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Continued from yesterday's instalment
 Let us see a few more of the oaths that Bharata made before Kausalya when she asked him if he was not aware of what Kaikeyi did. (Translated by Sri VVS
Aiyar)
May I be roasted in hell even as he who fills his maw while his mother suffers from hunger in dire indigence, as the follower who flees from his master when he is attacked by foes, as he who betrays to his foes the man who has taken refuge with him!
May I suffer the punishments inflicted in hell on the false witness,
on him who is afraid of war, on him who eats away trust property, on him who draws all the milk without leaving enough for the calf, on the man who is ungrateful to his benefactor, on the man who would not defend women who are assaulted in his presence, and on him who eats when his neighbour is hungry.
May I writhe in hell as he who runs away from the battlefield fearing for his life, and
as the king who robs the charitable foundations of his realms!
 If I had desired the crown that Rama was to have worn, may I throw away my skill with the bow and the sword, and may I lose my valour, and for the sake of preserving the worthless body, may I live a beggar in the place given to me by enemies! May I place my sword at the feet of my enemies and surrender my honour to them to be mocked at by women!
May I lose the independence of my country and live a chained prisoner in the sight of my
enemies!"
The list of sins that Bharata invokes on himself - had he had a foretaste of what Kaikeyi did - is pretty long. They serve to reveal the heart of Bharata as well as the values that were cherished by our ancestors, what they considered as heinous offences - robbing the poor, eating away trust property, king robbing the charitable foundations of his country, losing the independence of the nation… Excepting the last one - namely, losing the independence - I am afraid what else is valued in our days.
That apart. What is most painful in life is being accused of bad intentions when we are genuinely innocent. Having to prove our innocence, to those who are endeared, close to our hearts, on whom we place all our respect, admiration and affection. We are surrounded by guilt feelings and troubled by thoughts of how to prove our innocence to the person whom we respect. Actually, that propelled Bharata into hatred against Kaikeyi. As remarked by VVS Aiyar, these guilt feelings never left Bharata for the rest of his times, till he returned the kingdom to Sri Rama. In his words,
 "Bharata's filial affection, tenderness, sweetness, joy in life, all have gone to the winds. After this revelation of Kaikeyi, he cannot look at the world except in terms of her double guilt. And he cannot forget that he is the son of Kaikeyi and that it is for his sake that she executed her cruel plot. He begins to be obsessed with the idea that none would believe that he had no hand in his mother's conspiracy, and the idea oppresses his heart every minute with an increasing intensity. So self-reproach and self-condemnation become his normal state of mind."
More follows…
Hari Krishnan
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