Kaikeyi Refuses Counsel Sweet in Word and Fruit
Ayodhya Kanda, Doha 50
Doha 50 · Movement 3 of 3
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Kaikeyi's friends offer counsel gentle to hear and wholesome in consequence. Their words join affection, practical wisdom, family honour, and the welfare of every son.
Yet the training of crooked counsel has closed her hearing. Manthara's repeated fear now carries more authority than the experience of a lifetime.
The doha marks the tragedy of discernment after corruption. Good advice is not absent; it arrives clearly, lovingly, and in time. But once the mind has made suspicion its teacher, sweetness sounds threatening and poison feels protective. Kaikeyi refuses the very medicine shaped for her condition.
The remedy reaches Kaikeyi in loving voices, but Manthara's lesson has taught her to refuse its sweetness.
Read the passage from the Manas
सखिन्ह सिखावनु दीन्ह सुनत मधुर परिनाम हित। तेइँ कछु कान न कीन्ह कुटिल प्रबोधी कूबरी।।50।।
The friends gave counsel sweet to hear and wholesome in its fruit. But she, schooled by the crooked hunchback, paid no heed at all.