Canto 2 -
Ayodhyā-kāṇḍa
Chapter 21: Rāma Consoles Kausalyā and Lakṣmaṇa
Text 2.21.44
सोऽहं न शक्ष्यामि पितुर्नियोगमतिवर्तितुम्।
पितुर्हि वचनाद्वीर कैकेय्याहं प्रचोदितः॥
so ’haṁ na śakṣyāmi pitur niyogam ativartitum
pitur hi vacanād vīra kaikeyyāhaṁ pracoditaḥ
saḥ aham = I; na śakṣyāmi = cannot; pituḥ = Our father’s; niyogam = order; ativartitum = transgress; pituḥ = Our father’s; hi = for; vacanāt = only on the basis of order; vīra = O hero; kaikeyyā = by Queen Kaikeyī; aham = I; pracoditaḥ = I have been ordered.
O hero, I cannot transgress Our father’s order, for I have been ordered by Queen Kaikeyī only on the basis of Our father’s order.
Now Rāmacandra states that He has to carry out His father’s instruction. [To go to the forest] is the instruction of His father and no one else, for Kaikeyī is only ordering Him on the basis of His father’s order.
Saḥ indicates that He had promised [His father that He would fulfill his promise to Kaikeyī]. Carrying out one’s father’s [dhārmika] order and being truthful to one’s words are individually activities of dharma. So what to speak of a situation when the same activity involves both carrying out one’s father’s [dhārmika] order and being truthful to one’s words?
Till now, Lord Rāma spoke about the confidential nature of dharma. Now He explains the nature of śama, control of one’s mind.