Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Bāla · 1 of 50
1. The crane and the poet
Bāla (बाल)
Before Rāma there is a poet who is not yet a poet. Vālmīki is a sage at the river. Nārada has just told him, in brief, that there is a man, Rāma, who holds dharma as his character and not as a speech. The sage goes to bathe. A pair of cranes is coupling on the bank. A hunter shoots the male. The female grieves. The sage's grief comes out of him already in meter, a curse that is a verse, and he is startled by his own voice.
Brahmā comes and tells him not to be startled. The meter was given. The brief life Nārada recited is to be the poem, and it is to be true, and it is to last as long as the mountains and the rivers. Vālmīki composes. The Rāmāyaṇa begins as an answer to a killed bird, which is why the poem never quite becomes a simple celebration of a perfect king. Its first emotion is the grief of the sage who saw the crane killed, the compassionate sorrow called karuṇā.
Two boys will one day sing what he composes, in a king's hall, and the king will be the subject, and the poet will be the man who sheltered the king's exiled wife. The frame is already a moral. A poem about dharma is born from an injustice too small for a court and too sharp for the sage to swallow.
मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमः शाश्वतीः समाः ।
यत् क्रौञ्चमिथुनादेकमवधीः काममोहितम् ॥ mā niṣāda pratiṣṭhāṃ tvam agamaḥ śāśvatīḥ samāḥ |
yat krauñca-mithunād ekam avadhīḥ kāma-mohitam ||
The tradition hears this as the curse that became the first verse: hunter, may you find no rest for all the years, because you killed one of a pair overcome by love. The form agamaḥ (अगमः) is an aorist, and how mā (मा) sits with that form is a crux the commentaries keep. This shelf recites the line as the curse, and names the crux. It does not sit a chapter number of the vulgate for it.
| Word | Grammar | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| mā (मा) | particle | Heard as a prohibitive. May you not. |
| niṣāda (निषाद) | vocative singular | Hunter. The one addressed. |
| pratiṣṭhām (प्रतिष्ठाम्) | accusative singular | A standing. Rest, fame, a place to remain. Heard pratiṣṭhāṃ before tvam. |
| tvam (त्वम्) | nominative singular | You. |
| agamaḥ (अगमः) | aorist, second person singular, of gam (गम्) | You went, you attained. With mā, heard as the curse: may you not attain. |
| śāśvatīḥ (शाश्वतीः) | accusative plural | Endless. Agrees with the years. |
| samāḥ (समाः) | accusative plural | Years. |
| yat (यत्) | indeclinable | Because. Inasmuch as. |
| krauñca-mithunāt (क्रौञ्च-मिथुनात्) | ablative singular | From the pair of cranes. Heard krauñca-mithunād before a vowel. |
| ekam (एकम्) | accusative singular | One of them. |
| avadhīḥ (अवधीः) | aorist, second person singular, of han (हन्) | You killed. The aorist of this root is built on vadh. |
| kāma-mohitam (काम-मोहितम्) | accusative singular | Overcome by love. Agrees with the one who was killed. |
नेपालीमा
वाल्मीकि अझै कवि थिएनन्। नारदले रामको संक्षेप भन्नुभएको थियो। नदीकिनारमा क्रौञ्चको जोडी थियो। शिकारीले भाले मार्यो, र पोथीले शोक गरी। ऋषिको शोक छन्दमा निस्कियो, र वाल्मीकि आफ्नै स्वरले छक्क परे। ब्रह्माले भन्नुभयो, त्यो छन्द दिइएको हो, र नारदको संक्षेप कविता होस्। रामायण मरेको चराको उत्तर हो। त्यसैले यो निर्दोष राजाको साधारण उत्सव बन्दैन। रामायणको पहिलो भाव क्रौञ्च-वध देखेका साक्षी ऋषिको शोक (करुणा) हो।
Where it sits
The seven kāṇḍas are mapped on the Rāmāyaṇa hub. The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha is a different book in Rāma's frame, not one of the seven.