Mandodari Pleads Against the War and Ravana Will Not Yield

Next morning Ravana sits enthroned like Indra among great kings equal to Kubera, Varuna, Ishana, Yama and Soma, but misses Kumbhakarna, Indrajit and Meghanada, without whom the court is like a pond of night-lilies without lotuses, and his face withers with worry. Seeing his fierce look, King Maya, Ugra, Shuka, Lokaksha, Sarana and the other ministers plead with downcast eyes, while Mandodari and the queens watch from the lofty palace as he goes to the armoury, full of divine weapons, amogha (unfailing) arrows and the chakra.

Evil omens abound: first comes a sneeze, and the lore of sneezes from the ten directions is told (east means death, southeast grief, south loss, southwest good, west sweet food, northwest all wealth, north quarrel, northeast gain, the sky total ruin and below all wealth), and Ravana's is the sneeze of death. A great serpent blocks his path, cries of ‘ha’, ‘hi’ and ‘dhik’ ring out, the wind snaps the vaidurya staff of his parasol, his upper garment falls and a crow caws on his right, dismaying all who know the science of omens.

Mandodari summons Shuka, Sarana and the other great ministers and asks why they do not counsel their lord for his good, when Rama has put Kumbhakarna, Indrajit and Meghanada in bonds and Rama and Lakshmana work wonders like the guardians of the world. The ministers reply that Ravana, proud and stern as Yama, heeds no one, that the mind follows destiny and he is drunk with moha though he knows all law and scripture, and that perhaps he will listen to her.

Adorned, under a parasol and fanned by chowries, Mandodari goes to Ravana like Indrani to Indra, bows and begs, ‘Grant me the alms of my husband’: she is drowning in a river of separation and the lotus-forest of his clan is about to perish. Nothing is lost yet, she says; let him call back his brother and sons, rein in the horses of his senses with discernment and not leap like the Ashtapada at its own reflection in a well, for this land-dweller's wife is a flame of fire to the nobly born, and dying or even winning for another's wife brings no glory.

Renouncing another's wife alone redeems both lives, she says, and even a Chakravarti's son with gods on his side is disgraced in that mire; mighty men like Arkakirti and Ashanighosha perished through such pride. Ravana scoffs that he is not Arkakirti who lost to Jayakumara, nor Ashanighosha who lost to Amitateja, but Dashamukha, a forest fire to enemy trees; he will never give up Sita, and Mandodari, entrusted with guarding her, should guard her well or hand her over to him.

Mandodari calls this shameless and asks what greatness he sees in Sita, who is neither so virtuous, learned, beautiful nor skilled in the arts, while not even Lakshmi equals Mandodari herself; like a child he scorns a gem for glass, and she offers to take whatever form he desires, Lakshmi's, Shachi's or Rati's. Ravana hangs his head in shame and says she is beautiful as she is and dearest to him; pleased, Mandodari cites scripture that a wife should counsel an erring husband, as Vishnukumara Swami recalled his vikriya (transformation) power when others reminded him, and offers to take Janaki to Rama and bring Rama, Kumbhakarna, Indrajit and Meghanada back to him.

Ravana flares up: ‘Go, go where I need not see your face! You praise the enemy; whence this cowardice in the mother of warriors like Indrajit and Meghanada, the daughter of King Maya and my chief queen?’ Mandodari answers that the gurus tell of Baladevas, Narayanas and Prati-narayanas, the first being Baladeva Vijaya, Narayana Triprishtha and Prati-narayana Ashvagriva; seven such pairs have come, each slaying his enemy Prati-narayana, and now in his time these two are the Baladeva and Narayana and he the Prativasudeva (Prati-narayana), courting the death his predecessors met through obstinacy.

She urges him to take the vows of a muni or of a shravaka (lay follower), arming himself with the sword of the anuvratas (lesser vows), the armour of samyagdarshana (right faith) and the bow of knowledge, or else to roam the two and a half continents with her, visiting the shrines of Himavan and Sumeru and sporting with his eighteen thousand queens in the woods of Sumeru and on the banks of the Ganga. As the king, so the people, she warns; a sixth of their sin falls on him, and if the fence eats the field who will guard it? Then she falls at his feet with folded hands.

Ravana raises her, saying none in the world is mightier than he and that a name proves nothing: a man named Siddha is not thereby liberated, and the king of Rathanupura called Indra was no Indra, so these two are no Baladeva and Narayana. With these words Ravana, the Prati-narayana, goes with his chief queen Mandodari to the pleasure palace, as Indra goes with Indrani.

Through the night the Vidyadharas revel, and Ravana by vikriya delights all eighteen thousand queens at once; at dawn Mandodari vows to cling to him as the creeper clung to Bahubali and promises a victory welcome with jewel-dust patterns, a victory garland and a grand puja. As war drums sound, Maricha, Vimalachandra, Sunanda, Ananda and thousands of kings ride out in divine chariots while wives weep, run after their husbands with forgotten armour or faint, and the chapter teaches that karma bears its due fruit, while those who protect living beings do not die even in a terrible war.