हनूमतः रावणं प्रति हितोपदेशः

Looking steadily at the ten-headed king of great strength, Hanumān, the mighty and best of monkeys, spoke to him calmly and without agitation, in words full of meaning. "Lord of the rākṣasas," he said, "I have come here into your presence with a message from Sugrīva. The king of the monkeys, who is like a brother to you, asks after your welfare. Now hear the counsel of your brother, the great-souled Sugrīva: his words join righteousness with advantage and will serve you in this world and the next." Hanumān began the message in Sugrīva's name, not Rāma's, for the proper course between kings is for one king to address another as a brother, and by calling Sugrīva Rāvaṇa's brother he even held out the hope of friendship. First came the inquiry after his welfare and only then the advice; that is the courteous order an envoy follows. Enraged as Rāvaṇa was, Hanumān spoke to him gently, so that he would listen.

"There was a king named Daśaratha," he went on, "rich in chariots, elephants and horses, a kinsman to the whole world like a father, as splendid as Indra, lord of the gods. His eldest son, mighty-armed, dearly loved and powerful, left the kingdom at his father's command and went into the Daṇḍaka forest with his brother Lakṣmaṇa and his wife Sītā. His name is Rāma; his splendour is great, and he keeps to the path of righteousness. His wife Sītā, the daughter of the great-souled King Janaka of Videha, was lost in Janasthāna. Searching for his queen, the prince came with his younger brother to Mount Ṛśyamūka and made an alliance with Sugrīva. Sugrīva promised him to search for Sītā, and Rāma in turn promised Sugrīva the kingdom of the monkeys. Then the prince killed Vālin in battle and set Sugrīva on the throne, and he is now lord of the hosts of monkeys and bears. You knew Vālin in the past, that bull among monkeys; Rāma killed him in battle with a single arrow." The story is short but full of meaning. Step by step Hanumān set out Rāma's lineage, his righteousness and his might. To call Daśaratha a father to the world shows the righteousness of Rāma's house: the son of such a king will not put up with wrong. "At his father's command" shows Rāma's devotion to his father, for he gave up the kingdom for dharma's sake. Sītā too is introduced by her father's name, so that her noble birth is plain. Hanumān chose a gentle word, "lost", not "carried off", but Rāvaṇa knew well enough who had taken her, and so the story set his crime before him without naming it. The alliance was a bargain kept on both sides: Rāma had done Sugrīva's work, and now Sugrīva was doing Rāma's. Vālin is kept for the end because he would frighten Rāvaṇa most: Rāvaṇa had felt Vālin's strength for himself, and the words "a single arrow" were meant to strike fear into his heart. This was the first time Rāma's story reached Rāvaṇa's ears in full.

"Now Sugrīva, the lord of the monkeys, true to his word and eager to find Sītā, has sent monkeys out in every direction. Thousands upon thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, are searching for her in every quarter, below the earth and above in the sky. Some are swift as Garuḍa, son of Vinatā, and some as the wind; nothing stops their course, for they are swift and mighty monkey heroes. I am Hanumān by name, the true-born son of the Wind. For Sītā's sake I swiftly crossed the ocean, a hundred leagues wide, and came here wishing to see you; and as I wandered through your house I saw Janaka's daughter." Here Hanumān let Rāvaṇa understand that he was not alone: countless heroes like him were carrying out Sugrīva's orders, and this was the first hint to Rāvaṇa that his enemies were many and strong. If one monkey had crossed a hundred leagues of sea, Rāvaṇa could guess that there were thousands like him. The search went on everywhere, below and above, so there was nowhere Rāvaṇa could hide her. By saying he had come to see the king, Hanumān presented his visit as an embassy, not as spying, and by saying "I saw her" he made it clear that Sītā's whereabouts were now known.

"You are very wise," he said. "You know the truth of righteousness and advantage, and you have won great wealth by austerity; you ought not to hold another man's wife prisoner in your house. Wise men like you do not cling to deeds that are against dharma, full of evils, and that destroy a man at the root, and with him his family and his kingdom. Who, even among gods and asuras, can stand before the arrows Lakṣmaṇa looses when he follows Rāma's anger? The two brothers act as one. There is no one, king, in all three worlds, on earth, in heaven or below, who could wrong Rāghava and still be happy. So heed my words, which are good for past, present and future alike, righteous and profitable: give Jānakī back to Rāma, that god among men. I have seen the queen; the hard part of my task here I have done, and what remains Rāghava himself will bring about. I have seen Sītā here, sunk in grief, and you do not know that you are keeping her in your house like a five-headed serpent. No one, not even the gods or the asuras, can digest her by force, any more than a man can digest food laced with a strong poison once he has eaten it. Your hold on dharma, won through the pain of austerity, and your long lease of life, it is not right to destroy these. You think your austerities have made you unslayable by gods and asuras; but even there, there is this great reason against you." Hanumān's counsel is a model of persuasion by conciliation: he praised Rāvaṇa's virtues first, calling him wise to awaken his judgement, and then told him what was good for him. The poisoned food is a piercing image: Sītā seemed to be his to enjoy, but as poisoned food kills the one who eats it, she would kill the one who held her; like a five-hooded serpent, she would destroy at a touch. With great modesty Hanumān said he had done only his part and that the rest was in Rāma's hands. And he warned that the fruit of Rāvaṇa's austerity, which was itself a form of dharma, would be destroyed by his unrighteousness. In these ten verses Hanumān opened every road, dharma, policy and fear.

"Sugrīva is no god, no yakṣa, no rākṣasa. Rāghava is a man, king, and Sugrīva is the lord of the monkeys. So how, king, will you save your life?" Here Hanumān exposed the gap in Rāvaṇa's boon: he could not be killed by gods and asuras, but men and monkeys were not covered by it. "The fruit of righteousness does not follow a man who is bound up in the fruit of great unrighteousness; only that fruit pursues him, and righteousness destroys unrighteousness." Great unrighteousness overshadows the fruit of past merit, while righteousness done afterwards would wipe out the wrong. "You have received the fruit of your past righteousness, no doubt of it, and very soon you will receive the fruit of this unrighteousness as well. Think of the slaughter of the rākṣasas at Janasthāna, the killing of Vālin and the friendship of Rāma and Sugrīva, three proofs of Rāma's power, and consider your own good. I alone could destroy Laṅkā, with its horses, chariots and elephants; but that is not Rāma's resolve. For Rāma has vowed before the hosts of monkeys and bears that he himself will utterly destroy the enemies who laid hands on Sītā." Hanumān let his own strength be seen, yet did not overstep his master's decision, which is an envoy's duty. "No one who wrongs Rāma could find happiness, not even Indra, destroyer of cities, himself; how much less someone like you? She whom you know as Sītā, who is in your house, know her to be the Night of Doom, the night at the end of the world that destroys all things, come to destroy all Laṅkā. Enough of this noose of Death in Sītā's form; do not hang it round your own neck with your own hands. Think of your own welfare. See this city, with its towers and streets, burning: set ablaze by Sītā's power and kindled by Rāma's wrath." Here Hanumān's words moved from conciliation to division and to the threat of force. The image of the Night of Doom is the centre of the sarga: Sītā lived in Rāvaṇa's house, but she was his death. And Hanumān described the future as if he were already watching it, Laṅkā on fire. His words would soon come true when he himself set Laṅkā ablaze, and so the poet quietly foreshadows it; Sītā's power and Rāma's anger are the real causes of the burning.

"Do not bring your friends, ministers, kinsmen, brothers, sons, well-wishers, pleasures, wives and Laṅkā itself to ruin," he said, reminding Rāvaṇa that one man's fault would destroy all his people. "Hear the truth, king of the rākṣasa kings, from me, Rāma's servant, his envoy, and a monkey besides." Servant, envoy and monkey: none of the three may be killed, and so he was free to speak the truth without fear; and to call himself Rāma's servant was humility itself. "The glorious Rāma could destroy all the worlds with all their beings, moving and unmoving, and create them again just as they were," he said, a power that belongs to the supreme Lord, not merely to a hero, and so he hinted that Rāma was Viṣṇu. "Among the lords of gods, asuras and men, among yakṣas, rākṣasas and serpents, vidyādharas, nāgas, gandharvas and beasts, among the siddhas, the lords of the kinnaras and the birds, anywhere, at any time, there is no one who could fight Rāma, whose valour equals Viṣṇu's. Having done such a wrong to Rāma, the lord of all the worlds, that lion among kings, you will find it hard to keep your life. Gods and daityas, lord of the night-rangers, gandharvas, vidyādharas, nāgas and yakṣas, all together could not stand against Rāma, lord of the three worlds, in battle. Not four-faced Brahmā the self-born, not three-eyed Rudra, destroyer of the triple city, not great Indra, leader of the gods, could stand before Rāghava in battle." By naming every kind of being in creation he made Rāma's uniqueness certain, and in saying that even the three great gods could not face him he gave, out of devotion, the highest praise of all. Such were the monkey's words, spoken with grace and without a trace of fear, but unwelcome; and when he heard them, the incomparable ten-headed king, his eyes rolling with anger, ordered that the great monkey be killed. Hanumān's words were true and for Rāvaṇa's good, but because they were unwelcome they went unheeded, and Rāvaṇa's anger was the first step to his ruin. To kill an envoy is against the duty of kings, as Vibhīṣaṇa will remind him in the next sarga; so the close of this sarga opens the dispute of the next.