Ayodhya Kaanda
91 - Bharata's arrival at Prayaga and dialogue between Bharata and the sage Bharadvaja
Chaupais
Description
"It is this burning agony which is ever consuming my breast, so that I feel no appetite by day and get no sleep at night. For this fell disease there is no remedy: I have mentally ransacked the whole world. My mother's evil counsel was like a sinful carpenter, who used my interests as an adze and fashioned out of the inauspicious wood of discord a destructive magical contrivance and muttering the terrible malevolent spell of (Sri Rama's) exile for a fixed term (of fourteen years) planted it (in the soil of Ayodhya).* It is for my sake that she employed this infamous contrivance and brought ruin on the whole world. This calamity will cease only when Sri Rama returns; by no other means can Ayodhya thrive again." The sage (Bharadvaja) was gratified to hear Bharata's words and everyone applauded him in ways more than one. "Grieve not much, dear child; all your woes will disappear the moment you behold Sri Rama's feet."