Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Ayodhyā · 15 of 50
15. Daśaratha dies
Ayodhyā (अयोध्या)
The king does not survive the empty chariot. He takes to his bed, and in the dark he tells Kausalyā a story he has carried since he was young. Hunting by sound, he shot at what he thought was an elephant at a water-hole. It was a boy, the son of blind ascetic parents, filling a pot for them. The boy dies in his arms, worried about his parents, not about himself. Daśaratha takes the pot to them. They curse him. He will die of grief for a son. Then they die of their own grief. The page says the boy was killed by a shot in the dark. It does not describe the wound.
The curse has waited through four marriages and a consecration. It arrives as memory, which is how this poem's curses arrive. Daśaratha dies calling Rāma. The body lies in the palace because the heir who should perform the rites is in exile, and the other heir is still away. A kingdom that defined itself by proper succession cannot cremate its king.
The death is the first full price. Kaikeyī asked for a crown and an exile. She did not ask for this, and she gets it. The poem does not arrange a speech in which she is forgiven. It arranges a palace in which no one will look at her.
नेपालीमा
खाली रथ देखेपछि राजा बाँच्न सकेनन्। अँध्यारोमा उनले कौसल्यालाई पुरानो कथा सुनाए। आवाज सुनेर हानेको वाण हात्ती होइन, अन्धा आमाबाबुको छोरा थियो, उनीहरूका लागि पानी भर्दै। श्राप परेको थियो, छोराको शोकले मर्नेछस्। यो पृष्ठले अँध्यारोको वाणले मारेको भन्छ। घाउ लेख्दैन। दशरथ राम भन्दै मरे। संस्कार गर्ने उत्तराधिकारी वनमा थिए। अर्का उत्तराधिकारी अझै पर थिए। राजाको अन्त्येष्टि हुन सकेन। कैकेयीले यो मागेकी थिइनन्, तर पाइन्।