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Continued from yesterday's instalment
 As we observed yesterday, if referring Dasaratha as 'father' consoled the troubled heart of Bharata, it would have been natural by the very same standards that he should have told annanaik konarvaan when he gave the reason for his coming to the forest - to take
Rama back. Instead, we heard Bharata saying mannanaik konarvaan to Guha. To take the King back to Ayodhya. The word certainly was not employed to suit the
convenience of prosody. For, the words annanai or mannanaik do not make any difference as far as rules of versification are concerned. They make perfect
substitutes. Then, there must be a purpose in the use of the word 'mannanai'. The poet, who is an extremely talented dramatist, has a reason that he wants us to see, by so carefully choosing his words.
That is where we see the incisive mind of Bharata coming into play. It is not impossible that he had read what was running in the mind of Guha, especially when he was standing on the other bank of Ganges when Guha was making preparations for a war. And he had also read the change that had come over the mind of Guha. Guha has not asked a single word as did Kausalya or Bharadwaja for that matter, who would - in
a short while from now - ask him why he came to the forest, while he should have been ruling the land that came to him without any effort of his.
Bharata saw the mind of Guha and wanted to reassure him. He conveys what is in his (Bharata's) mind to Guha. 'Do not think that I have taken the crown from my brother. I am not for it. I do not consider myself the king. As far as I am concerned it is Sri
Rama who is the King. Only the King is in forest. I have come here to take the King back to the throne, for him to rule from there.'
That was what Guha needed. He was convinced even
 before that Bharata could not have come for engaging Rama in a battle, as he misconstrued earlier. He was
doubly happy now and sad that he suspected this noble soul. 'en pugazhgindradhu ezhai eyinanen' How am I to praise you, me the humble hunter.' You have
outshone the fame of all your ancestors' 'iravai enbaan than pugazh katrai matrai oligalaith thavirikkumaa pol' as the Sun outshines the stars and makes them invisible.
Pardon me for the digression; but it is worth mentioning it. Kamban wrote these lines at least a thousand years before. It was a time when people were under the impression that the sun rises in the morning and goes away in the evening while the stars come up
in the evening, to vanish in the morning. It is extraordinary that Kamban was aware of he fact that the stars are still in the sky even when the sun rises and it is the comparatively powerful rays of the sun that screens them off and that the stars do not
disappear from the sky in the morning. Compare this idea with any other piece of his time and the difference can be seen.
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Hari Krishnan
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