Ramayana 7: His Sandals Wait Before the Throne by DavidBowles Music not playing? Switch to HTML5 Player. Share:    Facebook Twitter Email

The seventh track in Ramayana, a musical interpretation of the Hindu epic.

Rama has graciously obeyed Queen Kaikeyi's wish for his banishment, understanding dharma better than anyone in the epic, and has taken his wife and half-brother Lakshmana into the forest to live as ascetics with him. Though his exile precipitated his father's death, Rama does not return to the land of his birth during the 14 years that Kaikeyi has asked for him to remain away.

Bharata, who was away during this tumult, arrived to discover his mother's reprensible actions; horrified, he raced after Rama—accompanied by most of his new subjects—and begged him to return to Ayodhya, their city, and rule as was his destiny. Rama refused, pointing to the demands of dharma.

Once Bharata saw that his brother would not return, he begged of him a gift: Rama's sandals. Bharata explained that he would only act as a temporary regent during the 14 years of Rama's exile, governing not from Ayodhya, but a nearby village. On the throne of their kingdom he never sat, but instead placed the sandals of its rightful lord before it, awaiting his return.

For a decade and a half, those sandals will occupy that symbolic place of authority, awaiting the return of their owner...

This piece substitutes the earlier "Rama's Sandals on the Throne." The first movement is Bharata's song of longing, which is echoed in the second movement by the common people of Kosala in the second movement, and finally by the entire world.

Then the composition moves to Rama, living a hermit's life in the Ayodhya Hills with his wife and brother Lakshmana; he hears his people's lament, and his kingly theme emerges from the contemplative silence, a promise of his impending return.