Shloka 2.24.38
कौशल्यारामसंवादः — Kausalya–Rama Dialogue on Exile-Dharma
तथा हि रामं वनवासनिश्चितंसमीक्ष्य देवी परमेण चेतसा।उवाच रामं शुभलक्षणं वचोबभूव च स्वस्त्ययनाभिकाङ्क्षिणी।।2.24.38।।
ayaṃ tu mām ātmabhavaḥ tavādarśana-mārutaḥ |
vilāpa-duḥkha-samidhō ruditāśru-hutāhutiḥ || 2.24.6 ||
cintā-bāṣpa-mahādhūmas tavāgamanacittajaḥ |
karśayitvā bhṛśaṃ putra niśvāsāyāsa-sambhavaḥ || 2.24.7 ||
tvayā vihīnāṃ iha māṃ śokāgnir atulo mahān |
pradhakṣyati yathā kakṣaṃ citrabhānur himātyaye || 2.24.8 ||
When you are gone, my son, an immense, incomparable fire of grief will rise within me—fanned by the wind of your absence, fed by lamentation and pain, with my tears as oblations and the thick smoke of anxious thoughts. Born of weary sighs, it will waste me away and burn me, as blazing fire burns dry grass in the heat of summer.
Seeing Rama full of auspicious qualities resolved to go to the forest and having spoken to him with the fullness of her heart, Devi Kausalya now braced herself up to perform ceremonies in the interest of Rama's well-being.ityārṣē śrīmadrāmāyaṇē vālmīkīya ādikāvyē ayōdhyākāṇḍē caturviṅśassargaḥ৷৷Thus ends the twentyfourth sarga of Ayodhyakanda of the holy Ramayana, the first epic composed by sage Valmiki.
The passage shows the human cost of dharma: Rāma’s adherence to truth and duty entails separation and suffering for his mother. Dharma is portrayed as morally elevated yet emotionally painful.
Kausalyā imagines the devastation she will experience once Rāma departs for forest-exile, using sacrificial-fire imagery to describe grief.
Kausalyā’s deep maternal devotion and honesty of emotion; Rāma’s implied steadfastness, since such grief arises only because he will not abandon his pledged duty.