← 2.37.15 · Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa 37: Daśaratha loses sight of Rāma and rejects Kaikeyī · 2.37.17 →

Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.37.16

Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, sarga 37: Daśaratha loses sight of Rāma and rejects Kaikeyī. The chariot’s dust disappears, Daśaratha falls, rejects Kaikeyī’s touch and returns to Kausalyā as his sight fails

In the sequence: seeing the hoofprints but no longer his son, he imagines Rāma sleeping on the ground beneath a tree

2.37.16

utthāsyati ca medinyāḥ kṛpaṇaḥ pāṃśuguṇṭhitaḥ
viniḥśvasan prasravaṇāt kareṇūnām ivarṣabhaḥ

And piteously he will rise up from the earth, smeared with dust, sighing, like a bull of the she-elephants rising from a mountain-spring.

Words: utthāsyati — will rise up; ca — and; medinyāḥ — from the earth; kṛpaṇaḥ — piteous, wretched; pāṃśuguṇṭhitaḥ — smeared with dust; viniḥśvasan — sighing, breathing heavily; prasravaṇāt — from a spring, waterfall; kareṇūnām — of the she-elephants; ivarṣabhaḥ — like a bull

Composed by Maharṣi Vālmīki, the ādikavi of the ādikāvya: the first poet of the first poem. Sanskrit: The Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa: Critical Edition, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1960–1975 (gen. eds. G. H. Bhatt, U. P. Shah); IAST from GRETIL (Göttingen). Translation and word glosses: Claude Opus 4.6–4.7; summaries and sequences: ChatGPT Astra (machine-made). Numbering follows the Critical Edition, not the vulgate (e.g. Gita Press, valmikiramayan.net), so sarga and verse numbers can differ from those editions.