| Finding no
relief for his anguish by angry words, sighing like a young elephant newly captured, hot
tears-falling from his eyes, he felt he could bear no
longer the sight of his mother and rushed to Kausalya's apartment, there to find a better
place to give vent to his sorrow.
Thus did Kaikeyi's castle in the air go up
in smoke. She lay down on the floor and wept. 'The most painful of all reflexions is that
of a crime perpetrated in vain.'
Among the characters in the Raamaayana,
Bharata is the perfect embodiment of virtue. In the villages of the North, the people
celebrate an annual festival for the episode of the meeting of Raama and Bharata at
Chitrakoota, which they consider the most sanctifying part of the Raamaayana epic. There
have been through the ages great and noble souls whose virtue shines eternally in the
midst of the sordid self-seeking of a sinful world, as a beacon light to seekers of the
right path, and as a token of the god in man. |
