I am not ashamed of my love (as the king was, who refused to live bereft of Rama) that such a (devoted, self-abnegating) son as Rama should have a mother like me! (It is shameful that though I, his mother, claim to love Rama, I still cleave to life and continue to survive his exile to the woods.) The king know well how to live and how to die, whereas my heart is as hard as a hundred thunderbolts.’

When they heard Kausalya’s words, Bharata and the whole gynaeceum wailed in distress; the king’s palace seemed like the very abode of sorrow.

Much agitated, the two brothers, Bharata and Shatrughna, wept unrestrainedly; Kausalya clasped them to her heart and comforted Bharata in every way with words of prudent wisdom.

Bharata, too, consoled all the queen-mothers with delightful legends from the Puranas and the Vedas, and with folded hands he addressed them in these guileless, innocent and straightforward words:

‘The crime of slaying father, mother or son, of burning cowsheds or a city of Brahmans, the crime of murdering wife or child, or poisoning a friend or a king;

- every transgression, great or small, of thought, word and deed, as enumerated by the poets – may these sins be mine, O God, if, mother, I consented to this plot!

May God award me the lot of those who forsake the feet of Hari and Shankara and worship the frightful spirits of the dead, if, mother, I consented to this plot!