कुम्भकर्णस्य उपालम्भः युद्धोत्साहः च

When Kumbhakarṇa heard the lament of the king of the rākṣasas, he laughed. It was a laugh of mockery and of sorrow both: what his brother had refused to hear before had now borne its fruit, and the king who had thought he knew everything was wailing with fear. Then he said: "The mistake we saw long ago, when counsel was being taken, has come home to you now, since you would not heed good advice." He was recalling the council at the start of the Yuddha Kāṇḍa, where he had condemned Rāvaṇa's deed and yet promised to fight for him. "The fruit of your wicked deed has overtaken you quickly, as hell overtakes an evildoer. At the very beginning, great king, you never thought this business through; in the mere pride of your strength you never weighed where it would lead." He named the carrying off of Sītā plainly as the fruit of sin, and said that the fruit had come quickly — not in some later life but at once, in the death of Prahasta, Rāvaṇa's own defeat and the siege of the city. Rākṣasa though he was, Kumbhakarṇa knew sin for sin, and his words hold both statecraft and dharma. From the first lines of the sarga the two sides of the brothers' bond are plain: Kumbhakarṇa reproaches his brother, but he does not abandon him.

"A man who, trusting in his power, does last what should come first and first what should come last does not know good policy from bad. Deeds done in the wrong order, with no regard for place and time, are spoiled, like oblations poured into fires that have not been consecrated." The image is taken from sacrifice: as an offering in an impure fire bears no fruit, so does an action done out of season. Rāvaṇa had carried off Sītā first and asked his ministers afterwards — the very fault of doing first what should come last. "The king who first reaches agreement with his ministers and then applies the five means to the three kinds of undertaking keeps to the right path. The king who seeks to act according to the teachings and the occasion, who comes to understand things with his ministers' judgement and keeps his friends in view — he is a king. Lord of the rākṣasas, a man should pursue dharma, wealth or pleasure, or all three, or the three in pairs, each at its proper time. But a king, or one who is king only in name, who hears which of the three is best and still does not grasp it, has wasted all his learning." The best of the three is dharma; Rāvaṇa, for all his learning, had followed pleasure, and that was his fault. Here the poet shows an unexpected side of Kumbhakarṇa: not a sleepy rākṣasa but a man learned in statecraft, reminding the king of his first duty, to take counsel and deliberate, which Rāvaṇa had neglected.

"Best of rākṣasas, gifts, conciliation, sowing division, and force at the right time" — the four means of statecraft — "the application of these means, and good policy and bad: the self-possessed man who consults his ministers on all of these and pursues dharma, wealth and pleasure each at its proper time will not come to grief in this world. A king should do what must be done only after weighing what will lead to his good, together with ministers who know the truth of affairs and live by their wits. There are men with the minds of cattle, who do not understand the treatises and yet have been let in among the counsellors, and they want to speak out of sheer boldness. The words of those who do not know the treatises, who are ignorant of the science of wealth and simply hanker after great fortune, should not be acted on. Men who in their insolence babble what is harmful dressed up as good ruin every undertaking; they must certainly be kept out of counsel. Clever ministers who have joined with the enemy to destroy their master get him to do the very opposite of what should be done. A master should recognise by their conduct, when counsel is taken, those ministers who look like friends but are enemies in league with the foe." Kumbhakarṇa's target was clear: Rāvaṇa's flatterers, men like Prahasta who had said "we will win", pleasing the king with their words and harming him with their advice. His "minds of cattle" shows his contempt for counsellors who knew no learning but spoke with brazen confidence. The one man who had spoken for Rāvaṇa's good, Vibhīṣaṇa, had been driven out, while the flatterers kept their seats — that was the whole reversal. The heart of this teaching, true for every ruler in every age, is that a king must test his ministers' advice before taking it, for those who speak pleasantly are not always those who speak for his good. In a few words Kumbhakarṇa ran through the foundations of the science of statecraft — the four means, the ways of policy, the three aims of life — and showed how well he knew it.

"Others find the weak spot of a rash man who rushes headlong into his undertakings, as birds find the gap in Mount Krauñca." Skanda once split Mount Krauñca, and through that famous gap swans and other birds pass; so enemies slip in through the weakness of a rash king. "He who despises his enemy and does not guard himself meets with disaster and is thrown down from his place." Kumbhakarṇa said plainly that Rāvaṇa's chief fault was contempt for his enemy — despising Rāma's strength because he was a man — and in "thrown down from his place" lay a prophecy that Rāvaṇa would lose his kingdom and his life. "What your beloved wife Mandodarī and my younger brother Vibhīṣaṇa told you here before — that alone was the good advice for us. Now do as you please." Good counsel had been given both at home and in the council hall, and Rāvaṇa had scorned both and followed his own will. His last words, "do as you please", carry a note of despair.

Hearing Kumbhakarṇa's speech, ten-necked Rāvaṇa knitted his brows and said to him in anger: "Why do you lecture me like a respected elder or a teacher? What is the use of all this labour of words? Do what is fitting now. Whatever was left undone before, through confusion, through infatuation, or through trust in strength and valour, it is useless to talk about it again. Think now of what is right to do at this moment. Men do not grieve over what is past; what is past is past." He half admitted his fault — confusion, infatuation — but would not listen to advice. "What is past is past" is sound policy, but Rāvaṇa used it to cover his own error. "Set right with your valour the harm my bad policy has done, if you really love me, if you know your own prowess, if you hold this cause of mine the most important thing in your heart. He is a friend who helps a man in distress whose affairs have failed; he is a kinsman who stands ready to help when things have gone wrong." Pride and pleading were mixed in his words — pride in "why do you lecture me like a teacher", pleading in speaking of a man in distress — and that a king should call himself one in distress shows how grave his plight was. By describing a true friend and a true kinsman he played on Kumbhakarṇa's love, and his threefold "if" put his brother's loyalty to the test so that he could not refuse. Emotional pressure was Rāvaṇa's weapon.

As his brother spoke these resolute and harsh words, Kumbhakarṇa realised that he was angry, and seeing him so deeply shaken, he spoke to him slowly and gently, soothing him: "Listen closely to what I say, King, subduer of your enemies. Enough of this distress, king of rākṣasa kings; put away your anger and be yourself again. You must not let this weigh on your mind while I am alive, lord of the earth. I will destroy the one who torments you. Whatever the circumstances, lord of the earth, I had to tell you what was good for you; I spoke out of kinship and a brother's love. Now see what a loving kinsman does at such a time: watch the slaughter of your enemies that I will make in battle." Here lies the greatness of Kumbhakarṇa's character. The man who had just given harsh advice grew gentle when he saw his brother's anger, and made ready to fight. To speak for his good was his duty; to fight was his brother's love; and he fulfilled both. He knew what was right — "I had to tell you what was good for you" — but his love for his brother was stronger than his sense of right, and so he fought on the side of wrong. That is Kumbhakarṇa's tragedy. Even in his gentleness he addressed his brother with respect, as king, as lord of the earth, as king of rākṣasa kings; soft words after hard ones are the mark of a skilful speaker.

"Today, mighty-armed one, you will see the monkey army in flight, once I have killed Rāma and his brother at the front of the battle. Today, mighty-armed one, you will see Rāma's head brought back by me from the battlefield, and be happy — let Sītā be the one who grieves. Today let all the rākṣasas in Laṅkā whose kinsmen have been killed see Rāma's death, the thing they long for most. Today, by destroying the enemy in battle, I will wipe away the tears of all who are overwhelmed with grief and mourning their slaughtered kin. Today you will see Sugrīva, lord of the monkeys, huge as a mountain, lying scattered on the battlefield like a cloud lit by the sun." The fivefold "today" shows his zeal and his resolve. He fought not only for his brother but for the whole rākṣasa people, to dry their tears. The image of Sugrīva as a sunlit cloud suggests at once his golden colour and a dark cloud. "Blameless brother, these rākṣasas and I, all eager to kill the son of Daśaratha, have reassured you — why are you always so troubled? Rāghava will kill you, it is said, only after he has killed me; king of the rākṣasas, I will not let myself be anxious." In those words he showed he was ready to give his life to shield his brother, and in "only after killing me" falls the shadow of what is to come; the poet hints at his death. "Command me now as you please, scorcher of your foes; you of matchless valour need look to no one else to fight for you." These words would provoke Mahodara's rebuke in the next sarga.

"I will wipe out your mighty enemies. Even if they were Indra, Yama, Fire and Wind, even Kubera and Varuṇa, I would fight them all" — the very guardians of the world, and his confidence reached its limit. "When I stand with a body the size of a mountain, a sharp spear in my hand, and roar through my sharp fangs, even Indra will be afraid. Or when I throw my weapons away and crush my enemies with all my force, no one who wants to live will be able to stand before me. Not with spear or mace, not with sword or sharp arrows, but with my two hands alone, in my fury, I will kill even Indra with his thunderbolt." Unarmed, a killer with his bare hands — this was pride in his bodily strength, and it was not baseless, for he had once struck Indra with Airāvata's tusk; here the natural strength Vibhīṣaṇa had described comes out. "If Rāghava can withstand the force of my fist today, then my floods of arrows will drink his blood." Yet in that "if" there is a trace of doubt; even he did not wholly dismiss Rāma's strength. "Why are you tormented by anxiety, King, while I am here? I am ready to go out and destroy your enemies. Give up your dreadful fear of Rāma. I will kill in battle Rāghava, and Lakṣmaṇa, and mighty Sugrīva, and Hanumān, the rākṣasa-slayer who set Laṅkā on fire" — naming Hanumān stirred in the rākṣasas the memory of that humiliation — "and I will devour the monkeys when battle is joined. I want to give you great and unrivalled glory."

"If you fear Indra, King, or even Brahmā the Self-born, I will destroy that fear as the sun destroys the darkness of night. When I am angry, even the gods will lie stretched on the ground. I will put an end to Yama and devour Fire; I will bring the sun and the stars down to earth; I will kill Indra and drink up the ocean, the home of Varuṇa; I will grind the mountains to dust and split the earth. Let all creatures see today, as they are devoured on every side, the valour of Kumbhakarṇa who has slept so long. The whole of heaven would not be enough to fill my hunger." These boasts carry his pride to its height. Then, more simply, he closed: "I am going to win you happiness by the death of Daśaratha's son. When I have killed Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, I will eat all the chief leaders of the monkey troops. Enjoy yourself, King; drink wine today, put away your grief and attend to your affairs. When I have sent Rāma to the house of Yama today, Sītā will be yours for ever." After all the extravagance, that plain "I am going to win you happiness" shows how real his love was. Mark the irony: the man who at the start of the sarga called the carrying off of Sītā the fruit of sin now, at the end, promises that Sītā will be Rāvaṇa's; love for his brother had overpowered his sense of right. His "drink wine" recalls the love of pleasure that was Rāvaṇa's undoing — and Kumbhakarṇa himself had come straight from his drinking; the rākṣasas' way of life is mirrored here. So the sarga begins with lessons in statecraft and ends in battle-fever, and it shows both sides of Kumbhakarṇa: the wise counsellor and the heroic brother.