Kaikeyi -- the Mother

In my last post (it seems to have appeared almost a year ago!), I had written about Kaikeyi's mother and how Sumantra, the Kosal Minister had accused her of being like her mother. In this post, I am going to investigate the motherly nature of Kaikeyi and how she suffered an unpleasant fate out of that love.

Manthara and Kaikeyi 

When King Dashrath declares the coronation of Ram, Kaikeyi is elated. Seeing this, Manthara says:

मनसा प्रहसामि त्वां देवि दुःखार्धिता सती |
यच्छोचितव्ये हृष्टासि प्राप्येदं व्यसनं महत् || २-८-३
शोचामि दुर्मतित्वं ते का हि प्राज्ञा प्रहर्षयेत् |
अरेः सपत्नीपुत्रस्य वृद्धिं मृत्युमिवागताम् || २-८-४
भरतादेव रामस्य राज्यसाधारणाद्भयम् |
तद्विचिन्त्य विषण्णास्मि भय भीताद्धि जायते || २-८-५

(Oh, queen! Though stricken with grief, I mentally laugh at you in that you are rejoicing at the time when a great calamity is befalling you. I am lamenting over your foolish mind. Does any intelligent woman feel happy over the prosperity of a stepson who is considered an enemy? Does it not amount to praising a befalling death? Rama has a fear about Bharata because Bharata has equal rights over the kingdom. In thinking about this matter, I am getting anguished. Do we not get disasters from those who are afraid of us?)

She adds:
विदुषः क्षत्रचारित्रे प्राज्ञस्य प्राप्तकारिणः |
भयात्प्रवेपे रामस्य चिन्तयन्ती तवात्मजम् || २-८-८
(Rama is a learned man and a political statesman. His actions are timely and appropriate. When thinking of your son's calamity to be resulted from Rama, I get shaken with fear.)

In reply, Kaikeyi says:

धर्मज्ञो गुरुभिर्दान्तः कृतज्ञ सत्यवाक्चुचि |
रामो राज्ञः सुतो ज्येष्ठो यौवराज्यमतोऽर्हति || २-८-१४

(Rama knows all righteousness. Elders trained him. He has a proper gratitude. He speaks truth. He has a clean conduct. He is the eldest son of king Dasaratha and hence eligible for the kingdom.)

She believes that there is no difference between Ram and Bharat. She thinks that coronation of Ram would be equivalent to coronation of Bharat. Manthara calls this stupid and convinces Kaikeyi that only one of the four sons would be crowned. And that one Prince, she suggests, should be Bharat.

Kaikeyi, who had never thought that way before(- according to the Valmiki Ramayan), now thinks of Bharat, who has stayed in Ayodhya (capital of Kosal) the least among the four brothers. Bharat has spent most of his childhood at his maternal uncle's abode, unknown of the most affairs in Ayodhya. The news of coronation had not reached him yet. Now, she perceives that Bharat had been kept away from the 'power politics' of Ayodhya by Dashrath for long. With the advise from Manthara, she asks for two (most popular) boons to the King: coronation of Bharat and fourteen years of exile to Ram.

Ram's Response

When Ram comes to know that the King has been unconscious for a reason he did not know then, he meets Sumantra. He knows of the boons asked by his step-mother Kaikeyi and meeting her, says:

एवम् अस्तु गमिष्यामि वनम् वस्तुम् अहम् तु अतः |
जटा चीर धरः राज्ञः प्रतिज्ञाम् अनुपालयन् || २-१९-२

(Let it be, as you said it. I shall fulfil the king's promise, go to the forest from here to reside there, wearing braided hair and covered with a hide.)

He then leaves the palace and the kingdom to reside into the dreaded forest of Dandak. His wife Sita and his brother Lakshman follow him. Lakshman not only exiles himself but also departs from his wife, Urmila.

Bharat's response 

When Bharat returns from his uncle's, King Dashrath has passed away. He asks his mother Kaikeyi what had happened to Dashrath and where had Ram gone. Kaikeyi explains all she had done to crown him. Bharat accuses and curses her:

कुलस्य त्वम् अभावाय काल रात्रिर् इव आगता |
अन्गारम् उपगूह्य स्म पिता मे न अवबुद्धवान् || २-७३-४
भ्रूणहत्याम् असि प्राप्ता कुलस्य अस्य विनाशनात् |
कैकेयि नरकम् गच्च मा च भर्तुः सलोकताम् || २-७४-४

(You came for destruction of our race, like the night of destruction coming at the end of the world. My father could not be aware of his embracing a live char-coal to his bosom. O, Kaikeyi! You got the sin of killing an embryo because of the destruction of this race. O, Kaikeyi! Go to hell. Do not get the residence in the same heaven as your husband.)

He also vows that he would bring Ram back to the kingdom. When he fails to do so, he asks for Ram's kharau (sandals) and places them upon the throne. Unlike what most of us think, he does not rule the kingdom. He, instead lives the life of the hermit, Shatrughna actually ruling the kingdom in Ram's name.

How Bharat lived has been described in the Yuddha Kaanda. After the victory of Ram in the great war against Ravan, Hanuman goes off to convey message of Ram to Bharat. This is what he sees:       

  
क्रोशमात्रे त्वयोध्यायाश्चीरकृष्णाजिनाम्बरम् || ६-१२५-२९
ददर्श भरतं दीनं कृशमाश्रमवासिनम् |
जटिलं मलदिग्धाङ्गं भ्रातृव्यसनकर्शितम् || ६-१२५-३०
फलमूलाशिनं दान्तं तापसं धर्मचारिणम् |
समुन्नतजटाभारं वल्कलाजिनवाससं || ६-१२५-३१
नियतं भावितात्मानं ब्रह्मर्षिसमतेजसं |
पादुके ते पुरस्कृत्य शासन्तं वै वसुन्धराम् || ६-१२५-३२
चतुर्वर्ण्यस्य लोकस्य त्रातारं सर्वतो भयात् |
उपस्थितममात्यैश्च शुचिभिश्च पुरोहितैः || ६-१२५-३३
बलमुख्यैश्च युक्तैश्च काषायाम्बरधारिभिः |

(At a distance of two miles from Ayodhya Hanuman  saw Bharata, living in a hermitage, with the bark trees and the skin of a black antelope wrapped round his waist, looking miserable and emaciated, wearing matted locks on his head, his limbs coated with dirt, afflicted through separation from Rama his elder brother, subsisting on roots and fruits, with his senses subdued, engaged in austerities, protecting virtue, with a very high head of matted hair, covering his body with the bark of trees and a deer skin, disciplined, whose thoughts were fixed on the Supreme Spirit, with a splendour equalling that of a Brahmanical sage, ruling the earth after placing the wooden sandals before him, protecting the people belonging to all the four grades (viz. Brahmans Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Shudras) from all peril and attended by the upright ministers, priests and by clever troop-commanders, all clad in saffron robes.)

Kaikeyi's Failure

In all these, we can see the failure of Kaikeyi as a mother and as a wife. Her love for Bharat proved worthless as he not only rejected the throne but also cursed her as the destroyer of the race. Her demands became curse to King Dashrath, who died after Ram was exiled. Almost every Hindus, who are acquainted with the Ramayan, hate her for being cruel towards Ram and her husband.

My Personal Opinion

As I have read somewhere in the web, Ram would not have been Ram if he had not been exiled. Without those adventures, the Ramayan would have completed at the end of Book I - the Bal Kanda, where the four Princes, after their marriages, would have 'lived happily ever after'. It is Kaikeyi, who sends Ram to the forest and gives him an opportunity to know himself. 

Even after being sent to the forest, Ram never stops praising Kaikeyi. I personally believe that Kaikeyi had instructed Ram to go to the forest of Dandak because it was the border between Kosal and Lanka. Dandak had been strategically used by Ravan to threaten Kosal and its allies. Ram was a valiant warrior, who could sneak into the forest along with Lakshman to slowly destroy the Demon army of Ravan. The only setback was Sita's kidnapping but that too, proved its worth for Ram. Kaikeyi never hated Ram. The boons she had asked were due to insecurities sprouted by the words of Manthara. In that sense, I believe that Kaikeyi showed that she was a worthy mother.

*N.B.: The Sanskrit slokas and there translations have been derived from www.valmikiramayan.net.    

(P.S.: The words of Manthara have been described as evil, even by Valmiki. I don't think so. Words which made Ram a Lord from a common man, cannot be evil at all!)

Kaikeyi's Mother

Kaikeyi, the Queen of Ayodhya, was once accused of being like her mother by the Chief Minister Sumantra. The accusation had come after he saw King Dashrath lying unconscious on the floor. Queen Kaikeyi had asked for the well known boons and the king had fallen victim of the queen's wishes.

The accusation of Sumantra

अभिजात्यम् हि ते मन्ये यथा मातुस्तथैव च |
न हि निम्बात्स्रवेत्क्षौद्रम् लोके निगदितम् वचः || २-३५-१७
 तव मातुरसद्ग्राहम् विद्मः पूर्वम् यथाश्रुतम् |
पितुस्ते वरदः कश्चिद्ददौ वरमनुत्तमम् || २-३५-१८
सर्वभूतरुतम् तस्मात्सम्जज्ञे वसुधाधिपः |
तेन तिर्यग्गतानाम् च भूतानाम् विदितम् वचः || २-३५-१९

"I think, by birth your nature is as exactly as that of your mother. a proverb is quoted in the world saying that honey does not ooze from a neem tree.We know, as heard of in the past, your mother's conduct of evil satisfaction. Someone capable of giving boons, granted a great boon to your father. By that boon he could identify the language of all created beings. The talk of those beings belonging to sub human species could be known by him."
(Source: www.valmikiramayan.net)

The Chief Minister of Ayodhya is in fury because of what the queen did to her husband. The king is unconscious upon the floor and the queen is occupied in her own aim of political victory. He says, "I knew this would happen. The genetic influence has pronounced itself. You have become like your mother."

Kaikeyi's Mother

Kaikeyi's mother, the wife of King Ashwapati of Kekaya was a happy woman until that unfortunate day when she heard her husband laughing over something. A natural curiosity made her ask the king the cause of his laughter. He refused to tell her anything saying that if he revealed the cause he would die. The queen said, "I don't think anything will happen to you. So please tell me, why you were laughing."

Enraged, the king went to pay visit to the sage who had granted him the boon of understanding the language of all animals. "But be careful not to reveal anything you listen to," the sage had warned, "Else you will die."

After the meeting with the sage, Ashwapati banishes the queen, the mother of his eight children, some of whom, including Kaikeyi were still too young to understand the cause of their mother's exile.

Manthara's Role
Since her mother's exile, the closest feminine companion of Kaikeyi was Manthara. Manthara must have influenced the upbringing of the princess and made her believe that the king had made up a story to abandon the queen.

Reply to the accusation of Sumantra
When Sumantra accuses her, Kaikeyi does not change. Neither is her expression changed. She might have always believed that her mother was too naive not to fight her husband against injustice done to herself.

Thus, I conclude that Sumantra was wronged in understanding Kaikeyi's mother. Kaikeyi was the one who always remained in the power politics and the one always ready to rule over the others. Her mother however, was the exact opposite. She could not defend herself from faulty accusations made by her husband.

(P.S. The Ramayana does not mention the name of Kaikeyi's mother. Also, the name Kaikeyi is not proper. It means "the daughter of Kekaya". Her real name seems to have lost. So do the names of Manthara and Kaushalya.)