Adhyaya 65

After Śatrughna faints in battle and the army falls into confusion, the sacrificial horse is compassionately returned so that the Aśvamedha may be completed. The company then proceeds back toward Rāma amid royal procession and festival preparations along the Sarayū. The chapter dwells on ritual hospitality—pavilions raised, Veda-recitation resounding, and abundant foods set forth as offerings. Rāma is moved in his reunion with Śatrughna and honors Puṣkala and the allied kings. Rāma asks the minister Sumati about the horse’s route and the rulers encountered. With courtly humility, Sumati begins a structured report: the horse’s progress and the submission of kings, the episodes at Ahicchatrā, Subāhu’s city, the Revā lake (where the Mohanāstra is obtained), Devapura, and finally the event at Vālmīki’s hermitage, where a youth resembling Rāma seizes the horse, defeats the army, and then restores it.