All the citizens embraced the Nishada chief with a heart overflowing with love and praised his good fortune. Rama found the queens as stricken with grief as a row of tender creepers that had been smitten by the frost.

First of all he embraced Kaikeyi, and overwhelmed her mind with his sincerity and devotion; then, falling at her feet, he soothed her, attributing the blame to the wheel of time and destiny and providence.

Raghunatha embraced all the queens and consoled them and exhorted them, saying, ‘Mother, the world is controlled by the will of God; there is no one to blame.’

Then the two brothers (Rama and Lakshmana) adored the feet of the guru’s wife (Arundhati) as well as of all those Brahman ladies who had accompanied Bharata, paying them all the same honour as is due to Ganga and Gauri (Shiva’s consort); happily the ladies blessed them I gentle tones.

After clasping Sumitra’s feet, they sought her lap even as some destitute beggar would hug a treasure. Then the two brothers fell at Kausalya’s feet, their limbs altogether overwroughtly by love.

The mother clasped them most fondly to her heart and bathed them with tears of affection from her eyes. How can a poet describe the mingled joy and grief of that hour any more than a dumb man can express the taste of what he has eaten?

Having embraced their mother, Raghunatha and his brother (Lakshmana) requested the guru to accompany them to the hermitage, and the citizens, on receiving the sage’s command, encamped themselves wherever they saw a suitable site and water close by.