The Boatman Who Washed His Feet

The chariot that carried Rama out of Ayodhya drove all day, and at evening it came to the Ganga at a town called Shringaverapura, where the river was wide and the far bank was the beginning of the forest.

That country belonged to the Nishadas, the boatmen and hunters of the river, and their king was Guha. He had known Rama for a long time. When he heard who had come he went out at once with his elders, and brought food of every kind, rice and fruit and sweets, and laid it on the bank.

"This land is yours," said Guha, embracing him. "Stay here. Rule here, if you like. What I have is yours."

Rama held him close and thanked him, and would not take any of it.

"I have made a promise," he said. "I am to live in the forest as the hermits do, on roots and fruit, wearing bark. Give the horses something to eat. That is all I can take."

So the horses were fed, and Rama drank some water from the river, and he and Sita lay down to sleep on the bare ground under a tree at the edge of the town.

Lakshmana did not lie down. He stood with his bow beside his brother all night. Guha came and sat with him.

"Sleep," said Guha. "My men are awake. Nobody will touch him in my country."

"How can I sleep," said Lakshmana, "when my brother is lying on the ground? He was born in a palace. My father is dying of grief by now, and my mother does not know where we are."

They talked like that until the stars went out, the Nishada king and the prince, about Ayodhya and the old king and what would become of them all.

In the morning Rama sent the charioteer home. Sumantra wept and begged to drive them on into the forest, and Rama would not let him.

"Go back to my father," he said. "Tell him we are well. Tell him not to grieve. Tell my mother I will come home."

Then Rama and Lakshmana matted their hair with the milky sap of a banyan, as hermits do, and Guha brought his best boat to the water. Rama, Sita and Lakshmana stepped into it, and the boatmen rowed them over the Ganga to the forest side.

Halfway across Sita joined her hands and prayed to the river to bring them all home safe at the end of the fourteen years.

In Tulsidas the boat belongs to a ferryman called Kevat, and he has heard a story.

Rama comes down to the bank and asks him to take them over. Kevat does not bring the boat.

"I know what your feet do," he says. "The dust off them turned a stone into a woman. Ahalya, wasn't it? My boat is made of wood. Wood is softer than stone. If it turns into a woman, how do I feed my children?"

Lakshmana starts forward. Rama laughs.

"Then what do you want?"

"Let me wash your feet first. Then the dust will be off them, and my boat is safe."

The gods watching from the sky rain flowers, Tulsidas says, and envy a ferryman who has been given what sages fasting for a thousand years have not.

So he brings a wooden basin of Ganga water and washes Rama's feet, slowly, with his wife and children round him. He washes each toe. When he has finished they all drink the water, every one of them, and their ancestors, the poem says, are carried over too. Only then does he put the three of them in his boat and row them across.

On the far side Sita, who has nothing else, takes off her ring and holds it out to him for the fare.

Kevat will not take it.

"A barber does not cut a barber's hair," he says. "A washerman does not charge a washerman. I take people across this river. You take people across the other one. When my time comes, take me over, and we are even."