महोदरस्य कुम्भकर्णाक्षेपः उपायकथनं च

When he heard this speech of the huge, strong, mighty-armed Kumbhakarṇa, Mahodara spoke. In the last sarga Kumbhakarṇa had rebuked Rāvaṇa for his bad policy; Mahodara now took the king's side and rebuked Kumbhakarṇa. "Kumbhakarṇa, you were born into a noble family, yet you are insolent and see things like a common man; puffed up with pride, you cannot always tell what ought to be done. It is not that the king does not know good policy from bad. You have simply been insolent ever since you were a boy, and all you want to do is talk. The bull among rākṣasas understands position, gain and loss, and what fits the time and place, for himself and for his enemies alike. Strong you may be, but you have a common understanding and have never sat at the feet of your elders; what such a man ought not even to say — what wise man would do it?" By saying that he had never waited on his elders, Mahodara called him untrained and ill-mannered, and by harping on his boyish insolence he tried to lessen the weight of his words. His flattery is plain: he saw no fault in the king, and blamed the one who pointed the fault out. He spoke before all the rākṣasas in the hall, and his aim was to please the king. Kumbhakarṇa had just spoken of ministers who look like friends but are enemies, who boldly pass off harm as good; Mahodara felt those words land on himself and struck back. Frankness was Kumbhakarṇa's virtue, but among flatterers it was counted a fault, and this quarrelling in the king's council was one more sign of Laṅkā's weakness.

"As for dharma, wealth and pleasure, which you speak of as resting on separate grounds, there is nothing in your nature that lets you understand them. Action is the purpose of all such means, and it is from actions, better and worse, that fruit comes here. Dharma and wealth bear the highest good as their fruit, and so do the others; wrongdoing and ill-gain bring their harm. Men pursue action for this world and for the next; and a man devoted to pleasure also gains good things." So Mahodara made even pleasure a road to the good, and in doing so defended Rāvaṇa's desire for Sītā — the flatterer's case for pleasure, not the poem's ideal. Kumbhakarṇa had said that dharma, wealth and pleasure should each be pursued in its season, and that dharma is best; Mahodara turned this upside down — action is the root of all, and pleasure too brings blessings. The weakness of the argument is plain, for carrying off another man's wife is not pleasure but plain wrong; still he spoke to the king's taste, so that no sense of guilt should arise in Rāvaṇa's mind. Like bad ministers everywhere, he covered his self-interest in the language of the treatises. "In this matter the king has settled in his heart what is to be done, and we agree with him. Where is the wrong in daring against an enemy? And as for the reason you give for going out alone, I will show you what is unsound and ill-judged in it." The drift of his argument was that the king's deed was no fault, and it was Kumbhakarṇa's words that were wrong.

"How will you, alone, defeat Rāghava, who long ago killed so many mighty rākṣasas in Janasthāna?" — Khara, Dūṣaṇa, Triśiras and the fourteen thousand, all slain by Rāma single-handed. "Do you not see those mighty ones he defeated in Janasthāna, still here in the city and afraid even today? Oh, you want to rouse Rāma, son of Daśaratha, who is like an angry lion, though you know full well he is a sleeping serpent. Who could come near him, blazing always with energy, unapproachable in his anger, as unbearable as Death? When facing such an enemy, everything hangs in doubt. My friend, I do not like the idea of your going alone at all. What man without resources, set on throwing away his life, would try to bring a well-equipped enemy under his power as though he were an ordinary foe? Best of rākṣasas, how can you hope to fight one who has no equal among men and is the equal of Indra and the Sun?" Mahodara described Rāma's might at length, laying the ground for the trick he was about to propose; even while scorning Kumbhakarṇa's courage, he revealed his own fear of Rāma. The images — a lion, a sleeping serpent, Death — raise Rāma's unapproachability step by step. Kumbhakarṇa, he implied, was a man without resources, while Rāma was well supplied, with the monkey army and Vibhīṣaṇa; in weighing their strength he made Rāma's side the heavier. It was a blow at the pride of the man who had vowed to eat every monkey. And mark the turn: the man who had just called Kumbhakarṇa puffed up now called him "my friend" and wanted to protect him. His real aim would soon be clear — to avoid battle and gain his end by deceit.

Having said this to the angry Kumbhakarṇa, Mahodara turned to Rāvaṇa, who makes the worlds cry out, and said in the midst of the rākṣasas: "You have Vaidehī right here; why do you delay? If you wish, Sītā will be yours. I have seen a way to bring Sītā to you; if it pleases your own judgement, lord of the rākṣasas, then listen. Have it proclaimed that five of us — myself, Dvijihva, Saṃhrādin, Kumbhakarṇa and Vitardana — are going out to kill Rāma." By making it five, not Kumbhakarṇa alone, he stopped Kumbhakarṇa from going out by himself. "Then we will go and give him battle with all our strength. If we conquer your enemies, there will be no need for stratagems. But if the enemy lives and we have fought, we will carry out the plan we have in mind. We will cut our own bodies with arrows marked with Rāma's name, and come back here from the battle drenched in blood, crying, 'We have eaten Rāghava and Lakṣmaṇa!' Then we will clasp your feet, and you must reward us as we desire." In this scheme the battle was only a pretext; the heart of it was the trick. Rāma's arrows bore his name, so wounds from such arrows would make the story believable. Even in "if we conquer" Mahodara showed his doubt of victory, while in defeat the deceit would still succeed. He was ready even to wound his own body, so committed was he to the fraud; his cleverness lay in deception, not in dharma.

"Then, King, have it proclaimed throughout the city from the back of an elephant" — the ancient way of making a royal announcement — "that Rāma has been killed, with his brother and his army. Then, scorcher of foes, make a show of being pleased, and give your servants enjoyments, attendants, pleasures and riches. Give the heroes garlands, clothes and unguents, give the warriors plenty to drink, and drink yourself in delight. When the rumour has grown and spread everywhere, and all have heard that Rāma and his friends have been eaten by the rākṣasas, go in to Sītā, comfort her and soothe her in private, and tempt her with wealth and grain, with pleasures and jewels. By this deception, King, which will only add to her grief, Sītā, bereft of her lord, will come under your power even against her will. When she learns that her handsome husband is dead, she will yield to you out of despair and a woman's frailty. She was raised in comfort and deserves comfort; now she is worn thin by sorrow, and when she knows that her happiness depends on you she will come to you entirely." The feast, the gifts and the drinking were all devised to make the lie believed: if the king himself rejoiced, the people and Sītā would take the news for true. The "show of being pleased" means a pretended joy. To use Sītā's own grief as a weapon was the height of cruelty, and the talk of "a woman's frailty" shows Mahodara's view, not the poet's. Then he closed: "In my view this is sound policy; merely to face Rāma would be disaster. Do not be eager for battle. Right here, without fighting, you will win great happiness. A ruler who beats his enemy without battle, losing no troops and running no risk to his life, enjoys merit, great glory, prosperity and fame for a long time, great king." Victory without battle is in general a sound maxim, but joined here to a lie it deserves only blame. Mahodara did not know Sītā. She had already spurned every temptation and every threat of Rāvaṇa's in the aśoka grove as if they were straw, and the reader knows from the start that the scheme is doomed; it shows only how little the rākṣasas understood her. A false proclamation, too, might lift the rākṣasas' spirits for a moment, but once the truth came out their fear would be doubled. In what follows, Kumbhakarṇa scorns the plan and goes out to fight.