Chapter 11 — The Heir

After the marriages, Ayodhya received its princes and their brides with the ceremony due to a royal household. Rama and Sita entered a life that had only just begun. Lakshmana was with Urmila; Bharata with Mandavi; Shatrughna with Shrutakirti. Yet Bharata and Shatrughna did not remain long in the city. Their maternal uncle came from Kekaya to take them to their mother's kin, and the two brothers went with him.

Dasharatha missed them. All four sons were dear to him, as if they were four arms grown from his own body. But in Bharata's absence, Rama and Lakshmana remained near the king. They attended him, their mothers, and their teachers. Rama also attended to the work that reached a royal house: the needs of the city, the concerns of those who lived beyond its walls, the things that required a prince to hear before a king was forced to judge.

People spoke of the eldest son with confidence. Rama's long arms, steady gaze, and princely bearing made him immediately recognizable in public, but it was the manner in which he used that presence that held people. He was gentle before anyone who approached him. If spoken to harshly, he did not answer harshness with harshness. A small kindness stayed with him; an injury did not govern his memory. He knew weapons, counsel, revenue and expenditure, the care of horses and elephants, and the uses and limits of force. But those who lived under Dasharatha's protection valued something more immediate: when Rama came back from an expedition, he asked after them as a father might ask after children. Their troubles grieved him; their festivals pleased him.

Dasharatha watched the affection gather around his son and thought often of a day he wanted to see before his life ended: Rama formally installed as yuvarāja, the designated heir who would share the burden of rule while his father still reigned.

The king was old. He had carried the white royal umbrella over many years and felt the weight of its shade. He had ruled as his fathers had ruled, guarding the people as best he could. Now he wished for rest, not for abandonment of the kingdom but for its security in hands he trusted.

So he summoned the principal kings of the land, the leading men of towns, and representatives from the countryside. They came from different directions and took the seats set before them, facing the throne. The gathering was not an election. Dasharatha was king and would remain king. But the installation of an heir was a public act, and he asked the assembled powers of the realm to hear his purpose.

He told them that he had grown old in the service of the people and that he wished to join Rama to the office of heir. Rama, he said, was his eldest son, born with the qualities fitting to the task. If the gathering judged the plan good, he would have Rama installed under Pushya, a lunar constellation held to be favorable for the rite.

The answer came with one voice, though it was made of many voices. They asked him to do it quickly.

They did not praise Rama only for birth. They spoke of his truthfulness, his restraint, his knowledge, his gratitude, and the steadiness with which he met both success and offense. They had seen him return from battle with Lakshmana and ask first after the citizens. They said that a ruler should be one in whom the people could find protection, and that in Rama they already found it.

Dasharatha listened with visible joy. Still, he asked why they desired another leader while he had governed them according to duty. The question did not withdraw his proposal. It allowed the assembly to say plainly that their wish did not arise from contempt for an old king. They wanted to see the kingdom secured in Rama while Dasharatha still lived to guide him.

Vashishta and Vamadeva, the senior advisers in sacred learning and royal ritual, were called forward. They ordered preparations for the abhisheka, the formal consecration by which Rama would be installed. Water was to be brought from sacred places; offerings, vessels, banners, animals, and all that the rite required were to be made ready. The king chose the next day.

Then Dasharatha sent for Rama.

Rama came by chariot through a city already alive with news. He entered the assembly, bowed to his father, and sat where Dasharatha directed. Before the kings and representatives, Dasharatha told him what had been decided: on the following day he would be installed as yuvarāja.

Rama accepted the command with the same composed attention he gave to every command from his father. The public joy had not made the office his yet; it gave him a duty to prepare for a rite still in his father's hands. But after the assembly had gone, Dasharatha called him back into a more private room.

There the king's joy was joined by fear.

“I have lived long,” he told his son. “I have performed the duties I owed to gods, sages, ancestors, and men. There is little I still seek except to see you established before I am gone.” He spoke of dreams that had unsettled him, of falling fire and threatening signs in the sky, and of the astrologers who read danger in the time ahead. Such signs did not explain themselves. They made him afraid that death or some great misfortune might arrive before his purpose was complete.

“Therefore do not delay,” he said. “Tonight keep the observance with Sita. Sleep on sacred grass, hold yourselves in discipline, and let trusted friends remain watchful. Great undertakings often meet obstacles.”

He added that Bharata was away. The king did not call Bharata wicked; he praised him as gentle, self-controlled, and devoted to his elder brother. Yet he said that the human mind could change, even in good people. The admission stood uneasily beside his affection. It was another reason, he believed, to complete the installation without delay.

Rama bowed and left.

By evening Ayodhya had become a city preparing to wake before dawn. The roads were sprinkled and strewn with flowers. Banners rose above houses and public ways. Lamps stood ready against the night. People gathered in intersections and meeting places, speaking of the prince they expected to see beside his father. In the palace courtyards, water vessels for the consecration caught the lamplight, each one waiting for a morning that would not come.

Rama bathed and entered the observance with Sita. Together they made the offering prescribed for the occasion, ate what remained of it, and lay upon a bed of kusa grass in the shrine of Vishnu. Neither claimed the throne that night. The rite had not yet taken place. Outside, Ayodhya waited for morning.