state of householders.

Then the god Jaṭāyus in order to enlighten Rāghava stood before him and sprinkled a dry tree with water repeatedly. He threw dry dung on a rock and planted a bed of lotuses; he sowed seed at the wrong time with a dead ox and a plow. He threw sand on a machine and pressed it for oil. He showed Rāma other useless things like these. Rāma said to him: “Sir, why do you water a dry tree uselessly? Does a pestle grow just anywhere, to say nothing of fruit? Why do you plant a bed of lotuses on a rock, foolish man, or sow seeds in a desert with dead oxen? There would not be oil from sand. Why do you press it, stupid? In all cases your efforts are wasted as you do not use proper means.”

Jaṭāyus smiled and said: “If you know this, sir, why do you carry a corpse on your shoulder, a sign of ignorance?” Rāma embraced Saumitri’s body and replied: “Why do you say an unlucky thing? Get out of my sight.”

While Rāma was saying this to Jaṭāyus, the god Kṛtāntavadana, knowing it by clairvoyance, came to enlighten him. Putting a woman’s corpse on his shoulder, he went near Rāma. Rāma said to him, “Are you crazy, carrying a woman’s corpse so?” Kṛtānta replied: “Why do you say an unlucky thing? She is my wife. But why do you yourself carry a corpse? If you know that my wife, whom I am carrying, is dead, are you not intelligent enough to know that there is a corpse on your own shoulder?”

Understanding being restored by various reasons pointed out by him in this way, Rāma thought, “Is it true that my younger brother does not live?” Then the two gods, Jaṭāyus and Kṛtānta, announced themselves to Rāma, who had received enlightenment, and went to their own abode.