SRI AUROBINDO

Translations

from Sanskrit and Other Languages

Ramayana

An Aryan City¹

Coshala by the Soroyou, a land

Smiling at heaven, of riches measureless

And corn abounding glad; in that great country

Ayodhya was, the city world-renowned,

Ayodhya by King Manou built, immense.

Twelve yojans long the mighty city lay

Grandiose, and wide three yojans. Grandly spaced

Ayodhya’s streets were and the long highroad

Ran through it spaciously with sweet cool flowers

Hourly new-paved and hourly watered wide.

Dussarutha² in Ayodhya, as in heaven

Its natural lord, abode, those massive walls

Ruling, and a great people in his name

Felt greater,– door and wall and ponderous arch

And market places huge. Of every craft

Engines mechanical and tools there thronged,

And craftsmen of each guild and manner. High rang

With heralds and sonorous eulogists

The beautiful bright city imperial.

High were her bannered edifices reared,

With theatres and dancing-halls for joy

Of her bright daughters, and sweet-scented parks

Were round and gardens cool. High circling all

The city with disastrous engines stored

In hundreds, the great ramparts like a zone

Of iron spanned in her moated girth immense

Threatening with forts the ancient sky. Defiant

Ayodhya stood, armèd, impregnable,

Inviolable in her virgin walls.

And in her streets was ever large turmoil,

Passing of elephants, the steed and ox,

Mules and rich-laden camels. And through them drove

The powerful barons of the land, great wardens

Of taxes, and from countries near and far

The splendid merchants came much marvelling

To see those orgulous high builded homes

With jewels curiously fretted, topped

With summer houses for the joy of girls,

Like some proud city in heaven. Without a gap

On either side as far as eye could reach

Mass upon serried mass the houses rose,

Seven-storied architectures metrical

Upon a level base, and made sublime.

Splendid Ayodhya octagonally built,

The mother of beautiful women and of gems

A world. Large granaries of rice unhusked

She had and husked rice for the fire, and sweet

Her water, like the cane’s delightful juice,

Cool down the throat. And a great voice throbbed of drums,

The tabour and the tambourine, while ever

The lyre with softer rumours intervened.

Nor only was she grandiosely built,

A city without earthly peer,– her sons

Were noble, warriors whose arrows scorned to pierce

The isolated man from friends cut off

Or guided by a sound to smite the alarmed

And crouching fugitive, but with sharp steel

Sought out the lion in his den or grappling

Unarmed they murdered with their mighty hands

The tiger roaring in his trackless woods

Or the mad tusked boar. Even such strong arms

Of heroes kept that city and in her midst

Regnant king Dussaruth the nations ruled.

¹ Bala Kanda, Sarga 5, 5-22.

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² 1999 ed. CWSA, volume 5: Dussaruth

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