Sacred Books

"So, drink poison duly stirred up, since your merits are exhausted and you are marked out by ill fortune. Otherwise, follow Rama to forest or reach a place where even the name of Kaikeyi may not reach your ears."

"Rama has been sent to exile along with Sita and Lakshmana deceitfully. We have been handed over now to Bharata, like the beasts in the hands of a slaughterer."

"Rama, whose face is like the full moon, of dark brown complexion, whose collar-bone is invisible (because of its being covered with flesh), a conqueror of foes, whose arms descend to his knees, whose eyes resemble lotuses, the elder brother of Lakshmana, who takes initiative in speaking and expresses with sweetness, truthful of speech and possessed of extra ordinary strength, is benevolent to all, delightfully charming as the moon, that tiger among men, as mighty as an elephant in rut, that great car-warrior, will surely adorn the woods, while roaming through them.."

Those wives of citizens in the city of Ayodhya, lamenting as aforesaid, began weeping, as though fear has cropped up for a forth-coming death.

The sun sank below the horizon and the night fell, while the women in the houses were weeping in that manner about Rama.

The city of Ayodhya, in which the kindling of fires had ceased and the chanting of Vedas and narration of sacred stories died out, looked as though it was coated with darkness at that time.

The city of Ayodhya, in which the business of the trading class had come to a stand-still, in which joy had been faded out, which had become (now) support less, looked dim as though stars had disappeared in the sky.

The women whose minds became sick on account of Rama, as one would feel on one's own son or brother having been sent into exile, cried miserably expressing their grief in various ways. To them, Rama was dearer than their very sons!