The Women Offer Water to Ravana and Return Remembering Rama
Lanka Kanda, Doha 105
Doha 105 · Movement 2 of 2
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Mandodari and the women of Lanka join the rites for Ravana. They offer the final water oblations to the king whose palace, family, and body have all passed into the consequences of the war.
Then they return to their homes. The movement is quiet after the cosmic fall, leaving the battlefield, funeral ground, and severed grandeur behind them.
Within their minds they describe the countless virtues of Raghupati. Grief does not disappear, but its direction has changed. The women who came out crying Ravana's power go back contemplating Rama's qualities. Death has opened a passage in understanding, and the conqueror enters Lanka first not through throne or command but through remembrance in the hearts of those who mourn the conquered. Their water is offered to Ravana, while their inward praise turns toward the Lord who gave even him the rarest destination.
After the last water falls for Ravana, the women carry Rama's virtues back through the doors of Lanka.
Read the passage from the Manas
मंदोदरी आदि सब देइ तिलांजलि ताहि। भवन गई रघुपति गुन गन बरनत मन माहि।।105।।
Mandodari and all the others offered water oblations to him, then returned to their homes, singing in their hearts the countless virtues of Raghupati.