Angada Strips the Name of Valor From Ravana's Self Inflicted Pain
Lanka Kanda, Chaupai 29
Doha 29 · Movement 1 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
Ravana remembers seeing Brahma's writing upon his burning skulls. Death would come by a human hand. He laughed at the decree and called Brahma confused by age, and even now he claims the prophecy gives him no fear. Then he rebukes Angada for praising another warrior before him.
Angada answers with sharpened courtesy. None in the world equals Ravana in modesty, he says, for the king never praises himself. The tales of severed heads and lifted mountains are lodged so deeply in his mind that he has repeated them twenty times. Even the humiliations before Sahastrabahu and Bali remain hidden inside the strength he celebrates.
Now answer plainly. Does cutting off one's own head make anyone a hero? A conjurer may cut his own body with his own hands, but spectacle is not courage. Angada removes the grandeur from the flame without denying the pain. Endurance offered to magnify the self cannot prove mastery over the self.
Angada leaves the severed heads in the fire and asks whether pride has mistaken suffering for valor.
Read the passage from the Manas
जरत बिलोकेउँ जबहिं कपाला। बिधि के लिखे अंक निज भाला।। नर कें कर आपन बध बाँची। हसेउँ जानि बिधि गिरा असाँची।। सोउ मन समुझि त्रास नहिं मोरें। लिखा बिरंचि जरठ मति भोरें।। आन बीर बल सठ मम आगें। पुनि पुनि कहसि लाज पति त्यागे।। कह अंगद सलज्ज जग माहीं। रावन तोहि समान कोउ नाहीं।। लाजवंत तव सहज सुभाऊ। निज मुख निज गुन कहसि न काऊ।। सिर अरु सैल कथा चित रही। ताते बार बीस तैं कही।। सो भुजबल राखेउ उर घाली। जीतेहु सहसबाहु बलि बाली।। सुनु मतिमंद देहि अब पूरा। काटें सीस कि होइअ सूरा।। इंद्रजालि कहु कहिअ न बीरा। काटइ निज कर सकल सरीरा।।
'When I saw my skulls burning, I read the writing of Brahma, the marks upon my own forehead.' 'Death at human hands I read there as my fate. I laughed, knowing Brahma's words to be untrue.' 'Remembering that even now, I feel no fear. Brahma wrote it in his dotage, his mind confused.' 'You fool, you keep praising another warrior's strength before me, again and again, without any shame.' Angada said: 'O shameless one, in all the world there is none to equal you, Ravana.' 'Modesty is your natural disposition. You never speak of your own virtues with your own mouth.' 'The tale of cutting heads and lifting mountains stays lodged in your heart. That is why you have told it twenty times over.' 'That arm-strength you keep treasured in your breast, by which you claim to have conquered Sahastrabahu and Bali.' 'Listen, O dull one, and give me a straight answer. Does one become a hero simply by cutting off heads?' 'Tell me, O conjurer, is one who cuts his own body with his own hand truly called a warrior?'