A story · Ramayana · The Exile

Bharata Comes Home

Valmiki Ramayana 2.69 · read aloud in the app

The story · English

On the night the king's messengers came through the city gate, Bharata, far from home at his grandfather's court, had a dream that left him cold with dread, and his thoughts kept turning to his old father. His friends saw the trouble on his face and gathered round to lift it. Some told pleasant stories. Some played music, and others danced. Some joked and recited lines from the old plays. Bharata sat through all of it without a word, as if he heard none of it. At last the friend he loved most asked, “We are all here with you. Why are you so quiet and so sad?” Bharata said, “I dreamt I saw my father, the king, fall headlong from a high mountain into a lake of mud, his body filthy, his hair loose.”

“He lay rolling in the mud. He scooped up oil in his cupped hands, drank it, and laughed aloud. Head bowed, he ate sesame and cakes, oil dripping from every limb. The ocean bed was dry, the moon had fallen, and darkness lay over a dead, still world. The earth split, trees withered, mountains cracked and smoked. His elephant's tusks were shattered. Women in brown and black carried him on an iron seat. Then, wearing a blood-red garland, he rode south in a chariot drawn by asses, while a woman in crimson jeered at him and a she-demon laid her hand on him. When a man is carried off by asses in a dream, his funeral smoke is near. The king, Rama, Lakshmana or I must die. My throat is dry with fear.”

While he was still speaking, the envoys arrived on worn-out horses at the moated city. They bowed at the king's feet, then turned to Bharata. “The family priest and the ministers send you their greetings. Come to your father's house quickly, and waste no more time away.” They laid out rich robes and jewels, gifts for the king and for Bharata's uncle, and a share for Bharata himself. Bharata thanked them and asked, “Is my old father well? Are Rama and Lakshmana well? And Kaushalya, Rama's mother, and Sumitra, mother of Lakshmana and Shatrughna? And my own mother, so sure of her own wisdom and so quick to anger, is she well? Has she sent me any word?” They answered briefly. “Everyone you ask about is safe and well. Get ready. Have the chariot yoked.” “I'll come,” Bharata said. “Give me one hour.”

He went to his mother's father. “The envoys have called me home to see my father. When you want to see your grandson again, I'll come back.” The old king kissed his head. “Go, dear child. How blessed your mother is to have a son like you. Greet your father and mother, the family priest, and Rama and brave Lakshmana.” King Asvapati heaped gifts on him: elephants, dyed skins and blankets, a thousand strings of gold beads, sixteen hundred spirited horses, and trusted counsellors to guide him. His uncle gave him noble elephants, swift asses, and huge palace-bred dogs as strong as tigers. Bharata hardly looked at any of it. The envoys were pressing him, and the dream still lay on him. He said goodbye, climbed into his chariot with Shatrughna beside him, and more than a hundred chariots rolled out behind them.

He turned east and crossed river after river, the Sudama, the rough Hladini, the Satadru, the Sila, climbed into the great wood of Chaitraratha, and passed where the Sarasvati meets the Ganga. At the Yamuna he rested the army and bathed and watered the horses. He drove through a vast empty forest, past towns and groves and the Gomati, through a wood of Sal trees. After seven nights on the road, as the sun rose, he saw Ayodhya, the city Manu built. “From here,” he told his driver, “it looks like a lifeless heap of yellow clay. The streets used to roar with crowds. I hear nothing. No one rides out on elephants or horses. The gardens are deserted, the paths covered with leaves, the birds silent. Why are the drum and the lute quiet? I am afraid I won't find my people well.”

Sick at heart, he drove in through the Vaijayanta gate on his weary horses. His escort shouted “Victory,” and he sent them away with a bow. Then he turned to the driver. “Why was I brought here so fast, without being told why? I have heard of the changes that come when a king dies, and I see every one of them. The houses are dark and untended, their doors left open. No morning rites, no incense. People sit fasting on the ground. The temples are unswept, their garlands dead. The flower shops are empty. Every face I see is wet with tears.” He rode on to the palace and went in, but his father was not there. So he went to his mother's rooms. Kaikeyi saw her son after so long away and sprang up from her golden seat to meet him.

He bent and touched her feet. She kissed him, held him close, and asked how long the journey had taken, and whether her father and her brother Yudhajit were well. “Seven nights,” he said. “They're both well. The gifts are coming behind with the slower guards. Now tell me something. Your golden couch is empty, and everyone looks grim. Father always spends his time here. Where is he? Is he with Kaushalya?” Kaikeyi, mad for power, told him the sad news as if it were good. “Your father has gone the way all living things must go.” Bharata fell to the ground, crying out again and again. “Get up, my dearest,” she said. “Good men don't grieve like this. He ruled well and his life was complete.” Bharata wept. “Where is the hand that used to brush the dust off me? Tell Rama I'm here. He is my father now. What were Father's last words?”

“He wept and called for Rama, Sita and Lakshmana,” she said. “His last words were, ‘Blessed are those who will see them come home safe.’” “But where is Rama?” Bharata asked. “Where are Lakshmana and Sita?” “Rama has gone to the Dandaka forest in a hermit's clothes, and Lakshmana and Sita went with him.” Bharata was afraid Rama had done wrong. “Did he seize a Brahmin's wealth? Harm an innocent? Desire another man's wife?” “None of that,” said Kaikeyi. “When I heard the king meant to give Rama the kingdom, I asked that Rama be sent away and the throne be given to you. The king kept his word. Without his son he grew too weak with grief to live. I did all this for you. Have Vasishtha perform the funeral rites, then crown yourself king of the earth.”

Bharata said, “What use is a throne to me now? Both are gone, my father and the brother who was a second father to me. You have heaped grief on grief and rubbed salt in the wounds. My father died because of you, and Rama wanders as a hermit. You came on this house like the night of doom. Rama treated you as his own mother. Kaushalya loved you like a sister. And you drove her son into the forest wearing bark. In our line the eldest is crowned. No king of Ikshvaku's race has ever broken that rule, and you have shamed it. You will not have your way. I will go to the forest, undo your plans, and bring my brother home. When he returns, he will find me his faithful servant.”

Still burning with anger, he went on. “Leave this kingdom, you cruel woman. Your sin killed one and banished the other, and the stain of it falls on me. You are my mother in name and my worst enemy in truth. There is an old story. Surabhi, the sacred cow, saw two of her sons faint under a plough in the noon sun, and she wept. Her tears fell on Indra, and he asked what was wrong. ‘None is as dear to a mother as her son,’ she said. If she wept, who has thousands of children, think of Kaushalya, whose only son you took. I will perform the rites for my father, bring Rama back as king, and go to the forest myself.” Then, like an elephant goaded by the driver's hook, panting like a wounded snake, Bharata fell to the earth, blazing with rage.

कथा · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: The Death of Dasharatha · Valmiki Ramayana 2.64
• Next: Guha and Bharata · Valmiki Ramayana 2.84
• All of Ramayana · Ask Krishna about it

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