Kumbhakarna Asks How Ravana Can Steal the Mother of the Worlds and Expect Welfare
Lanka Kanda, Doha 62
Doha 62 · Movement 2 of 2
Keep this contemplation
Preserve, print, or share
Kumbhakarna listens to the ten headed king describe Sita's abduction and the destruction now entering Lanka. The immense warrior does not answer first with strategy, appetite, or praise for his brother.
He laments. Fool, you carried away Jagadamba, the Mother of the universe. How can you now desire your own welfare? The contradiction is so complete that even the brother awakened to defend Ravana cannot conceal it.
Sita is not a possession taken from one royal house into another. Ravana has set violence against the Mother whose presence sustains the world in which his own life seeks safety. Kumbhakarna's question makes the doomed campaign visible in one line. One cannot tear at the source of well being and then ask the torn world to preserve the hand.
Kumbhakarna names Sita as Mother, and Ravana's hope of welfare collapses inside the word.
Read the passage from the Manas
सुनि दसकंधर बचन तब कुंभकरन बिलखान। जगदंबा हरि आनि अब सठ चाहत कल्यान।।62।।
Hearing the ten-headed one's words, Kumbhakarna lamented: 'You fool! Having stolen the Mother of the Universe, now you desire your own welfare!'