Ayodhya Kanda: The Promise and the Exile

The story

Dasharatha decides to crown Ram as heir, and Ayodhya rejoices. That night the maid Manthara poisons the mind of Queen Kaikeyi, who then demands the two boons the king once promised her for saving his life in battle: the throne for her son Bharata, and fourteen years of forest exile for Ram.

The king is broken. Ram is not. He tells Kaikeyi he will leave that very day, and comforts his father instead of blaming him. Sita insists that a wife's place is beside her husband in hardship as in comfort. Lakshmana refuses to stay behind. All of Ayodhya follows the chariot to the river Tamasa. At the Ganga, the Nishad chief Guha receives Ram as a friend, and a boatman ferries them across. Dasharatha dies of grief, calling Ram's name.

Bharata, away at his grandfather's home, returns to find his father dead and his brother banished in his name. He refuses the kingdom, travels to Chitrakoot with the whole court, and begs Ram to return. Ram will not break his father's word. Bharata carries Ram's sandals back, places them on the throne, and rules as their servant from Nandigram, living like an ascetic for fourteen years.

The turning points

• Ram accepts exile without anger and without delay.
• Sita and Lakshmana choose hardship freely; no one orders them.
• Bharata is handed a kingdom and gives it back.

What it teaches

This is the book that made Ram Maryada Purushottam. He could have argued that the promise was extracted unfairly; the people and the army were with him. He chose to protect his father's honour and the trust on which a kingdom runs. The rule of the house is remembered in the line "pran jaye par vachan na jaayi": life may go, but the given word must not. Read The power of a promise.

Bharata teaches something just as rare: that what comes to us by another's wrong is not ours to keep. See Brotherhood and family.

Where to feel it in Ayodhya

Visit Bharat Kund at Nandigram, where Bharata is believed to have lived and ruled in Ram's name, and Dashrath Mahal. The story continues in the Aranya Kanda.