Chapter 16 — Lakshmana and Urmila

Rama had accepted Sita's decision. Before the household could settle into the work of leaving, he turned to Lakshmana, who stood before him ready to go and asking with joined hands. Around them the palace was already changing: opened storehouses, servants carrying gifts, and the subdued movement of a household being dismantled.

Rama did not treat the matter as simple. If Lakshmana came into the forest, who would care for Kausalya and Sumitra in the palace? Kaikeyi would have the kingdom she had sought for Bharata; Rama feared what that might mean for the two queens made vulnerable by the exile of their sons.

Lakshmana answered with reasons of his own. Bharata, he said, would honor Kausalya and Sumitra out of reverence for Rama. Kausalya was not helpless: the income of a thousand villages supported her household. She could sustain far more than one son such as he. The greater need, as Lakshmana saw it, lay on the road ahead. “Do not ask me to remain where every comfort would remind me that you have gone,” he said in substance. “Let me go before you, make the path ready, and stand between you and danger.”

He did not want security or honor under Bharata's rule, nor could he live in Ayodhya while Rama and Sita entered danger. He would take up bow and arrows, carry the digging tools needed for travel, walk ahead to find the path, gather roots and fruit, and remain awake while they slept. Rama and Sita could rest where they chose; he would serve them in the forest.

Rama's hesitation had been for the women left behind. Lakshmana's answer met it directly and then offered something Rama needed: a companion who understood the hardship before them and chose it without disguise. Rama was pleased. He told Lakshmana to fetch the weapons that had been kept with their teacher: the formidable bows given to Dasharatha by Varuna at Janaka's great rite, impenetrable armour, inexhaustible quivers, and two bright swords.

The forest life to which they were going was austere, but it was not careless. They would enter it in bark clothing and matted hair; they would also enter it prepared to defend themselves. Lakshmana's service was neither a ceremonial gesture nor a vague declaration of loyalty. It meant carrying weight, reading the ground, providing food, building shelter, and keeping watch while the two people he loved slept.

Then Rama began to give away what could not travel with them. He summoned learned brahmins, ascetics, household dependants, servants, and those who had long lived under the protection of his house. Gold, cattle, clothing, ornaments, vehicles, and stores were distributed. Sita gave ornaments and furnishings to the wife of Suyajna, the learned priest whom Lakshmana brought to them. The giving was not a celebration. It was the unmaking of a royal household before exile.

Lakshmana carried out the instructions quickly. Sita stood with Rama as gifts passed into other hands, the wealth of the life she had chosen to leave passing away around her.

Urmila, Lakshmana's wife and Sita's sister, had been part of the marriages that joined the two families. Lakshmana completed the preparations, returned with the arms, and stood ready beside Rama and Sita. The life of a newly married prince was over; in its place he had made, and was now keeping, a choice.