Two Assemblies Sit beneath the Banyan in Fasting Silence
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 277
Doha 277 · Movement 2 of 2
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Dawn returns after a day without food or water. Janaka's society and Rama's society bathe, each carrying the same sorrow into the purifying water.
They gather beneath the broad banyan tree. Its roots descend from branches toward the earth, as if the sky itself were sending supports into a world made unsteady by grief.
Kings, sages, relatives, citizens, and forest companions sit together with troubled minds and bodies grown thin. No royal pavilion separates Mithila from Ayodhya. The banyan shades them all, and fasting has made every rank equally fragile. In that pale morning, the two kingdoms appear as one contemplative body waiting for dharma to find speech again.
Beneath one banyan, two kingdoms sit lean from fasting, washed by dawn and joined in the same unresolved sorrow.
Read the passage from the Manas
दोउ समाज निमिराजु रघुराजु नहाने प्रात। बैठे सब बट बिटप तर मन मलीन कृस गात।।277।।
Both assemblies, those of King Janaka (Nimiraja) and Lord Rama (Raghuraja), bathed at dawn. All sat beneath the banyan tree, their minds heavy with grief, their bodies grown thin.