Chapter 77 — The Ashoka Grove

When Pushpaka had gone, Rama entered the Ashoka grove within the royal grounds. It was not the guarded grove of Lanka where Sita had been held captive. This was a place of pleasure in Ayodhya, made spacious by water and shade: ponds stepped with bright stone, lotus and water-lily opening across their surfaces, and lawns between the trees. Sandalwood and mango grew there with cedar, jambū, and flowering shrubs. Bees crowded the blossoms; cuckoos and other birds moved through the leaves. Some trunks glowed like gold in the light, some were dark as collyrium, and some held the color of a flame.

Pavilions stood among climbing vines, with seats spread in the shade. There Rama sat with Sita, taking her in his arms and offering her a fine drink. The attendants brought fruits and prepared foods. Women skilled in music and dance performed before the king and queen. The season passed in this way: Rama and Sita found pleasure in one another's presence, day after day, as winter moved softly through the grove.

Yet their life was not withdrawn from the demands of the palace. In the early part of each day Rama attended to the work of the city according to dharma—the discipline of right conduct by which power is used and judged. Sita completed the household's morning observances and stood before all her mothers-in-law with the same joined-handed respect. Only then did she go to Rama's inner rooms, bright with the ornaments proper to court, as Shachi comes to Indra in the old comparison.

Rama looked up when she entered, and delight rose in him.

“Sita,” he said, “a child is coming to us. Tell me what you wish for. What desire of yours may be fulfilled?”

She smiled before she answered. Her request was neither for another jewel nor for another chamber in the palace.

“I would like to see the sacred hermitages,” she said, “those on the bank of the Ganga where righteous rishis live on roots and fruit. I would like to sit at their feet. Let me stay even one night among people of such holiness. That is what I most desire.”

The wish was hers, plainly made: to leave the ordered luxury of the court for a brief visit to communities of disciplined practice beside the great river. Rama did not refuse it or make it small. She was carrying his child, and she had asked for one night among hermits beside a river.

“So it shall be,” he said. “Set your mind at ease, Sita. Tomorrow you will go.”

Then, accompanied by his friends, he passed from the inner chambers into the middle rooms of the palace. Sita remained with the promise of the journey before her.