Sita's Message Dissolves before It Is Spoken
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 152
Doha 152 · Movement 2 of 2
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Sita bows and tries to add her own words to those returning toward Ayodhya. Love loosens the strength required for speech before the message can take shape.
Her voice falters. Tears fill her eyes, and devotion rises visibly across her skin in waves of trembling delight and pain.
Nothing more needs to be quoted. Her whole body has become the message: reverence for the elders, separation from the household, steadfast union with Ram, and tenderness too full for language. Sumantra carries this silence back as faithfully as any sentence, for the palace will understand the tears from which it came.
Sita begins to speak, but love takes the message from her lips and writes it instead in tears and trembling.
Read the passage from the Manas
कहि प्रनाम कछु कहन लिय सिय भइ सिथिल सनेह। थकित बचन लोचन सजल पुलक पल्लवित देह।।152।।
Having offered her pranaam, Sita tried to speak but grew faint with love. Her voice faltered, her eyes brimmed with tears, and her body blossomed with goosebumps of devotion.