Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Kiṣkindhā · 30 of 50
30. The parties reach the sea
Kiṣkindhā (किष्किन्धा)
The south is given to the party that matters: Aṅgada, Hanumān, Jāmbavān the bear, Nala, Nīla, and a host. They search until the search becomes hunger and the hunger becomes despair. They come to the edge of the sea, to a cave, to a shore where the land stops and Laṅkā is a rumor they cannot test. Aṅgada, son of the killed king, speaks of sitting down to die rather than returning to Sugrīva with nothing. The failure feels like his father's death repeated as incompetence.
The northern, eastern, and western parties fail more quietly. The poem follows the south because the south is where the ornaments fell and where the vulture's brother lives. A search narrative is a map. This one has reached the margin of the map, which is where the next helper is always sitting in this poem, looking ruined.
Hanumān is not yet the leap. He is the minister who has not found a plan, in a company preparing its own funeral. The Kiṣkindhā-kāṇḍa has done its structural work. An ally was won by a questionable death. A delay was survived. A party of searchers has been brought to a shore they cannot cross. The rest of the poem depends on one person in that party remembering who he is.
नेपालीमा
दक्षिणको टोलीमा अङ्गद, हनुमान, जाम्बवान, नल, नील थिए। भोक र निराशा नआउञ्जेल खोजे, र समुद्रको किनारमा पुगे। अङ्गदले रित्तो हात सुग्रीवकहाँ फर्किनुभन्दा बसेर मर्ने कुरा गरे। उत्तर, पूर्व, पश्चिमका टोली चुपचाप असफल भए। कविता दक्षिण पछ्याउँछ। हनुमान अझै उफ्रिएका छैनन्। उनी योजना नभएका मन्त्री हुन्। किष्किन्धाकाण्डले शङ्कित मृत्युबाट मित्र जोड्यो, ढिलाइ पार गर्यो, र नतरिने किनारमा खोजारी ल्यायो।