Rama Laughs as Angada Reports That Ravana's Virtues Have Changed Kings
Lanka Kanda, Doha 39क
Doha 39क · Movement 2 of 2
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Angada completes the answer. Ravana is emptied of dharma, turned away from the Lord's feet, and held beneath the power of Time. The four royal virtues could no longer remain within such a ruler.
They abandoned the ten headed king and came to Rama, Lord of Kosala. The fallen crowns become envoys in their own right, carrying conciliation, generosity, discipline, and discernment from the court that rejected them to the refuge where every virtue finds its true sovereign.
Rama hears the prince's supreme cleverness and laughs with delight. The laughter receives both the wit and the devotion inside it. Then Angada gives the complete intelligence gathered in the fortress. Playful explanation yields to military report, and the assembly turns from the four virtues that fled Ravana toward the four gates his army must now approach.
Rama's laughter welcomes the four virtues, then grows quiet as Angada begins to describe the walls of Lanka.
Read the passage from the Manas
धर्महीन प्रभु पद बिमुख काल बिबस दससीस। तेहि परिहरि गुन आए सुनहु कोसलाधीस।।38(((क)।। परम चतुरता श्रवन सुनि बिहँसे रामु उदार। समाचार पुनि सब कहे गढ़ के बालिकुमार।।38(ख)।।
Ravana is bereft of dharma, turned away from the Lord's feet, and in the grip of death. Those virtues have abandoned him and come to You. Hear this, O Lord of Kosala! (38a) Hearing such supreme cleverness, generous Rama laughed with delight. Then the son of Vali reported all the news of the enemy fortress. (38b)