Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 23 Aug 2011 12:01 and updated at 23 Aug 2011 12:01
VALMIKI RAMAYANA
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BOOK 7: UTTARA KANDA
SECTION 86
Having bade adieu unto Satrughna, Rama, the descendant of Raghu, was greatly delighted by governing his subjects piously in the company of Bharata and Lakshmana. Some days having passed in this wise a villager, an old Brahman, arrived at the palace gate with a dead body.
That Brahman, stricken with afection, again and again bewailed in various piteous accents, exclaiming "What henious crime had I committed in my pristine birth that I have been constrained to witness the death of my son. My son, thou hast not as yet completed fourteen years. To my misery thou hast met with untimely death.
Forsooth, for thy grief, O my son, myself and thy mother shall soon be snatched away by death. I do not remember to have ever uttered a falsehood, or injured an animal or perpetrated any other crime. Therefore for some other sinful action, this boy, without performing the son s duties towards his parents, has gone to the abode of death.
Save under the regeme of Rama, I have never seen or heard of the dreadful death of such a boy who hath not attained the age. Forsooth, Rama hath perpetrated a mighty iniquity for which boys, during his administration, have been meeting with untimely death. In other governments boys have no fear of such an untimely death.
Therefore, O king confer life upon this dead child. Or else with my spouse I shall renounce my life at this gate like one having no lord. O Rama, soiled by the sin consequent upon the destruction of a Brahmana, do thou live long happily with brothers.
O thou of great prowess, up to this time we have lived happily in thy kingdom. And now, O Rama, under thy subjection we are being troubled with the sorrow of our son s death. We have been brought under the influence of Kala ;so in thy kingdom there is not the least happiness for us.
Having attained Rama as its lord, the kingdom, of the high souled Ikshwakus, hath attained to the condition of one having no master, where duing Rama s regeme the death of a boy hath been brought about. For being impiously governed by a king, for his sin, the subjects meet with calamities. And a king following evil tracks and not governing the subjects righteously people meet with untimely death.
Therefore, when a king doth not suppress the crimes committed by people either in cities or provinces the fear, of untimely death, comes in. Evident it is therefore that undoubtedly the sin of the king hath appeared in cities and provinces. And for that reason this boy hath met with death.
Being overwhelmed with sorrow that old Brahman again and again remonstrated with the king in these piteous words and afterwards covered the death body (of his son).
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