Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Araṇya · 20 of 50
20. Virādha, and the sages' request
Araṇya (अरण्य)
Virādha is the forest's first grab. A rākṣasa who cannot be answered by ordinary weapons takes hold of them. They stop him. The page says that he is stopped. It does not describe the fight. Under the curse he turns out to have been a gandharva, and the meeting with Rāma is the end of the curse. The pattern of Ahalyā repeats in a coarser key. Some of the monsters are people waiting to be released. Not all of them. The poem will not let the pattern become a sentimental rule.
The sages then ask for something heavier than a single rescue. Live among us, they say, and be the reason the rākṣasas stop treating hermitages as larders. Rāma promises. The promise is a second vow, laid on top of the fourteen years. He is no longer only a son keeping a father's word. He is a king without a throne who has accepted a country's protection as his work.
Sītā hears the promise and, later, will question it. A man who has come to the forest to be an ascetic is now talking like a warrior whose job is killing. She is not wrong to ask. He is not wrong to have promised. The poem's knots are domestic. They are argued between two people who love each other, on a path, before the war makes the argument look small.
नेपालीमा
विराधले उनीहरूलाई समात्यो। ऊ रोकियो। यो पृष्ठले रोकियो भन्छ। लडाइँ लेख्दैन। ऊ श्रापमा परेको गन्धर्व रहेछ, र रामसँगको भेटले श्राप सकियो। केही राक्षस पर्खिरहेका मान्छे हुन्। सबै होइनन्। ऋषिहरूले आफूहरूसँग बसेर राक्षसबाट रक्षा गर्न भने। रामले वचन दिनुभयो। अब उहाँ केवल बाबुको वचन राख्ने छोरा हुनुहुन्न। उहाँ सिंहासन नभएका राजा हुनुहुन्छ। सीताले पछि त्यसमाथि प्रश्न गर्नेछिन्। सोध्नु उनको गलत होइन, वचन दिनु उहाँको पनि गलत होइन।