Ayodhya Kanda, Sarga 66

Meaning

Beholding the aforesaid Emperor, whose spirit was now in heaven, and who looked like a fully extinguished fire, a waterless ocean and a lustreless sun, and clasping the king’s head, Kausalyā, who was stricken with grief in diverse ways, spoke as follows to Kaikeyī, her eyes full of tears : (1-2)

Meaning

“Having your desire fulfilled, O cruel Kaikeyī, be satisfied. Having done with the king, O woman of evil conduct, confidently enjoy the throne, which has no more enemies. (3)

Meaning

“Forsaking me, Rāma has departed for the forest, while my husband has ascended to heaven. As such I cannot live any longer than a woman bereft of her companions on a perilous road. (4)

Meaning

“Truly speaking, what woman, other than Kaikeyī, who has cast all piety to the winds, would survive leaving her husband, a veritable god to her? (5)

Meaning

“A greedy man does not cognize his own faults any more than he who partakes of a forbidden dish. The race of the Raghus has been destroyed by Kaikeyī at the instigation of Mantharā (a hunch-backed woman). (6)

Meaning

“Hearing of Rāma having been exiled with his consort, Sītā, by the king as urged by Kaikeyī to an unbecoming act, King Janaka too will feel greatly perturbed, as I do. (7)

Meaning

“That pious Rāma, who is possessed of eyes resembling lotus petals and who has disappeared from this place even though living, does not know me to have been deprived of my master and husband today. (8)

Meaning

“The daughter of Janaka, the ruler of the Videha territory, who is engaged in agreeable austerities in the shape of service to her exiled husband living in a forest and is undeserving of suffering, will feel sorely afflicted in the forest. (9)

Meaning

“Greatly alarmed to hear during the nights the noise of howling wild beasts and birds, possessing the habit of uttering a fearful cry, she will cling in terror to Rāma, a scion of Raghu. (10)

Meaning

“Anxiously thinking again and again of Sītā, a princess of the Videha territory, and overwhelmed with grief, Janaka too, who is aged and who has few issues viz., a daughter named Urmilā, wife of Lakṣmaṇa and a god-daughter in the person of Sītā, will surely give up the ghost. (11)

Meaning

“I too, devoted as I am to my husband, shall accordingly meet my destined end this very day. Nay, embracing this body of my husband, I shall enter the fire that will be prepared for his funeral.” (12)

Meaning

The ministers (lit., functionaries entrusted with the work of disposing of the king’s dead body) then reverently removed from that place the wretched Kausalyā, who was sore stricken with agony and lamented holding the dead monarch in close embrace. (13)

Meaning

Consigning the deceased emperor at that time to a trough filled with oil, the ministers, as commanded by Vasiṣṭha and other family priests, then performed all the duties connected with the preservation of the king’s dead body etc., required to be done next. (14)

Meaning

Knowing as they did everything connected with the disposal of the dead body, the aforesaid counsellors would not of course perform the king’s funeral without the presence of a son; hence they preserved the body of the king. (15)

Meaning

Coming to know of the king having been laid by the ministers in the trough filled with oil, the aforesaid ladies lamented exclaiming as follows : “Ah, the king is dead !” (16)

Meaning

Throwing up their arms, the wretched ladies, crying with their faces containing cascades in the form of eyes, sore stricken with grief as they were, piteously wailed as follows : (17)

Meaning

“Ah, wherefore, O Emperor, do you abandon us, already bereft of Rāma of unfailing promise, who ever speaks kindly to all? (18)

Meaning

“Forsaken by Rāma and deprived of our husband, how shall we live in proximity to our co-wife, Kaikeyī, of wicked intention? (19)

Meaning

“That glorious Rāma was indeed our protector and lord as well as of yours, self-controlled as he is. Having relinquished the royal fortune, he has departed for the forest. (20)

Meaning

“Nonplussed through adversity and treated disrespectfully by Kaikeyī, how shall we live without you and that heroic prince? (21)

Meaning

“Whom else will she—by whom have been abandoned the king as well as Rāma with Sītā and the very mighty Lakṣmaṇa—not abandon?” (22)

Meaning

Bathed in tears and seized with enormous grief, those charming consorts of Daśaratha (a scion of Raghu) tossed about on the ground, divested of joy as they were. (23)

Meaning

Bereft of its high-souled ruler, King Daśaratha, the city of Ayodhyā did not shine any more than a night without stars or a woman deprived of her husband. (24)

Meaning

With its men bathed in tears and women of high pedigree raising a cry of distress, and its cross-roads and entrances of houses looking desolate, the city did not look charming as before. (25)

Meaning

The king for his part having departed for heaven due to grief caused by separation from his sons and daughter-in-law and the king’s consorts tossing on the floor, the sun suddenly disappeared (below the horizon), its rays having ceased to be diffused, and the night actually fell, darkness having commenced to spread. (26)

Meaning

Those friends and relations of the Emperor that stood assembled on the occasion did not favour his cremation in the absence of a son. Therefore, considering the king as having assumed an appearance beyond conception, they laid the king in that trough, which served as his bed. (27)

Meaning

Bereft of Daśaratha, an exalted soul, the city with its roads and cross-roads full of men whose throats were choked with tears that ran past their throats, looked like the firmament shorn of splendour in the absence of the sun and further resembled a night with its host of stars gone out of sight. (28)

Meaning

Coming together in batches and reproaching Bharata’s mother, men and women in the city felt distressed at that time on the king’s demise and found no rest. (29)