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किष्किन्धाकाण्डम्

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa — The Book of Kiṣkindhā

Rāma meets Hanumān and makes a pact of friendship with Sugrīva; he kills Vāli and crowns Sugrīva; after the monsoon the monkey armies search the four directions; on the southern shore Sampāti points to Laṅkā and Jāmbavān wakes Hanumān to his strength.

67 sargas≈ 2,450 ślokas7 episodes here6 verses studied

What this book is about

Friendship and the gathering of strength. Rāma, who has lost everything, rebuilds from nothing — by making friends, keeping promises to them, and waiting patiently through four months of rain. Its hardest moment is the killing of Vāli, the epic’s great ethical puzzle.

Its inner meaning

The monkeys are the restless mind (cañcala, asthira). Under Vāli — unbridled desire — the mind is extroverted and tyrannical; under Sugrīva — the mind that has suffered and learned — it can be trained and harnessed in the service of the Self. Rāma chooses Sugrīva. Hanumān is the mind fully surrendered: once reminded of what it truly is, it can cross any ocean.

In this kāṇḍa

Rāma Meets Hanumān sargas 1–4
The Pact by Fire and Sītā’s Ornaments sargas 5–7
Sugrīva’s Story and the Seven Sāla Trees sargas 8–12
The Killing of Vāli sargas 12–26
The Monsoon and Lakṣmaṇa’s Anger sargas 27–38
The Search Begins — the Ring Given to Hanumān sargas 39–48
Despair by the Sea — Sampāti and the Waking of Hanumān sargas 49–67

Also on this page: the study companion — 6 topics with the ❖ Maryādā moments and Kamba variants.

Read further: C. Rajagopalachari, chapters 41–47 · Kamala Subramaniam, Kiṣkindhā 1–20

Rāma Meets Hanumān The minister in disguise, and a speech without a flaw sargas 1–4 · 1 verse · 1 picture

The story

By the lotus lake Pampā, in the beauty of spring, Rāma’s longing for Sītā is almost unbearable. From the hill Ṛṣyamūka the exiled Sugrīva sees two armed men and fears that Vāli has sent them. He sends his minister Hanumān, disguised as a mendicant, to find out.

Hanumān speaks with such courtesy and skill that Rāma turns to Lakṣmaṇa in admiration: no one who had not mastered the Ṛg, Yajur and Sāma Vedas could speak like this — not one word is wrong, too long or unclear; his face, eyes and brow are calm; such an envoy would accomplish anything for his king. Hanumān reveals himself, carries the two brothers on his shoulders to Sugrīva, and the bond that will define the rest of the epic begins.

Verses

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.3.28–29Rāma to Lakṣmaṇa

Rāma on Hanumān’s speech

नानृग्वेदविनीतस्य नायजुर्वेदधारिणः ।
नासामवेदविदुषः शक्यमेवं विभाषितुम् ॥
नूनं व्याकरणं कृत्स्नमनेन बहुधा श्रुतम् ।
बहु व्याहरतानेन न किञ्चिदपशब्दितम् ॥

nānṛg-veda-vinītasya nāyajur-veda-dhāriṇaḥ |
nāsāma-veda-viduṣaḥ śakyam evaṃ vibhāṣitum ||
nūnaṃ vyākaraṇaṃ kṛtsnam anena bahudhā śrutam |
bahu vyāharatānena na kiñcid apaśabditam ||

Word by word

na an-ṛg-veda-vinītasyanot for one untrained in the Ṛgveda

na a-yajur-veda-dhāriṇaḥnor one who has not mastered the Yajurveda

na a-sāma-veda-viduṣaḥnor one who does not know the Sāmaveda

śakyamis it possible

evam vibhāṣitumto speak like this

nūnamsurely

vyākaraṇam kṛtsnamthe whole of grammar

anenaby him

bahudhā śrutamhas been learnt in many ways

bahu vyāharatā anenathough he has spoken much

na kiñcit apaśabditamnot one word was wrong

MeaningNo one untrained in the Ṛg, not versed in the Yajur, not learned in the Sāma Veda could speak like this. Surely he has studied the whole of grammar many times — he has said much, and not a single word is faulty.

ContextRāma goes on to praise Hanumān’s voice, his calm face and the measured flow of his words. This is the first impression Hanumān makes — through speech.

Philosophical aspectSpeech reveals the mind. Clarity, correctness and calm in words come from clarity and calm within. The epic’s great servant is first of all a great scholar.

The deeper message

The first thing Rāma notices about his greatest devotee is the quality of his speech. Vālmīki makes speech a test of character throughout — clear, measured, sweet and truthful. Hanumān’s whole service will be carried out through words as much as strength.

Rāma’s praise is also a lesson in leadership: he recognises talent instantly and says so generously.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

Gentle speech He analyses Hanumān’s speech like a teacher of rhetoric — and praises it (4.3.28–35).
Humility He lets a stranger carry him and speaks to a monkey’s minister as an equal.

PeopleHanumān Rāma Lakṣmaṇa SugrīvaIdeasSpeech Friendship Devotion

The Pact by Fire and Sītā’s Ornaments Two exiles become friends sargas 5–7 · 3 verses · 1 picture

The story

Hanumān kindles a fire, and Rāma and Sugrīva walk around it together, sealing a friendship: “Your joys and sorrows are mine.” Sugrīva tells how the monkeys saw a weeping woman carried through the sky who dropped a bundle of ornaments. He brings them.

Rāma presses them to his heart and weeps. He asks Lakṣmaṇa if he recognises them. Lakṣmaṇa answers with the most famous line of his life: “I do not know the armlets or the earrings. But the anklets I know — from bowing at her feet every day.”

Verses

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.6.22–23Lakṣmaṇa to Rāma

“I know only her anklets”

नाहं जानामि केयूरे नाहं जानामि कुण्डले ।
नूपुरे त्वभिजानामि नित्यं पादाभिवन्दनात् ॥

nāhaṃ jānāmi keyūre nāhaṃ jānāmi kuṇḍale |
nūpure tv abhijānāmi nityaṃ pādābhivandanāt ||

Word by word

na aham jānāmiI do not know

keyūrethe two armlets

kuṇḍalethe two earrings

nūpure tubut the anklets

abhijānāmiI recognise

nityamdaily

pāda-abhivandanātfrom bowing at her feet

MeaningI do not know the armlets, nor do I know the earrings; but the anklets I recognise, from bowing at her feet every day.

ContextAsked to identify Sītā’s jewels, Lakṣmaṇa can recognise only those she wore on her feet. In fourteen years he never raised his eyes to her face.

Philosophical aspectReverence is a discipline of the eyes as much as the heart. Lakṣmaṇa is the model of a mind that sees the divine in the other and keeps the right distance — brahmacarya as respect.

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.8.9Sugrīva to Rāma

What friends give up for each other

धनत्यागः सुखत्यागो देशत्यागो ऽपि वानघ ।
वयस्यार्थे प्रवर्तन्ते स्नेहं दृष्ट्वा तथाविधम् ॥

dhana-tyāgaḥ sukha-tyāgo deśa-tyāgo 'pi vānagha |
vayasyārthe pravartante snehaṃ dṛṣṭvā tathā-vidham ||

Word by word

dhana-tyāgaḥgiving up wealth

sukha-tyāgaḥgiving up comfort

deśa-tyāgaḥ api vāeven giving up one’s homeland

anaghaO sinless one

vayasya-arthefor a friend’s sake

pravartantepeople undertake

sneham dṛṣṭvāseeing affection

tathā-vidhamof that kind

MeaningO sinless one, for a friend’s sake people give up wealth, comfort, even their homeland — when they see affection of that kind.

ContextSugrīva, newly bound to Rāma by the vow before the fire, speaks of what true friendship asks.

Philosophical aspectFriendship as tyāga — giving up. The measure of a bond is what one will let go of for it. Rāma will give up a great deal of his reputation for this friend.

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.8.21Rāma to Sugrīva

A friend helps; an enemy harms

उपकारफलं मित्रमपकारो ऽरिलक्षणम् ।
अद्यैव तं वधिष्यामि तव भार्यापहारिणम् ॥

upakāra-phalaṃ mitram apakāro 'ri-lakṣaṇam |
adyaiva taṃ vadhiṣyāmi tava bhāryāpahāriṇam ||

Word by word

upakāra-phalamwhose fruit is help

mitramis a friend

apakāraḥharm

ari-lakṣaṇamis the mark of an enemy

adya evathis very day

tam vadhiṣyāmiI will kill him

tava bhāryā-apahāriṇamwho has taken away your wife

MeaningThe fruit of friendship is help; harm is the mark of an enemy. This very day I will kill the one who took away your wife.

ContextRāma’s pledge to Sugrīva after hearing his story. He is himself a man whose wife has been taken.

Philosophical aspectFriendship is known by its fruit, not its words. Rāma’s promise is immediate and concrete — the same quality of word that took him into exile.

The deeper message

Friendship in the epic is a vow, made before the fire like a marriage — and Rāma keeps every such vow. Both friends have lost a wife and a kingdom; shared suffering becomes the ground of loyalty.

Lakṣmaṇa’s answer has been loved for two thousand years. For fourteen years he had looked no higher than Sītā’s feet. That is how a brother-in-law who loves as a son looks at the mother of his household.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

The friend He seals the pact by circling the fire and promises to kill Vāli for Sugrīva (4.5).
The husband He weeps over Sītā’s ornaments (4.6).

PeopleSugrīva Rāma Lakṣmaṇa HanumānIdeasFriendship Grief Service (sevā)

Sugrīva’s Story and the Seven Sāla Trees A brother’s misunderstanding, a friend’s doubt sargas 8–12 · 1 picture

Rāma’s arrow pierces the seven sāla trees — Rāma’s arrow pierces the seven *sāla* trees

The story

Sugrīva tells his story. His elder brother Vāli, king of Kiṣkindhā, chased the demon Māyāvī into a cave and told Sugrīva to wait at the mouth. After a year, blood flowed out and Sugrīva, believing Vāli dead, sealed the cave and was made king. Vāli returned, accused him of treachery, drove him out and took his wife Rumā. Sugrīva now lives on Ṛṣyamūka, where a curse keeps Vāli away.

He doubts Rāma can defeat Vāli, who once tossed the giant Dundubhi’s corpse a league. Rāma flicks the skeleton ten leagues with his toe; then with one arrow pierces seven great sāla trees in a row, the hill behind them, and the arrow returns to its quiver. Sugrīva’s doubt is gone.

The deeper message

The quarrel between Vāli and Sugrīva begins in a misunderstanding and grows by pride; neither brother asked the other what had really happened. Rāma, who has just seen the opposite — Bharata refusing a kingdom — now enters a family destroyed by suspicion.

Rāma does not resent Sugrīva’s doubt; he answers it with a demonstration. Faith is often built step by step, and the Lord is patient with it.

Inner meaning

The seven sāla trees are read as the seven sheaths or the seven planes of ignorance pierced by one arrow of knowledge.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

Valour One arrow pierces seven sāla trees (4.12.1–4).
The friend He meets his friend’s doubt with patience, not offence.

PeopleSugrīva Vāli RāmaIdeasDoubt Brotherhood Faith

The Killing of Vāli The epic’s hardest question sargas 12–26 · 1 verse · 1 picture

The story

Sugrīva challenges Vāli; the brothers look so alike that Rāma cannot shoot, and Sugrīva is beaten. Wearing a garland of gajapuṣpī flowers he challenges again. Vāli’s wife Tārā warns her husband: this challenge is backed by Rāma — make peace. He refuses. While the brothers fight, Rāma shoots Vāli from behind a tree.

The dying Vāli accuses Rāma: I was fighting someone else; I never harmed you; you struck from hiding like a hunter — what dharma is this? Rāma answers: the whole earth belongs to the Ikṣvākus and Bharata’s law runs here; you took your younger brother’s wife while he lived, which by dharma is like taking a daughter-in-law; the punishment is death; and a king may strike as hunters strike animals. Vāli accepts, asks forgiveness, and entrusts his son Aṅgada to Rāma. Tārā’s lament is one of the great laments of the epic. Sugrīva is crowned and Aṅgada made crown prince.

Verses

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.18.18–19Rāma to Vāli

Why Vāli was punished

तदेतत्कारणं पश्य यदर्थं त्वं मया हतः ।
भ्रातुर्वर्तसि भार्यायां त्यक्त्वा धर्मं सनातनम् ॥
अस्य त्वं धरमाणस्य सुग्रीवस्य महात्मनः ।
रुमायां वर्तसे कामात्स्नुषायां पापकर्मकृत् ॥

tad etat kāraṇaṃ paśya yad-arthaṃ tvaṃ mayā hataḥ |
bhrātur vartasi bhāryāyāṃ tyaktvā dharmaṃ sanātanam ||
asya tvaṃ dharamāṇasya sugrīvasya mahātmanaḥ |
rumāyāṃ vartase kāmāt snuṣāyāṃ pāpa-karma-kṛt ||

Word by word

tat etat kāraṇam paśyasee the reason

yat-arthamfor which

tvam mayā hataḥyou were struck down by me

bhrātuḥ bhāryāyām vartasiyou live with your brother’s wife

tyaktvāabandoning

dharmam sanātanamthe eternal dharma

asya dharamāṇasyawhile this one is alive

sugrīvasya mahātmanaḥof the great-souled Sugrīva

rumāyāmwith Rumā

vartase kāmātyou live out of lust

snuṣāyāmwho is like a daughter-in-law

pāpa-karma-kṛtO doer of sin

MeaningHere is the reason I struck you down: abandoning eternal dharma, you live with your brother’s wife. While the great-souled Sugrīva lives, you, doer of evil, live out of lust with Rumā, who should be to you as a daughter-in-law.

ContextPart of Rāma’s long reply to Vāli’s accusations (4.17). He also argues that Bharata rules the earth and he acts as his agent, and that kings may strike wrongdoers as hunters strike game.

Philosophical aspectThe epic does not ask us to accept the answer blindly; it gives both sides at length. What it insists on is that the crime against a brother’s wife — the very crime Rāvaṇa commits against Rāma — is the deepest violation of dharma, and that the king must act against it.

The deeper message

Vālmīki states the objection at full strength in Vāli’s mouth and lets Rāma answer it — he does not hide the problem. Readers have debated it ever since. The points to weigh: Rāma had given his word to Sugrīva; Vāli had committed the gravest wrong against a brother; Rāma acts as a king punishing a crime, not as a duellist.

The symbolic reading (from the Ramayana Symbolism notes) is practical: Vāli takes half the strength of whoever faces him — so does desire. You cannot defeat it head-on; you avoid its influence and strike from a distance. That is how one handles a craving.

Inner meaning

Vāli is lust that has usurped the kingdom of the mind and taken what belongs to another; Sugrīva is the mind that, chastened, can become an ally of the Self. The Lord sides with the one who has turned to Him.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

The friend He keeps his promise to Sugrīva at the cost of his own reputation (4.17–18).
The king He answers as a ruler enforcing dharma, not as a private warrior (4.18.6–39).
Compassion He accepts Vāli’s repentance and promises to protect Aṅgada (4.18.47–56).

PeopleVāli Sugrīva Rāma Tārā AṅgadaIdeasAhiṃsā & justice Dharma Grief Repentance

The Monsoon and Lakṣmaṇa’s Anger A friend forgets; Tārā makes peace sargas 27–38 · 1 verse

The story

The rains begin; no search is possible for four months. Rāma waits in a cave on Prasravaṇa, describing the monsoon in some of the most beautiful poetry in Sanskrit, and aching for Sītā. Autumn comes — and Sugrīva, restored to his queen and his pleasures, forgets.

Hanumān reminds him; then Rāma sends Lakṣmaṇa with a stern message: “The path by which Vāli went is not closed.” Lakṣmaṇa twangs his bow at the gates of Kiṣkindhā. The monkeys tremble. Tārā, wise and composed, comes out to meet him, calms him with gentle words about human weakness, and Sugrīva comes to Rāma begging forgiveness, with the armies summoned.

Verses

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 4.30.81 (repeated by Lakṣmaṇa, 4.34.18)Rāma’s message to Sugrīva

“The path Vāli took is not closed”

न स सङ्कुचितः पन्था येन वाली हतो गतः ।
समये तिष्ठ सुग्रीव मा वालिपथमन्वगाः ॥

na sa saṅkucitaḥ panthā yena vālī hato gataḥ |
samaye tiṣṭha sugrīva mā vāli-patham anvagāḥ ||

Word by word

na saḥ saṅkucitaḥit has not narrowed

panthāḥthe path

yenaby which

vālī hataḥ gataḥthe slain Vāli went

samaye tiṣṭhakeep to your agreement

sugrīvaO Sugrīva

mādo not

vāli-patham anvagāḥfollow Vāli’s path

MeaningThe path by which Vāli went when he was slain has not grown narrow. Keep to your agreement, Sugrīva — do not follow Vāli’s path.

ContextWhen Sugrīva, restored to his kingdom, forgets his promise through four months of rain and pleasure, Rāma sends Lakṣmaṇa with this message.

Philosophical aspectGratitude forgotten in comfort is the commonest fault. The Lord’s patience is real, and so is his firmness: a promise made to him is a promise to dharma.

The deeper message

Ingratitude born of comfort is the most common fault in the world. Sugrīva is not wicked; he is ordinary. Rāma’s patience has a limit, and he states it — but he forgives at once when his friend returns.

Tārā, who warned Vāli and lost him, now saves Sugrīva. The epic gives some of its wisest speech to its women.

Inner meaning

After the stormy season of the mind (monsoon), clarity (autumn) returns — and with it, sādhana must resume.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

The friend Firm with a friend who forgets, and instantly forgiving when he returns (4.30–38).
Equanimity He waits four months without breaking his word to wait.

PeopleRāma Lakṣmaṇa Sugrīva Tārā HanumānIdeasPatience Gratitude Speech

The Search Begins — the Ring Given to Hanumān Four armies to four directions sargas 39–48

The story

Sugrīva divides his countless armies and sends them east, west, north and south, describing every land, river and mountain on the way — a geography of the ancient world — with a month to return. The southern party, led by Aṅgada with Hanumān, Jāmbavān and others, is the most important. Rāma, sensing that Hanumān will succeed, gives him his signet ring, engraved with his name, as a sign for Sītā.

The deeper message

Rāma gives his ring not to the leader of the party but to the one in whom he sees devotion and ability. The ring with the Name will cross the ocean before Rāma does.

Inner meaning

The Name of the Lord, carried by the devoted mind, reaches the jīva in bondage before the Lord Himself arrives.

Rāma here — which quality, and exactly where

The king He reads people well and gives the decisive task to the right person (4.44).

PeopleSugrīva Hanumān Aṅgada Jāmbavān RāmaIdeasLeadership Faith

Despair by the Sea — Sampāti and the Waking of Hanumān “You do not know your own strength” sargas 49–67 · 1 picture

Hanumān on Mount Mahendra, ready to leap

The story

The month passes. Lost in a magical cave, the southern party emerges on the shore of the ocean with nothing found. Aṅgada decides to fast to death rather than face Sugrīva. Talking of Jaṭāyu’s death, they are overheard by a wingless old vulture — Sampāti, Jaṭāyu’s elder brother, whose wings were burnt when he shielded his brother from the sun. Hearing how Jaṭāyu died, he tells them: Sītā is in Laṅkā, a hundred leagues across the sea. As he speaks, new wings grow — the old prophecy that serving Rāma would restore them.

But who can leap a hundred leagues? Each monkey states his limit. Hanumān sits silent. Jāmbavān, the old bear-king, goes to him and tells him his own story: son of the Wind, as a child he leapt at the sun thinking it a fruit; a curse made him forget his power until someone reminded him. “Arise, great monkey, and cross the ocean.” Hanumān grows to the size of a mountain and climbs Mount Mahendra.

The deeper message

The despair on the shore is the seeker’s dark night: every effort seems to have failed. Help comes from one who remembers a past act of devotion (Sampāti), and power comes from remembering who one is (Hanumān).

This is the central teaching of Vedānta in story form: our strength is already ours; ignorance (the curse) hides it, and the guru (Jāmbavān) only reminds us. “Tat tvam asi” — you are That.

Inner meaning

Hanumān’s forgetting is avidyā; Jāmbavān’s reminder is the guru’s teaching; the leap is the Self-realised jīva crossing the ocean of saṃsāra.

PeopleAṅgada Hanumān Jāmbavān SampātiIdeasDespair Self-knowledge Perseverance

Study companion — Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa

caturthaḥ kāṇḍaḥ

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa — The Book of Kiṣkindhā

67 sargas · The vānara alliance, Vāli's death, the monsoon, and the great search

The most morally contested book. Rāma, himself betrayed by palace intrigue, takes the side of a brother in a fraternal war — and executes the other brother from concealment. Vālmīki gives Vāli the full strength of his indictment and lets the debate stand. The kāṇḍa also gives the epic Hanumān, its finest monsoon poetry, and the despair-to-resolve arc that launches the Sundara.

❖ Golden boxes moments that define Rāma as Maryādā Puruṣottama Green boxes where Kamban’s Tamil Rāmāyaṇam tells it differently Verse cards ślokas worth memorising

Pampā & the Embassy of Hanumānsargas 1–4StoryVerse

Sarga 1: Rāma at Pampā in spring — a hundred verses in which every mating bird and flowering branch is read through absence; the epic's great essay on how beauty tortures the bereaved. Sargas 2–3: Sugrīva, watching in terror from Ṛṣyamūka (are these Vāli's assassins?), sends his wisest minister down in a mendicant's form. Hanumān's opening address — its courtesy, its precision, its perfect reading of who these strangers must be — moves Rāma to the epic's famous digression on speech:

Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa 3.28 — Rāma on Hanumān's speech

नानृग्वेदविनीतस्य नायजुर्वेदधारिणः ।
नासामवेदविदुषः शक्यमेवं विभाषितुम् ॥

nānṛg-veda-vinītasya nāyajur-veda-dhāriṇaḥ |
nāsāma-veda-viduṣaḥ śakyam evaṁ vibhāṣitum ||

na a-ṛgveda-vinītasya — not for one untrained in the Ṛgveda

na a-yajurveda-dhāriṇaḥ — nor for one not bearing the Yajurveda

na a-sāmaveda-viduṣaḥ — nor for one unversed in the Sāmaveda

śakyam — is it possible

evam vibhāṣitum — to speak in this way

Rāma continues: the whole grammar traversed, nothing inauspicious in face or gesture, speech unhurried, from the chest, in measured cadence — "even an enemy with sword raised would relent." The first thing the epic tells us about Hanumān is that his Sanskrit is perfect: cultivated speech as the audible form of a cultivated self, and the foundation of his traditional role as the ideal minister and patron of grammarians. On his shoulders — literally, in the next scene — the alliance is carried up the mountain.

The Pact by Fire & Sugrīva's Storysargas 5–13Story❖ Maryādā

Sarga 5: friendship circumambulated around kindled fire — Sītā's recovery for Sugrīva's restoration. Sarga 6: Sugrīva produces the bundle dropped from the sky — Sītā's ornaments — and Vālmīki gives Rāma's tears, and Lakṣmaṇa's devastating line: "I do not know the bracelets or the earrings, but I know the anklets, from bowing daily to her feet" (nāhaṁ jānāmi keyūre… pāda-vandanāt). Sargas 9–12: Sugrīva's history — the demon Māyāvin chased into a cave; Vāli's year inside; blood at the mouth and a boulder rolled by a frightened brother assuming the worst; the kingdom assumed, Vāli's return and unforgiving fury; exile to Ṛṣyamūka (safe by Mataṅga's curse on Vāli) and the seizure of Sugrīva's wife Rumā — the last item converting fraternal grievance, in Rāma's stated judgment, into capital crime. Sugrīva's doubts about Rāma's adequacy against Vāli are settled by exhibition: the skeleton of Dundubhi (the buffalo-demon Vāli killed and hurled a yojana) kicked ten yojanas; seven sāla trees drilled through with a single arrow that returns to the quiver.

Maryādā Puruṣottama — the friend's cause before his own

Note the sequencing Rāma insists on: Sugrīva's restoration first, the search for Sītā after — the newly sworn friend's need given precedence over the consuming urgency of his own. Mitra-dharma in Rāma is not reciprocity-accounting but adoption: your problem is now mine, and mine waits.

Vāli-vadha — the Epic's Hardest Ethicssargas 14–26StoryKamba❖ MaryādāDharma

Sarga 14–15: the first challenge-duel — Rāma cannot loose: the brothers, identical in the melee, cannot be told apart (so he says; the tradition adds that he would not risk the error). Sugrīva, mauled, flees and reproaches him; a garland of gajapuṣpī marks him for the second bout. Sarga 16: Tārā's counsel to Vāli — do not go; Sugrīva returning so soon means backing, and the backing is Rāma, of whom the reports are terrible; make Sugrīva yuvarāja instead. Vāli's reply is his epitaph: he cannot refuse a challenge, and Rāma, being dharma itself, will do him no wrong. He goes. The arrow takes him in the chest mid-grapple.

The indictment and the defense

Sarga 17, Vāli dying: a prosecution in full form — I was in combat with another; you struck unseen, unprovoked, unannounced; kings hunt with proclamation, kṣatriyas duel face to face; you wear dharma as a grass-covered well. Sarga 18, Rāma's answer: this land is Ikṣvāku jurisdiction under Bharata, and we execute its law; your crime — living in your brother's wife Rumā as in a daughter-in-law — is capital under that law (aurasīṁ bhaginīṁ vāpi…); judgment is not a duel, and the executioner owes the condemned no face; further, you are a branch-ranging creature whom kings take by snare and concealment without adharma — and I had given Sugrīva my word. Sarga 19–26: Vāli accepts the verdict wholly, asks protection for Aṅgada and pardon for Tārā, and dies at peace; Tārā's lament (sargas 19–24 passim) is among Vālmīki's greatest women's speeches; Sugrīva is crowned, Aṅgada made yuvarāja, and Rāma — keeping his own exile's maryādā — will not enter the city, wintering instead on Prasravaṇa.

Maryādā Puruṣottama — read both briefs, then note the frame

Vālmīki refuses to make this easy: Vāli's speech is written at full strength and never rebutted line-by-line. Rāma's position reduces to rājadharma (magistrate, not duellist — the condemned has no claim on the executioner's frontality) plus satya (the vow to Sugrīva). The deliberate mirror is the study-key: Rāma punishes in Vāli exactly the offence — a brother's wife appropriated — that Rāvaṇa is committing against him; Kiṣkindhā is Laṅkā's dress rehearsal, and the sentence passed here is the sentence coming there. Whether the concealment was maryādā or its breach is the argument Vālmīki bequeaths, unresolved, to every generation of readers — perhaps deliberately: a tradition that must keep arguing about dharma is a tradition in which dharma stays alive.

Kamba Rāmāyaṇam differs

Kambar cannot leave the wound open. His Vāli-vadhaip paṭalam expands the debate and resolves it devotionally: Vāli comes to recognize the archer as the Lord, and the arrow in his chest as grace — death at that hand being liberation. Tamil tradition reads Vāli's end as a mokṣa-scene; Vālmīki's Vāli dies a satisfied litigant, Kambar's a realized devotee. Same arrow, two theologies.

The Monsoon on Prasravaṇa & Lakṣmaṇa's Embassysargas 27–38StoryPhilosophy

Sargas 27–28: four months of rain in the mountain cave — Vālmīki's monsoon sargas are the model for a millennium of Sanskrit season-poetry, every image double-exposed with viraha: the sky's lightning like Sītā struggling in Rāvaṇa's lap; the rivers rushing seaward like his own hopes. Sargas 29–34: the rains end; Kiṣkindhā drowns in wine and Sugrīva in Tārā and Rumā; nothing moves. Hanumān's quiet warning to the king goes half-heard; Rāma's patience snaps and Lakṣmaṇa is sent with a message whose menace is remembered from Vāli: "the road Vāli went is not closed." Lakṣmaṇa at the gates in fury; Tārā (again the epic's best diplomat) sent to receive him — her frank defence (desire is strong; the king erred as kings do; the muster is already ordered) disarms him. Sargas 35–38: Sugrīva's apology accepted with embrace, and the muster: hundreds of millions of vānaras from every mountain and forest of the earth, arriving in tides.

The Four Directions & the Southern Partysargas 40–52Story

Sargas 40–43: Sugrīva's dispatch-orders are a geography of the epic world — east to the sunrise mountains and the ocean of milk, north to the golden Uttarakuru silence, west to the sunset waters — each party given one month. The south — the direction omens have always pointed — gets the picked team: Aṅgada leading, Jāmbavān, Nīla, and Hanumān, to whom alone Rāma gives his signet ring: she will know by this that you come from me. (Note what the ring means: Rāma has already read which searcher will succeed.) Sargas 48–52: the southern party's ordeals — the waterless Vindhya wastes, the demon mistaken for Rāvaṇa and slain, and the enchanted cavern of Svayamprabhā: an underground paradise built by Maya, kept by a yoginī who feeds and frees them by yogic transport — but outside, the month has expired.

Despair by the Sea, Sampāti & the Waking of Hanumānsargas 53–67StoryPhilosophy

Sargas 53–55: deadline blown, mission failed, Aṅgada counsels the fast unto death on the southern shore — better darbha-grass and starvation than Sugrīva's justice. They sit down to die, retelling the whole story so far as their own funeral oration. Sargas 56–63: the retelling saves them — the name "Jaṭāyu" reaches the ears of the huge broken bird watching from the cliff: Sampāti, his brother.

Inset story

Sampāti — the wings burnt for a brother

In their youth the two vulture-brothers raced toward the sun; when the fire began to take Jaṭāyu, Sampāti covered him with his own wings and fell, wingless, on this shore — where the sage Niśākara long ago foretold both his crippled centuries and this exact day: monkeys will come seeking Rāma's Sītā; tell them what you see. And Sampāti's vulture-sight sees across the hundred yojanas: Sītā, in the aśoka grove of Laṅkā, alive. As he speaks, the prophecy completes — his wings grow back. The bird who lost flight shielding a brother regains it serving a brother's avenger.

Sarga 66–67: Jāmbavān wakes Hanumān

The leap-audit: each vānara names his maximum — ten yojanas, thirty, Aṅgada perhaps the full hundred but not the return. Then Jāmbavān turns to the one sitting silent and apart, and delivers the speech on which the next kāṇḍa stands: son of Vāyu, Añjanā's child who leapt for the sun at sunrise taking it for a fruit; struck by Indra's vajra, ransomed by the gods with boons (invulnerability, death at own will); cursed by the ṛṣis to forget his strength until another reminds him. "Why do you sit silent? Rise — cross." Hanumān grows to mountain size on Mahendra. Tradition reads the scene inward: the jīva's native power veiled by a forgetting, restored not by effort but by the guru's word of reminder — the whole Sundara Kāṇḍa is what happens after śravaṇa.

Verses follow the Gita Press (southern) numbering, checked against valmikiramayan.net; other editions may differ by a few verses, and the critical edition omits some popular verses (marked). Stories are retold in brief from Vālmīki, with C. Rajagopalachari and Kamala Subramaniam for further reading; later additions (Tulasīdāsa, Kamban, folk tradition) are marked as such. The symbolic readings are offered for reflection — one way among several of hearing the story. Drawings: Vipin K. Das, from Children’s Illustrated Ramayanam, retold by Vishnu B (2011).