Chapter 14 — Rama's Choice

Rama entered Dasharatha's chamber and saw at once that something had broken. The ceremonial brightness prepared outside seemed not to reach this inner room.

His father sat overcome by grief, his face altered, his breath unsteady. When Rama bowed and spoke his name, Dasharatha could only say, “Rama,” and then could not look at him or speak again.

The prince was alarmed. His father had always received him with affection, even in anger. Rama turned to Kaikeyi as he would to a mother. Kausalya had borne him, but Kaikeyi and Sumitra were also his mothers in the royal household, women he was bound to honor.

“Mother, have I done something without knowing it?” he asked. “Is my father ill? Has some misfortune come to Bharata, Shatrughna, or my mothers? Tell me what I can do. If my father wishes something from me, I would give even my life to do it.”

Kaikeyi told him that Dasharatha had promised two boons and now regretted them. A ruler, she said, must not make his word false.

“Bharata is to receive the heir's installation,” she said. “You are to dwell in the unpeopled forest for fourteen years.”

Rama did not require Dasharatha to repeat the command. The king's silence and Kaikeyi's words were enough. The father's inability to speak stood where it was. Rama's acceptance did not make that silence painless or clear it of responsibility.

“Mother,” he said, “if this is the promise my father must fulfill, do not let his word become false because of me. I do not desire the kingdom for its own sake. I will go today.”

He explained his reasoning plainly. To serve a father and carry out his word, he said, was the highest course open to him. Dharma—the demanding order of duty and right conduct by which a person was judged—did not erase the sorrow in the room. It named the obligation Rama believed he could not abandon. He would live in the forest for fourteen years even if Dasharatha could not bring himself to ask it aloud.

Kaikeyi urged him to leave quickly. Until he had gone, she said, Dasharatha would neither bathe nor eat.

Rama bowed to his father and then to Kaikeyi with the reverence he owed a mother before leaving the chamber. Lakshmana followed him, his eyes full of tears and anger. The consecration vessels stood nearby, waiting for a rite that would not occur.

Rama went first to Kausalya.

Kausalya, Rama's birth mother, had heard that he was coming and believed he would soon be installed. She blessed him, spoke of the long life and fame she hoped would be his, and then saw his face. No umbrella was held above him. No white fans moved at his side. No procession preceded him. Sita was not there. The signs of joy had vanished.

Rama told her that Dasharatha was sending him to the forest, that Bharata would be installed, and that he would live on roots and fruits in Dandaka for fourteen years.

Kausalya fell as if her strength had left her. When she recovered, grief found words. She had waited through childlessness for a son, she said, and now the son who had brought her happiness was to be sent away. She asked how one raised in care could live on forest food, how she herself could remain in a household where she expected the pain of rival queens. She told Rama that she would go with him. A cow followed her calf, she said; how could she stay behind?

Lakshmana's grief had become fury. The young prince who so closely resembled Rama in bearing now seemed altered by anger. He spoke against the exile and against the king's judgment. Why should Rama accept a command born of desire and fear? Why should Kaikeyi's demand overturn what had been prepared before the whole city? He offered force. With bow in hand, he said, he would secure the kingdom for Rama and resist anyone who opposed him.

Rama listened. He did not rebuke Lakshmana for loving him, but he did not take up the offer.

He told Kausalya that Dasharatha, deceived and distressed as he was, would be left desolate if both wife and son abandoned him. He told Lakshmana that he would not seize a kingdom by making his father false. He recalled stories of men who had endured terrible acts at a father's command, not to make pain small, but to say that he had inherited a standard he could not set aside when it cost him most.

“I do not want the kingdom,” he said. “I do not want pleasure. I want my father to remain true.”

The sentence did not repair Kausalya's grief or answer Lakshmana's charge that the demand was unjust. Rama offered it as the line he himself would hold.

Kausalya wept, then performed a mother's farewell. She invoked protection for him from the gods and the directions, touched him, embraced him, and blessed his return. Her blessing was not consent without pain. It was what she could give when she could not prevent his going.

Rama asked her to care for Dasharatha. He asked that the other queens be honored, that Lakshmana and Shatrughna be treated with affection, and that Bharata be regarded as king when he came home. He did not blame the absent brother for a decision made without him.

Then Rama left Kausalya's rooms and turned toward the house where Sita was waiting for the installation she still expected.