Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Yuddha · 40 of 50
40. The bridge
Yuddha (युद्ध)
The sea does not make way. Rāma, who has been the poem's patience, is angry, and the anger is a real crack in the patience. He threatens the ocean. The ocean, personified as the poem personifies the great things, appears and does not apologize for being a sea. He says a man among the monkeys, Nala, son of the divine craftsman, can build. The rocks, in the poem, hold. The army crosses.
The page says the bridge was built and the army crossed. It does not give a method, and it does not add the later affections that gather around the building. A squirrel who helped is a later telling. This page stays with the poem. Nala builds. The sea, which had been the edge of the map, becomes a road with a maker's name.
On the far side, Laṅkā is no longer a report. It is a wall in front of an army that includes a brother of the king. Rāma looks at the city where his wife is kept and the war is, at last, geographically possible. The bridge is the kāṇḍa's plainest symbol. A vow on one shore, a captivity on the other, and a made thing in between.
नेपालीमा
समुद्रले बाटो दिएन। राम रिसाउनुभयो, र समुद्रलाई धम्की दिनुभयो। समुद्र आफैँ देखा परे, र विश्वकर्माका छोरा नलले बनाउन सक्छ भने। कवितामा ढुङ्गा अडिए। सेना तर्यो। यो पृष्ठले पुल बन्यो र सेना तर्यो भन्छ। तरिका लेख्दैन। सहयोग गर्ने लोखर्के पछिल्लो कथन हो। यो पृष्ठ कवितामा बस्छ। नलले बनाए। समुद्र बनाउनेको नाम भएको सडक भयो।