Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Ayodhyā · 17 of 50
17. The sandals
Ayodhyā (अयोध्या)
At Citrakūṭa, Bharata finds a hut, and a brother dressed in bark who is not wretched, and a wife, and Lakṣmaṇa angry enough for both of them. Bharata asks Rāma to return. He offers the kingdom as a thing he has carried back on his head. Rāma refuses. The father's word was fourteen years. A son's grief, even this son's, does not edit a word. The meeting is long because both of them are right, and the poem will not cheapen either rightness by letting one shout the other down.
What Bharata asks for, when the return is refused, is the sandals. He will take them to Ayodhyā. He will set them on the throne. He will rule as a regent under a pair of shoes, and he will live outside the city, at Nandigrāma, as an ascetic, until the fourteen years bring the king back. Rāma gives him the sandals. The gesture is almost unbearable, because it is practical. The kingdom needs a law. The law needs a sign that it is borrowed.
The army turns around. Sītā, who has just seen what a brother is, stays. The hut goes back to being a hut. Fourteen years, minus the days already walked, remain. Ayodhyā has an answer it can bear just enough to live with.
नेपालीमा
चित्रकूटमा भरतले कुटी भेटे। दाजु वल्कल लगाएका थिए, तर दुःखी देखिएनन्। भरतले रामलाई फर्कन भने। रामले अस्वीकार गर्नुभयो। बाबुको वचन चौध वर्ष थियो। दुवै सही थिए। भरतले खराउ मागे। तिनलाई सिंहासनमा राख्ने, र चौध वर्षसम्म नन्दिग्रामबाट तपस्वी भएर शासन गर्ने। रामले खराउ दिनुभयो। यो भाव व्यावहारिक भएकाले लगभग असह्य छ। राज्यलाई नियम चाहिन्छ। नियमलाई सापटको चिह्न चाहिन्छ।