Kids · उत्तरकाण्ड Uttar Kāṇḍa · Ages 8–12
The Question Bharata Asked
How can you tell a truly good person from a bad one? Not by their clothes, and not by how loudly they talk. Bharata had carried this question for a long time, and one day in Ayodhyā he finally asked it.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās tells this in the Uttar-kāṇḍa of the Rāmcaritmānas, in the peaceful years after Lord Rāma was crowned. It is a conversation only he gives us — Sage Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa does not have it, and we will say so at the end. This is the Tulsīdās telling.
Three brothers too shy to ask
The great sages Sanaka and his brothers had just left for the heavens, and the hall was quiet. Bharata, Lakṣmaṇa and Śatrughna bowed their heads at Lord Rāma's feet. Each of them had something he wanted to ask — but they were too shy to put a question to the Lord himself. So all three of them did the same thing. They looked at Hanumān Jī.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
'Tell me, Hanumān — what is it?'
Lord Rāma knows every heart, and he knew already. 'Tell me, Hanumān,' he said, 'what is the matter?' Hanumān Jī joined his palms. 'Lord, Bharata wishes to ask you something, but he is too shy to speak.' 'Hanumān, you know me,' said the Lord. 'Has there ever been a secret between Bharata and me?' At that Bharata took hold of the Lord's feet. 'I have no doubts, my Lord, and no sorrow, not even in a dream — that is all your grace,' he said. 'But there is one thing I long to hear from your own lips.'
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
The sandalwood tree and the axe
'The Vedas and the Purāṇas praise the good — the sants — and so do you,' said Bharata. 'Please tell me clearly: how do I know a good person from a bad one?' The Lord was glad to answer. 'Listen, brother. The good and the wicked behave like the sandalwood tree and the axe. The axe cuts the sandalwood tree down — and the tree, as it is cut, fills the axe with its own sweet fragrance.' Then he added: 'That is why sandal paste is placed on the heads of the gods and loved by all the world, while the axe has its edge heated in the fire and beaten with a hammer.'
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
How you can tell the good
'Good people grieve when they see someone else in trouble, and they are glad when they see someone else happy,' the Lord went on. 'They treat no one as an enemy. They are gentle of heart and kind to those who are suffering. They give honour to everyone and ask for none themselves. Such people, Bharata, are as dear to me as my own life.' He spoke of their calmness and their simple, friendly ways, and of one more thing: 'They never, ever say a harsh word.' And then, in a single line, he gave the test of tests: 'Praise and blame are the same to them.'
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
And the other kind
'Now hear about the other kind,' said the Lord, 'and keep away from their company.' He did not say much, and he did not need to. 'They burn inside when good things happen to other people. When they hear someone spoken badly of, they are as pleased as if they had found a treasure lying in the road. When they hear someone praised, they sigh as if they had caught a fever. They speak sweetly, like the peacock — but the peacock has a hard heart and eats snakes.'
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
No goodness like kindness
Then Lord Rāma summed it all up for his brother in one line that people in India still repeat today: 'There is no dharma like doing good to others, brother, and nothing so low as causing others pain. That is the verdict of all the Vedas and the Purāṇas; the wise know it too.' Those who truly understand the difference between the good and the wicked, he said, are never lost in the world again. Bharata had his answer. And the sandalwood tree has been teaching it ever since.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
✦ Two tellings, one story
Sage Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa (Sanskrit)
Sage Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa does not have this conversation. In his Uttara Kāṇḍa, Lord Rāma's reign in Ayodhyā is full of other episodes — the dog who came to court, the sages who come to visit, the great horse-sacrifice — but there is no scene in which Bharata asks how to tell the good from the wicked, and no sandalwood tree and axe. We have not invented a Vālmīki version of it. Where the two Rāmāyaṇas differ, we tell only what each one says.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās’s Rāmcaritmānas (Awadhi)
In the Uttar-kāṇḍa of the Rāmcaritmānas, after the sages Sanaka and his brothers leave Ayodhyā, Bharata, Lakṣmaṇa and Śatrughna bow to Lord Rāma but are too modest to question him, and all look toward Hanumān Jī. The Lord asks Hanumān what is the matter; Hanumān says Bharata has a question he is shy to ask; the Lord replies that nothing has ever been hidden between Bharata and himself. Bharata clasps his feet, says he has no doubt or sorrow but longs to hear the marks of the good and the wicked, and the Lord answers at length — beginning with the sandalwood tree that perfumes the axe which cuts it, listing the qualities of the sants, describing the wicked and warning against their company, and ending with the line that there is no dharma like doing good to others and no meanness like causing them pain.
What this story teaches
Be the sandalwood, not the axe
The axe cuts, and the sandalwood tree answers with fragrance. Lord Rāma's first mark of a good person is not cleverness or strength — it is being kind even to the one who hurts you. That is hard. It is also the thing people remember about you for ever.
Watch how someone feels about other people's good news
The Lord's test is simple enough for a playground. Does a person light up when something good happens to someone else — or do they go quiet and sour? Glad for others: that is a good friend. Learn to be that friend yourself.
It is all right to be shy — and good to have a friend who speaks up
Three brave princes could not get their question out. Hanumān Jī spoke for them, and the Lord was glad to be asked. If you have a question you are afraid to ask, you are in very good company. Ask it anyway, or ask a friend to help you.
Words to know
- Uttar-kāṇḍa · the last book of the Rāmcaritmānas — 'uttar' means 'later' — telling of Lord Rāma's years as king and the teachings he gave
- sant · a truly good person, a saint; Bharata asked how to recognise one
- candana · sandalwood — a tree whose fragrant wood is ground into paste and offered to the gods
- kuṭhāra · an axe; in the Lord's teaching it stands for the wicked, who hurt even those who are kind to them
- dharma · doing what is right; the Lord said there is no dharma like doing good to others
- Purāṇas · ancient holy books full of stories and teachings, which Bharata said praise the good
Rāmcaritmānas — Uttar-kāṇḍa (Bharata's question and Lord Rāma's teaching on the good and the wicked, dohās 36–41 with their caupāīs). Sage Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa does not contain this conversation. Where the two Rāmāyaṇas differ, we tell both faithfully.