Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

The Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom.

Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy.

Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid.

Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad.

Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure people tend to possess.

It is said that Manthara poisoned Kaikeyi’s consciousness. But Kaikeyi was a grown-up adult, a queen, when she demanded the exile of Rama, the crown prince of Ayodhya. Why didn’t she exercise her own personal morality and convictions?

The Sarayu was destined to weep. They called it Karma. You bear the fruits of your actions. If you are a river, you will carry the karma of the people on your banks and beyond. Have you ever wondered why the Ganga is always polluted?

Ayodhya wanted Rama as their next king. Rama was a gentleman, gentle man. He was quite the opposite of Manthara. Selfless and compassionate, he was hailed as Maryada Purushottam, the ideal man. But destiny sent him to the wilderness for fourteen years; destiny in the form of Kaikeyi’s demand which in turn came from Manthara the maid with twisted bones and more twisted mind.

The destiny of an entire kingdom can be altered by anyone at all, even a hunchback maid. It could be a washerman too (as it happened later to Sita), or a teaseller. Just anyone.

And the Sarayu wept each time. She had no choice but carry people’s karma. Even in a kingdom of dharma where a son’s obedience, father’s grief, brother’s loyalty, and a wife’s ordeal merge into the troubled waters of a river.

Ayodhya had more good citizens than evil ones. Yet it was a sad kingdom. Because where dharma wins, love is likely to lose.

Rama went into exile to uphold dharma. Sita jumped into fire to prove the authenticity of her personal dharma. Lakshmana sacrificed his youth for the sake of dharma. Bharata relinquished royal powers, again for the sake of dharma.

In spite of all that, Ayodhya remained a sad kingdom. Rama sat on the bank of the Sarayu in the end, a solitary man who upheld dharma and lost his beloved wife.

PS. I’m participating in #BlogchatterA2Z. This series will look at the Ramayana from various angles. 

Tomorrow: Bharat: The Ascetic King