Beneath the Trees They Endure Every Season
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 211
Doha 211 · Movement 2 of 2
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Bharata's inward vision follows the exiles beneath open branches. Bark covers bodies once tended in royal chambers, and fruit has become their daily food.
At night the earth receives them upon scattered kusa grass and leaves. No wall turns aside the weather, no canopy holds the sky at a distance.
Cold enters, sunlight burns, rain descends, and wind crosses the exposed resting place. The seasons that palace architecture once moderated now arrive directly upon Sita, Ram, and Lakshmana. Bharata contemplates each element not as scenery but as contact with their tender forms. Forest simplicity becomes unbearable to him because love measures every drop, gust, and blade against the comfort they freely relinquished.
Bark, fruit, leaves, cold, sun, rain, and wind form the forest dwelling Bharata cannot behold without burning.
Read the passage from the Manas
अजिन बसन फल असन महि सयन डासि कुस पात। बसि तरु तर नित सहत हिम आतप बरषा बात।।211।।
Wearing garments of bark (ajin basan), eating only fruits, sleeping on the earth upon kusha grass and leaves. Dwelling beneath the trees, they endure daily the cold (him), the scorching sun (aatap), the rain (barashaa), and the wind (baat).