Valmiki Ramayana 2.30.21: Ayodhya Kanda, Sarga 30, Shloka 21
सीताया वनानुगमननिश्चयः · Sita’s Resolve to Accompany Rama to the Forest
Spoken by Sita to RamaSetting: Ayodhyā (royal apartments)
इमं हि सहितुं शोकं मुहूर्तमपि नोत्सहे ।
किं पुनर्दशवर्षाणि त्रीणि चैकं च दुःखिता ॥२१॥
imaṃ hi sahituṃ śokaṃ muhūrtam api notsahe |
kiṃ punar daśa-varṣāṇi trīṇi caikaṃ ca duḥkhitā ||21||
ความโศกนี้ ข้าทนได้แม้เพียงชั่วขณะก็หาไม่ แล้วข้าผู้เป็นสตรีทุกข์ระทม จะทนได้อย่างไรถึงสิบปี อีกสามปี และอีกหนึ่งปี—รวมสิบสี่ปี
Sandhi Notes
- नोत्सहे = न + उत्सहे
- पुनर्दशवर्षाणि = पुनः + दशवर्षाणि
- चैकं = च + एकम्
I cannot bear this grief even for a moment, what to speak of fourteen (ten and threeand one) years of grieving.
The teaching
The mind that cannot bear a moment of sorrow will be crushed by imagined years; endurance (titikṣā) is itself a dharmic strength.
Duties in tension
- Acceptance of a dharma-imposed separation (exile term) vs spousal attachment and emotional dependence
- Ethical theme
- Titikṣā vs moha; household duty under political crisis
- How it resolves
- Appeal/argumentation (attempt to reverse decision emotionally)
For your practice
Practice of kṣaṇika-bhāvanā: returning attention to the present moment to reduce kāla-projection; useful for grief management in sādhana.
Mood and themes
- Rasa
- Karuna (compassion)
- Mood
- Impatient grief, overwhelmed, time-dread
Themes
- Dharma
- Maryada
- Itihasa
- Ethics
- Exile (vana-vāsa)
- Human emotion
Kāla is an upādhi that magnifies saṃsāric suffering; the mind projects future pain and becomes bound by imagined duration.
Śvetāśvatara’s sense of the world-wheel driven by kāla (thematic echo: time as binding force).
- Kaikeyi and Dasharatha
- Wife arguing incapacity to endure separation-time (anguished protest)
- Kaikeyi and Rama
- Queen-consort vs crown prince (implied cause of exile duration) (anxious, resentful undertone (implied))
Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.30.20 (death preferable); Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 2.30.22-24 (physical outburst and tears)
Epic convention of counting exile years explicitly (daśa-caturdaśa motif)
Ayodhyākāṇḍa: the fourteen-year exile decree repeated across dialogues (Daśaratha–Rāma, Rāma–Sītā, etc.)
Anuṣṭup
Grieving
Slower tempo with emphatic pause after ‘muhūrtam api’ and weight on numerals ‘daśa…trīṇi…ekam’
FAQs
Dharma is argued through truthful acknowledgement of capacity: Sītā candidly states that separation contradicts her ability to live rightly and steadily.
Sītā points to the length of exile—fourteen years—to show the impossibility of bearing separation for that duration.
Emotional truthfulness joined to steadfast commitment—she does not pretend detachment where it would be false.
Ask anything about this verse
Answers come straight from the texts, with the shlokas they draw on. Ask in your own words.
A free sign-in with Google or Apple keeps your chat saved across web and the app.
Read Valmiki Ramayana in the Vedapath app
Scan the QR code to open this directly in the app, with word-by-word meanings, Sanskrit recitation where available, and more.
