Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana depart Ayodhya

Ráma, Sítá, and Lakshmaṇ depart Ayodhyá together in a gold-adorned chariot, turning the command of banishment into a scene of family farewell and civic mourning. Ráma first receives his father’s consent to leave and pays reverence to the distressed queen; Sítá and Lakshmaṇ join him, while Sumantra drives them away. The city’s people follow, and Daśaratha, surrounded by grieving women, longs to see his son once more. The departure is at once a practical beginning to life in the forest and a public rupture: the household’s leave-taking becomes the city’s collective loss.

Farewell and departure

The leave-taking is marked by gestures of respect before the journey begins. Ráma, described as dutiful, has gained his father’s consent to part. He and Sítá then pay reverence to the distressed queen. Lakshmaṇ, in turn, bows and clasps his mother’s feet. The order of these gestures places the departure within a network of family obligations: the travelers do not simply turn away from Ayodhyá, but take leave of the elders whose authority and affection bind them to home.

That formal farewell cannot remove the pain of separation. The account gives particular weight to the moment when Lakshmaṇ bows to his mother, while Sumitrá watches him. His choice to go with Ráma thus has a visible cost within his own household as well as a place in his brother’s story. The scene makes departure something witnessed and endured by those left behind, not merely a decision made by the travelers.

The reason for leaving remains present in the blunt command attributed to Kaikeyí: she cries for Ráma to go far into the wilds. Against that order, the account sets the composure of Sítá, who ascends the chariot with a tranquil mind after finishing her toilette. Ráma and Lakshmaṇ spring aboard as well. Their different gestures—Sítá’s calm ascent, the brothers’ decisive movement, and the formal bows immediately preceding them—give the departure both ceremonial gravity and forward motion.

A journey equipped for exile

The chariot is brilliant as the sun and adorned with gold, but what it carries makes clear that this is no ordinary royal progress. Arms and mail are placed inside, alongside a leathern basket and a spade. The equipment combines the means of defense with tools for practical life beyond the city. The travelers are setting out under the conditions of banishment, not simply taking a decorated ride away from the palace.

Sumantra waits until all three are seated before urging on the noble horses. The arrangement is precise: the family boards, the charioteer acts, and the vehicle moves. The horses are compared to the rushing wind in speed, giving the departure a sudden physical force after the stillness of farewell. Yet the chariot’s swiftness cannot make the separation painless or private; the people of Ayodhyá immediately respond to its movement.

The gold of the vehicle and its practical cargo stand in telling contrast. Its brilliance belongs to the royal world the travelers are leaving, while the basket, spade, arms, and mail anticipate the demands of life in the wilds. The poem does not pause to describe the destination or the future use of each item. Instead, the inventory itself marks the change in circumstance: a household that has just observed courtly leave-taking is equipped to travel into exile.

Ayodhyá follows the chariot

As Ráma goes forth for banishment, grief assails the town. The response is not confined to the palace or to the women at the farewell. The city’s young and old rush toward the chariot, and people cling to it both before and behind, their eyes streaming with tears. The movement gathers the citizens into a single pursuing crowd, bound together by sorrow and by their desire to remain near the departing travelers.

The poem enlarges that grief through comparisons to creatures responding to loss or need: the people run as herds panting toward water, while the women’s lament recalls the cries of she-elephants when their leader is slain. These images make the crowd’s attachment bodily and audible. The departure is heard in the neighing horses and the bells they shake; the elephants answer with roars. The city’s sorrow therefore enters the scene not only through tears and calls but through the animals and sounds of the royal procession.

The contrast between the chariot’s forward motion and the people’s attempt to hold it back gives the scene its central tension. Ráma urges Sumantra to speed away, while the townspeople plead for him to stay. Sumantra must obey the instruction to drive on rather than the citizens’ calls. The departure becomes a conflict between the travelers’ necessary movement and the crowd’s wish to delay it, though the account presents no reversal: the chariot continues out of the city, and the people can follow it only for a time.

Daśaratha’s parting grief

Daśaratha remains among those watching the departure, surrounded by a ring of grieving wives. His wish to see his son once more gives the public lament its most intimate focus. The king is not shown as a distant authority observing a political consequence; he is a father caught in the same separation that has brought the city into the road. His troubled appearance is compared to the full moon threatened by eclipse, an image that makes his distress visible without suggesting that his rank can protect him from it.

Ráma’s response sharpens the divide between parental grief and the journey’s demands. He asks the charioteer to drive on; from the crowd comes the answering appeal to stay. Sumantra follows Ráma’s urging and must disregard the townspeople. The opposing calls do not cancel one another: one carries the journey beyond reach, the other voices the attachment that departure leaves behind.

The episode closes on movement rather than reunion. Ráma, Sítá, and Lakshmaṇ leave together, while Daśaratha and the people remain behind, watching and lamenting. The farewell’s many acts of reverence and its carefully noted travel provisions establish the obligations and practical circumstances of exile; the pursuing crowd and the king’s grief reveal its human cost. By making the departure visible to family, citizens, and the royal household, the narrative turns a command to leave into a loss shared across Ayodhyá.