The Song in Rāma's Hall

When Rāma held the great horse sacrifice, the royal rite to which he called kings, sages and brahmins from every land, in the Naimiṣa forest by the river Gomatī, Vālmīki came to it with his disciples, and Rāma and the sages honoured him, and he set up leaf huts in a quiet corner of the sages' camp. Then he said to the two boys, Go, and with glad and steady minds sing the whole Rāmāyaṇa with joy: in the sages' settlements and the brahmins' houses, in the streets and the royal roads and the palaces, and at the door of Rāma's house where the sacrifice is being held, and above all before the priests. Eat these sweet fruits from the mountains and you will not grow tired. If Rāma calls you to sing before the seated sages, sing twenty sections a day, sweetly, in the measures I taught you. Do not take anything out of greed for money. What use is wealth to people who live in a hermitage on roots and fruit? If the king asks whose sons you are, tell him, We are disciples of Vālmīki. Begin at the beginning, and do not slight the king, for by dharma the king is the father of all creatures.

The boys did exactly as he said. Rāma heard them singing and called a great assembly of sages and kings, learned men, musicians and citizens, and seated the two singers before them, and everyone said to one another, They look exactly like Rāma, like reflections of an image; but for their matted hair and bark clothes we could see no difference. The boys began from the first section, where Nārada tells Vālmīki the story, and sang twenty sections. Rāma told his brother to give them eighteen thousand pieces of gold, but they would not take it. We live in the forest on roots and fruit, they said. What would we do with gold?

Rāma asked them who had made the poem and where he was. The revered Vālmīki made it, they said, who has come to your sacrifice. It is twenty-four thousand verses, and tells the whole of your life. And day after day Rāma listened to Kuśa and Lava singing it. After many days of listening, Rāma knew that the two singers were Sītā's sons, Kuśa and Lava, and he sent messengers to Vālmīki: if Sītā was pure, let her come and prove it before the assembly.