The anguish in her heart was beyond description, like that of a deer when she hears the roar of a lion. Her eyes were wet with tears and her body shook and trembled, like a fish fallen sick after swallowing the scum brought down by the first monsoon shower.

Summoning up courage, the mother gazed on her son’s face and spoke in faltering accents, ‘My boy, you are as dear to your father as life itself, and it is a constant delight to him to watch the deeds you do.

He had fixed an auspicious day for your installation as regent; for what offence has he asked you to proceed to the woods? Tell me the reason, my son; who is the destroying fire to consume the Solar race?’

Reading in Rama’s eyes his tacit consent, Sumantra’s son (who had obviously accompanied the Prince) told her the reason. When she heard the story, she was so dumbfounded that words fall to describe her condition.

She could neither detain her son nor bid him go; either decision was utter anguish to her heart. ‘God’s eyes,’ she thought, ‘are ever adverse to all; look how he inscribed Rahu, whereas he set out to draw a moon!’ (Rahu, a demon, is the cause of eclipses and is called Vidhuntuda, tormentor of the moon.)

Her sense of duty and her affection both laid siege to Kaushalya’s judgement; her dilemma was like that of a snake and a musk-rat. ‘If press my son and detain him,’ she thought, ‘it will be a sin against all righteousness and will give rise to hostility between the brothers.

But if I bid him go to the forest, it will be a grievous loss.’ Thus did the queen find herself faced with an embarrassing situation and was overwhelmed with grief. At last, reflecting on a woman’s duty to her lord and remembering that Rama and Bharata were both equally her sons