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Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.37.17

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

2.37.17

drakṣyanti nūnaṃ puruṣā dīrghabāhuṃ vanecarāḥ
rāmam utthāya gacchantaṃ lokanātham anāthavat

Surely the men who roam the forest will behold the long-armed Rāma, lord of the world, rising and going his way like one who is himself forlorn.

Words: drakṣyanti — will see, behold; nūnaṃ — surely; puruṣā — the men; dīrghabāhuṃ — the long-armed; vanecarāḥ — forest-roaming (people); rāmam — Rāma; utthāya — having risen; gacchantaṃ — going; lokanātham — the lord of the world; anāthavat — like one without a protector, forlorn

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.