Lava and Kusha sing the epic, Rama listens

Classical

Rama hears his own story, and his own abandonment of Sita, sung by the sons he does not know are his.

When the Ramayana was finished, its author faced a practical question: who could perform it properly? Valmiki had composed the epic after Rama regained his kingdom, arranged in cantos, with six books and a closing section. Now he wanted voices to carry it.

The answer came to his feet. Two young men dressed as hermits, Lava and Kusha, bowed before him. They were the sons of Rama and Sita, living at his hermitage. Valmiki saw that they were intelligent, virtuous and learned in the Vedas, and he had them memorize the whole poem. He presented it as a supplement to the Vedas, and gave it the name Ramayana, which he explained is both the story of Sita's life and the record of Ravana's fall.

The work, Valmiki's chapter says, is sweet to read or sing. It fits three musical scales and seven tunes, with string instruments and rhythm, and it carries every mood: love, sorrow, humor, anger, fear and heroism. The brothers were expert musicians, with voices like celestial singers, and they looked like reflections of Rama.

Their first performances were before sages, scholars and distinguished people, and they sang without a flaw. At one assembly of sages they stood in the middle of the gathering and sang, and the listeners wept and cried out in approval. The pleased sages praised them, and the brothers kept singing in a single melody while the praise continued. The sages gave gifts that tell us how a young ascetic is equipped: a water pot, a girdle of munja grass, a loincloth, a hatchet, saffron cloth, a headband, a sacred thread, a black antelope skin, a bundle of firewood, a sacrificial vessel and a seat of audumbara wood. Some also gave blessings for long life.

Then the song went public. The brothers sang it in the streets and royal roads of Ayodhya, and people praised them wherever they went. And Rama, walking through his own capital, saw them.

He brought the two singers to his palace and honored them. Seated on a golden throne with his ministers and brothers near him, he looked at the handsome, well-mannered boys and called to Lakshmana, Shatrughna and Bharata. Listen closely, he told them, and he encouraged the singers to go on.

They sang in clear, expressive voices, and the song moved the whole court, in body, mind and heart. Rama observed that the two looked like princes but were also great ascetics, and he said the song brought good fortune. He asked the court to listen to the legend of Sita. The page's commentary notes that he calls it Sita's story rather than his own so as not to praise himself.

The boys, encouraged, sang in the traditional style. And Rama, who is deeply troubled by hearing about Sita's fate, steadies himself and becomes absorbed, and keeps listening.

The effect is a loop that only this epic can close. The story is being sung to the man it is about, by his own children, who are living as hermits. Rama is the audience, and the poem he hears is about himself and the wife he is troubled to remember. The Uttara Kanda tells this part of the story at greater length, but this retelling rests on the opening chapters of the poem, where the singing begins among the sages and then reaches Rama's palace.

Who: Lava, Kusha, Valmiki, Rama

Bound to

Birth of Lava-Kusha and the reunion causes

The krauncha birds and the first shloka located-at

Places: Ayodhya

Where this comes from

valmiki · Valmiki Ramayana, Bala Kanda (valmikiramayan.net translation) sarga 4
commentary · Essence of Valmiki Uttara Ramayana (kamakoti.org PDF) - summary of Valmiki's Uttara Kanda Uttara: sargas 93-94 (as numbered in that summary)
read for this telling · valmikiramayan.net Valmiki Ramayana Bala Kanda sarga 4

See it on the tree · All stories

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