When the young prince Rāma returned to Ayodhyā from his years of pilgrimage and study, the city did not get the prince it expected. The crowd had come to see a victorious son of Daśaratha. What they got was a young man who would not eat, who could not bring himself to speak more than a few words, who looked at the gold of the palace and saw only the gold rotting off the bones of those who had once worn it. The court physicians could not help. The king sat in grief. Word was sent for the family preceptor — Vasiṣṭha, one of the seven seers — and he came, and he sat, and what he said to that…