Kiṣhkindhākāṇḍa Picture, Source: www.allposters.com, Access date: July 23, 2022.
04. Kishkindha Kanda01,02.
First revision: Jul.23, 2022
Last change: Sep.23, 2023
Searched, Gathered, Rearranged, and Compiled by Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
The combat of Sugrīva and Vālin, from Prasat Chen, Koh Ker, 10th Century, Sandstone, Height:287 cm. We discovered it at Prasat Chen in May 1952. In Cambodia, Phnom Penh National Museum (Ka.1664) took a picture on Dec.05, 2022.
The Kiṣhkindhākāṇḍa
The fourth book of the epic is set mainly in and around the monkey (vānara) citadel of Kiṣhkindhā and continues the somewhat fairy-tale-like atmosphere of the preceding text. Searching in the forest for Sītā, Rāma, and Lakṣmaṇa, meet the son of the wind god, Hanumān, the greatest of monkey heroes and adherent of Sugrīva, tells him a curious tale of his rivalry and conflict with his elder brother, the monkey king Vālin, and his banishment by the latter. He and Rāma conclude a pact according to which the latter is to help the former kill the more powerful Vālin and take both his throne and his queen. In return, Sugrīva agrees to aid Rāma in his search for the adducted princess.
Accordingly, Rāma shoots Vālin from ambush while the latter is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Sugrīva. Finally, after much delay, procrastination, and threats from Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, Sugrīva musters his monkey warriors and sends them out in the four directions to scour the earth in search of Sītā. Under the leadership of Vālin's son, Añgada, and Hanumān, the southern expedition has several strange adventures, including a sojourn in an enchanted underground realm. Finally, having failed in their quest, the Southern party is ashamed and fearful of returning to Sugrīva empty-handed. They resolve to fast to death but are rescued from this fate by the appearance of the aged vulture Saṃpāti, elder brother of the slain vulture Jaṭāyus, who tells them of Sītā's confinement across the sea in Lañkā. The monkeys discuss what is to be done, and in the end, Hanumān, the only monkey powerful enough to leap across the ocean, volunteers to do so in search of the princess.
Sandstone carvings: Phya Argās (Vālin) fighting Sugrīva. On the right side, Rāma is seen using an arrow to shoot Vālin, the gable at the back exit door. Interior of Banteay Srei Prasart, Siem Reap, Cambodia, taken on June 9, 2019.
The book has given rise to a continuing controversy within the receptive community of the Rāmāyaṇa, in that the tradition has expressed ambivalent feelings about the way Rāma killed Vālin from ambush. At the same time, the monkey was engaged in a hand-to-hand battle with his brother Sugrīva. The issue is first argued between the hero and the dying monkey in the text. It continues to be discussed in short texts on the epic in one or another of its variants and questions during religious discourses on the story. It also serves to move the ethical and moral register of the narrative from the generally strictly dharmic, or righteous, kingdom of Kosala to the rather more louche world of the monkey kingdom of Kiṣhkindhā, with its fratricidal violence and sensual excess.
Image of the aged vulture Saṃpāti, the image on the side of the balcony pillar showing paints in The Emerald Buddha Temple, Bangkok, taken on July 2, 2023.
Sources, Vocabularies, and Narratives:
01. from. "The Illustrated Ramayana: The Timeless Epic of Duty, Love, and Redemption," ISBN: 978-0-2414-7376-4, Penguin Random House, 2017, Printed and bound in China, www.dk.com.
02. from. "The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki - THE COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION," Translated by Robert P. Goldman, Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Rosalind Lefeber, Sheldon I. Pollock, and Barend A. van Nooten, Revised and Edited by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, ISBN 978-0-6912-0686-8, 2021, Princeton University Press, Printed in the United States of America.
