Lakshmana's Death and the Renunciation of Lavana and Ankusha

When Indra rises from his assembly, the gods of all four classes, Bhavanavasi, Vyantara, Jyotishi and Vimanavasi, bow to him and return to their abodes with pure hearts. Two gods of that assembly, Ratnachula and Mrigachula, resolve to test the love between the Baladeva and the Narayana: since Rama cannot live without seeing Lakshmana, they wonder what Lakshmana would do on hearing of Rama's death, how his face would look in grief, at whom he would rage and what he would say.

The two mischievous gods come to Ayodhya and by vikriya (magical illusion) make all the queens of Rama's inner palace seem to wail, while illusory doorkeepers, nobles, ministers and priests come with bowed heads to Lakshmana and announce, ‘Lord, Rama has passed to the next world.’ Hearing this, Lakshmana, seated on his throne, can utter only half of the word ‘alas’ before his life leaves him, struck as if by a thunderbolt of words, his eyelids fixed just as they were.

Seeing Lakshmana dead at the false news of his brother's death, the two gods are stricken and find they cannot revive him; concluding that his death was fated to come this way, they return to heaven full of remorse and wonder, unable even to stand and look at what they have done. Gautama tells Shrenika that sinners who act without thinking are always left to repent.

Lakshmana's queens, thinking him merely displeased, plead, ‘Lord, who has slighted you? Be pleased, for your displeasure is our sorrow’, embrace his body and fall at his feet. Some play the vina or the mridanga, some sing his virtues, some gaze at his face and some set his feet on their heads, but every effort is wasted on the lifeless body, and the queens, as lovely as Indra's consorts, writhe in bewildered grief until their beauty withers.

Hearing the news, Rama hurries with his ministers into the inner apartments and finds Lakshmana's face as dim as the moon at dawn, like a tree just torn up by the roots. Wondering why his ever-cheerful brother has turned sullen with him for no reason, he lifts him, clasps him to his heart and kisses his head; though the neck is bent, the body cold, the breath gone and the eyelids neither open nor close, Rama, blinded by love, will not call him dead.

Trembling and drenched in sweat, Rama faints again and again, and though he is a treasury of all vidyas (magical sciences), his love for his brother makes him forget them all. He summons physicians and masters of mantra and tantra and sends for many medicines, but they sit with bowed heads, for they can only help the living; Rama falls senseless, and when revived weeps until his face looks like the moon behind streams of rain, the whole kingdom, city and countryside weep with him, and the queens beg Lakshmana to forgive whatever fault they have committed and speak to them once more.

Seeing the death of the Narayana Lakshmana, Lavana and Ankusha are filled with deep sorrow and reflect: shame on this hollow world and this fleeting body, for the Vasudeva whom not even the Vidyadharas could conquer has been conquered by death in the blink of an eye, so what can a perishable body, kingdom and wealth achieve for them? Fearing to enter a womb again, Sita's two sons bow at their father's feet, go to the Mahendrodaya garden and become great munis (monks) at the feet of the sage Amriteshvara.

Their diksha deepens the people's fear that no one is left to protect them, for Rama, lost in the ocean of grief, does not even notice that his sons have gone; Lakshmana is dearer to him than kingdom, sons, queens and his own life. The chapter reflects that such is the strangeness of karma, that the wise, seeing the ways of the world, need only a small outward cause for the sun of knowledge to rise within, and that vairagya (detachment) comes as old karmas subside, leading through muni diksha to moksha (liberation), which is never won in household life.