Bharata Returns and Refuses the Throne

On the very night the messengers reached the land of Kekaya, Bharata had a bad dream. He saw his father, in soiled clothes, falling from a mountain peak; he saw the moon fallen to earth and the sea dried up. In the morning he sat downcast even among his friends. Then the messengers came. "Prince, Guru Vasishtha calls you at once."

"Is my father well?" Bharata asked. "Ram and Lakshmana? My mothers?" The messengers lowered their heads and said only, "Those whose welfare you ask after are well." Bharata and Shatrughna left that day and, after seven nights on the road, reached Ayodhya on the eighth day.

The silent city

At the sight of the city Bharata's heart sank. He said to his charioteer, "This does not look like Ayodhya. I hear no chanting and no music. The doors of the houses stand open, yet I see no one inside. Why do people turn their faces away when they see me?"

Not finding his father in his palace, he went to his mother, Kaikeyi, who embraced him joyfully. "Mother, where is my father?"

Kaikeyi said simply, "Your father has gone the way all living beings go." Bharata fell headlong. When he had recovered a little he said, "What did he say for me at the end? And where is Ram? He is my father now. I will lay my head at his feet."

Then Kaikeyi told him everything, and told it as if she were giving good news: "Son, I asked the kingdom for you. Ram, Sita and Lakshmana have gone to the forest. Put away your grief and take the throne."

Bharata's anger

For a while Bharata could not speak. What he said then, no son can ever have said to his mother. "You have killed my father and sent my brother to the forest, and you think I will be glad? Without Ram, by whose strength am I to hold a kingdom? Ram honoured you like his own mother, and this is how you repaid him? You are my enemy in a mother's form. I will never let your wish be fulfilled. I will bring Ram back and live as his servant."

At the door Shatrughna saw Manthara, loaded with jewels. He seized her and dragged her along the ground. Bharata stopped him. "Let her go. A woman is not to be killed. And if Ram learns that we harmed her, he will never speak to us again."

Bharata went to Kaushalya. In her pain she said, "There, your mother has won you a kingdom without a rival." Bharata fell at her feet and cried like a child. "Mother, may all the sins of the world fall on anyone by whose counsel Ram went to the forest." Kaushalya drew him into her lap. She knew then that he was innocent.

The crown refused

Bharata performed his father's last rites. On the fourteenth day the ministers and the leading citizens came. "Prince, the kingdom is without a king. Everything for the coronation is ready. Take the throne."

Bharata walked reverently around the coronation vessels and said, "In our house the eldest son is always king. The kingdom is Ram's, and I too am Ram's. The exile that was given to him, I will serve. Carry all of this to the forest; I will crown Ram there. Send the road-makers ahead."

Tears of joy fell from people's eyes. Workmen levelled roads, dug wells and bridged rivers. And one morning Bharata set out for Chitrakoot with the army, the gurus, the three queens and half of Ayodhya.