"The duties of kingship go with actual status. Dressed in garments of bark
and with hair matted, you are now an ascetic, pure and simple. Of course, you know best. I
am only asking you to think well before undertaking anything."
Raama's love and admiration of Seeta rose
all the more for her is misgivings. "Indeed, my love," he said, "you speak
like a true daughter of Janaka. But, Seeta, did you not once say yourself that the weapons
borne by kshatriyas are for protecting others? When helpless people suffer persecution,
how could a kshatriya sit still? When we came here. the sages complained of their
sufferings and entreated our protection. They could not endure the cruelties of the
raakshasas who looked on them as so much meat and made shambles of the hermitages. |
