Śri Maha-ganapataye namah

At the sight of the ornaments, Rama and Lakshmana turned emotional and it took them a while to regain composure. Upon seeing these ornaments, Lakshmana felt as if his mother had been returned to him while Rama felt as if his wife had been restored to him. Lakshmana would pick an ornament, press it reverentially to his eyes, shed tears, before replacing it in the bundle. Rama would pick an ornament, hold it to his heart, and mumble to himself while also weeping at Sita’s plight. He would remember the occasions when Sita had adorned herself with these ornaments and narrate them to others.

When, even after a long time, the brothers were unable to return to normalcy, Sugriva decided to revert back to narrating the incidents from his life so as to bring them out of that grief.

He then once again explained the actual reason for enmity between him and Vali and of how he was exiled. Sugriva said, ‘At one point of time, my brother Vali killed the mighty and enormous demon Dundhubhi and flung the carcass which travelled a distance of 10 miles. and with a thud fell on this mountain when Maharishi Matanga was engaged in deep penance. Angered with this deed, the saint cursed that the skull of the person responsible for this horrible deed would shred into bits the moment he stepped on this hill. This curse has turned into a boon for me. It has enabled me to live peacefully here. Rama! Look at that hillock. In reality, it is the skeleton of Dundhubi’. Saying so, Sugriva took Rama so that the latter could have a closer look at the bones.

Demons of that era were really as huge as enormous mountains. To drive home this fact, often in our Puranic stories when a demon is moving it is said that it appeared as if a mountain itself was moving or as if life was breathed into a mountain.

In various ways, Sugriva was glorying Vali’s valour. The hidden intent behind this was to caution Rama of Vali’s might and to cross-check his abilities to vanquish Vali.

Rama could grasp Sugriva’s hidden fears. ‘He is suspicious of my abilities. He doubts my prowess. I must put his doubts to rest’- thinking thus, Rama laughed softly and then, with his big toe he gently kicked the skeleton that was as humungous as a hillock. That’s it! The hillock was flung to a distance of 10 yojanas (80 miles)!

Even after personally witnessing this extra-ordinary feat, Sugriva remained unconvinced of Rama’s prowess.

Jaya Guru Datta