Aranya Kanda, Sarga 67

Meaning

Having comforted awhile Śrī Rāma, who was tormented as aforesaid with grief and was wailing like one without a protector, nay, who was seized with great infatuation and was feeling sorrowful and sick at heart, Lakṣmaṇa, son of Sumitrā, exhorted him in the following words, lovingly pressing his feet : (1-2)

Meaning

“You were obtained by King Daśaratha (our father) by means of great austerities in the form of religious vows and fasts and great pious acts such as the performance of a Putreṣṭi sacrifice, as nectar was obtained by gods. (3)

Meaning

“The king, who was the ruler of the entire globe, and was bound to this world by your virtues alone, attained the heavenly state due to separation from you, as was heard from the lips of Bharata. (4)

Meaning

“If, O scion of Kakutstha, you are not able to endure this suffering that has befallen you, what other man, who is of the common run and of meagre strength, will bear it? (5)

Meaning

Take heart, O flower of men ! What living being do calamities not visit? They impinge on a man like fire and recede in an instant.(6)

Meaning

“If, when afflicted, you actually consume all the worlds with your heroic lustre, where will, O tiger among men, created beings in distress get relief? (7)

Meaning

“This impact of suffering is but natural with human beings. King Yayāti, son of Nahuṣa, attained by his meritorious deeds residence in the same heaven with Indra (the lord of paradise); but even there misfortune in the shape of fall from heaven brought about by indiscretion visited him. (8)

Meaning

“To Vasiṣṭha, who is an eminent seer of Vedic Mantras and who has been the family priest of our father (King Daśaratha), a hundred sons were born in the course of a day and again in the course of a day they were all killed by King Viśwāmitra. (9)

Meaning

“Nay, volcanic convulsion is seen even on the surface of this Earth, who is the mother of the mobile creation and is greeted by all people. O lord of Kosala ! (10)

Meaning

“Even the sun and the moon endowed with extraordinary might, which set virtue on foot by giving light and energy to the world and set the world going by providing a measure of time and on which everything in the world rest, have to suffer eclipse. (11)

Meaning

“Even very great beings and gods are not immune from the control of fate, much less all embodied beings, O flower of men ! (12)

Meaning

“Righteousness and unrighteousness are known to yield their fruit in the shape of happiness and misery, even in the case of Indra and other gods, O tiger among men! You ought not, therefore, to grieve. (13)

Meaning

“Even in the event of Sītā (a princess of the Videha territory) being dead or having disappeared as a result of being carried away by someone, O heroic Rāma (a scion of Raghu), you ought not to grieve in the same way as any other common man. (14)

Meaning

“People like you, who perceive everything with their intuitive eye, do not really give way to grief even in the face of the gravest perils, O Rāma, but ever remain undepressed in their outlook. (15)

Meaning

“Discriminate between right and wrong in true perspective by recourse to reason. Endowed with reason, highly intelligent souls are correctly able to know what is good and evil, O jewel among men ! (16)

Meaning

“Actions, whose merits and demerits have not been perceived except through the scriptures and which are not everlasting, inasmuch as they cease after yielding their fruit, cannot be performed without individual effort. And once they are performed their welcome as well as unwelcome fruit is inevitable and must be reaped. (17)

Meaning

“Indeed you alone have often instructed me accordingly in the past, O heroic brother ! In fact, who on earth can instruct you, be he Bṛhaspati, the preceptor of gods, himself. (18)

Meaning

“Nay, your intelligence, O highly sagacious prince, cannot be fathomed even by gods. I simply try to awaken your wisdom, which has been dimmed, as it were, by grief. (19)

Meaning

“Nay, bearing in mind your divine as well as human prowess, strive for the destruction of your enemies, O flower of the Ikṣwākus ! (20)

Meaning

“What object of yours will be achieved through universal destruction wrought by you? Therefore, finding out your sinful adversary, you ought to root him out alone. (21)