Ravana's Fear of Death Through Dasharatha's Son and Janaka's Daughter, and Its Resolution

One day, as Dasharatha sat in court, his mind devoted to the stories of the Jina, Narada came through the sky shining with his own radiance; the king rose to meet him, seated him on a fine throne, and they exchanged greetings, Narada saying all was well by the Jina's grace and the king by the grace of god, dharma and guru. Asked where he had been, Narada said he had visited Videha Kshetra, full of temples and monks, where Tirthankaras, Chakravartis, Baladevas, Vasudevas and Prati-vasudevas are ever being born, had seen in Pundarikini the renunciation ceremony of the Tirthankara Simandhara, whose birth-bath on Sumeru he had heard of, and had worshipped the eternal Jina temples of Sumeru's Nandana forest, of the Devaranya forest and on the peaks of the Kulachala ranges, at which Dasharatha bowed with joined hands, saying ‘Devebhyo namah’ (salutations to the divine ones).

At Narada's sign the king dismissed the court, and Narada, addressing him as lord of the Sukaushala country, told him privately that while worshipping at the temple of Shantinatha in Lanka he had heard from Vibhishana and others that Ravana had asked the soothsayer Buddhisara who would cause his death, and was told: the son of King Dasharatha and the daughter of King Janaka. To ease Ravana's worry, Vibhishana had vowed to kill both kings before they had a son or daughter, had already sent servants who had seen Dasharatha's city and palace, and, trusting Narada, had asked whether he knew what Dasharatha and Janaka looked like, which revealed the plot to him.

Narada urged the king to hide before Vibhishana could strike, saying he loved all Jain believers, especially righteous men like Dasharatha, and after the king had honoured him he flew to Mithilapura to warn Janaka too, then went on to other lands, leaving both kings in fear for their lives. Dasharatha confided in his minister Samudrahridaya, who said that even a kingdom of the three worlds is worthless if life is lost and advised the king to disguise himself and wander the earth while he dealt with the enemy, so Dasharatha entrusted him with the country, treasury and city and left.

The minister had a lifelike effigy of Dasharatha made, lacking only consciousness, with every royal mark, filled with red lac juice for blood and as soft as living flesh, and seated it on a throne on the seventh storey of the palace, where all could see it from below but none could go up, spreading word that the king was gravely ill; only the minister and the craftsman knew the secret, and even they, looking at it, half-believed it was the king. The same was done at King Janaka's court, and the two great kings, used to splendid palaces and queens like goddesses, wandered alone on foot like poor men, a reminder, the text says, that whoever gives abhaya dana (the gift of fearlessness) to all beings never knows fear, for no gift equals it.

Vibhishana's armed assassins prowled the city day and night but could not enter the lofty palace, so after many days Vibhishana came himself, entered on hearing song and dance, saw ‘Dasharatha’ lying amid the inner apartments and, standing apart, sent the Vidyadhara Vidyudvilasita to cut off his head, which he did and showed to Vibhishana as the whole household wailed. Vibhishana threw the heads of Dasharatha and Janaka into the ocean and went to gladden Ravana, while the queens of both kings, who had lamented, were consoled on learning that it had only been an effigy.

Back in Lanka, Vibhishana performed charity and worship to pacify the evil karma and repented again and again that, blinded by love for his brother, he had killed Bhumigocharis (earth-dwelling humans) without cause or thought: could a snake whose glance is poison strike Garuda, and what were these petty earth-kings beside Ravana, as a mouse beside a lion? Reflecting that whatever joy or sorrow karma has destined will surely come, that a soothsayer who truly knew another's death would see to his own soul's welfare first, and that no earth-dweller could reach Lanka, set amid a fathomless ocean that even gods cannot cross, he vowed never to act so wrongly again.