And now I have come and seen everything with my own eyes; surely in this life my wretched soul will subject me to all kinds of sufferings. Those at the sight of whom serpents and scorpions on the road forget their virulent venom, deadly even to the ascetics -

- those like Raghunandana, Lakshmana and Sita – appeared to Kaikeyi as foes! On whom, then, should providence inflict intolerable pain if not on the son of Kaikeyi?

On hearing Bharata’s moving speech, so full of agony and love and humility and prudence, wrung from his uneasy heart, everybody was plunged in sorrow and the whole assembly was in distress as if a bed of lotuses was smitten by the frost.

The enlightened sage comforted Bharata by narrating ancient legends of various kinds, and Raghunandan, a veritable moon to the lily-like Solar race, spoke words which were right and proper:

‘Brother, even if you know that the course of life depends on God, yield not to the torment of contrition in vain. To my mind, all the men of fair renown in all time, past, present or future, and in the three spheres of creation, are not to be compared, dear brother, with yourself.

He who attributes malevolence to you even in thought will be ruined in this world as well as in the next; and those fools alone blame your mother who have waited neither on the guru nor on the company of the holy.

By the recollection of your name, O Bharata, all sin and ignorance and the burden of all that is unblest shall be obliterated; it will bring fair fame in this world and bliss hereafter.