Sita Departs after Bowing Again and Again
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 69
Doha 69 · Movement 2 of 2
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Kausalya offers every form of teaching and blessing she can gather. Maternal care becomes provision for a journey no palace storehouse can equip.
Sita bows repeatedly at her lotus feet with deepest love. Each lowering receives the mother once more before distance intervenes.
Then she departs. The doha gives no elaborate farewell procession, only counsel, blessing, bowed head, and movement away. The chamber watches her go in silence. Sita carries the household's dharma inward, leaving the chamber not as one escaping duty at home but as one bearing its sacred form beside Ram.
With Kausalya's teaching held within her, Sita rises from one final bow and follows the forest call.
Read the passage from the Manas
सीतहि सासु असीस सिख दीन्हि अनेक प्रकार। चली नाइ पद पदुम सिरु अति हित बारहिं बार।।69।।
The mother-in-law gave Sita blessings and teachings of every kind. Bowing her head again and again at those lotus feet with the deepest love, Sita departed.