01Called home from Kekaya
Bharata was at his grandfather’s court in Kekaya with Shatrughna when the messengers came, told to say nothing but that Vasishtha wanted him. An evil dream about his father had troubled him the night before. He reached an Ayodhya fallen silent. Kaikeyi met him gladly and told him all of it: the king dead, Rama in the forest, the kingdom his. Bharata fell to the ground. Then he turned on her with words Valmiki does not soften, and went to Kausalya and swore oath after oath that he had known nothing.
02The sandals at Chitrakoot
After the king’s last rites Bharata refused the throne before the whole assembly and set out with the army, the queens and Vasishtha to bring Rama home. Guha ferried them over the Ganga; Bharadvaja fed the whole host in his ashrama. At Chitrakoot Lakshmana saw the army and climbed a tree, sure Bharata had come to kill them, and Rama rebuked him. The brothers met in tears. Rama would not break his father’s word, and Bharata would not take what was not his, so Rama gave him his sandals. Bharata vowed that if Rama did not return the day the fourteen years ended, he would enter fire.
03Fourteen years at Nandigram
He would not live in the palace. At Nandigram, outside Ayodhya, he set the sandals on the throne, held the royal umbrella over them, and laid every matter of state before them, living in bark and matted hair like his brother. When the fourteen years ran out, Rama sent Hanuman ahead and told him to watch Bharata’s face, in case the kingdom had changed him. Hanuman found him thin, dressed as an ascetic, still ruling as a servant. Bharata put the sandals back on Rama’s feet with his own hands and gave him the kingdom he had kept for him.
04Takshashila and the Bharat Milap
In the Uttara Kanda his uncle Yudhajit asks for help against the Gandharvas on the Sindhu, and Rama sends Bharata. He conquers the Gandharva land and founds two cities for his sons: Takshashila for Taksha and Pushkalavata for Pushkala. He married Mandavi, daughter of Kushadhvaja, and at the end entered the Sarayu with Rama.
The meeting of the brothers is acted every year in the Ramlilas of the north. At Nati Imli in Varanasi the Bharat Milap, the day after Dussehra, draws one of the largest crowds of the season, packed into the lanes to see the four brothers embrace.