Dasharatha Sees Ignorance Destroy the Fruit of His Life
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 29
Doha 29 · Movement 2 of 2
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Dasharatha turns accusation inward. At what moment, he asks, did trust become the road by which this catastrophe entered his life?
He compares himself to a yogi who reaches the very fruit of perfection only to have ignorance destroy it at the instant of attainment. Ram's coronation stood within reach, and the promise born from love has shattered it.
The king's self reproach reveals the cruelty of timing. Fulfilment does not merely disappear; it becomes the height from which he falls. Yet his anguish also confuses trust itself with error, unable to distinguish love's purity from the deception that exploited it.
At the threshold of fulfilment, Dasharatha feels ignorance tear away the fruit his whole life had ripened.
Read the passage from the Manas
कवनें अवसर का भयउ गयउँ नारि बिस्वास। जोग सिद्धि फल समय जिमि जतिहि अबिद्या नास।।29।।
At what moment did it happen, and what came to pass, that I placed my trust in a woman? Just as, at the very moment a yogi attains the fruit of perfection, ignorance destroys him.