{"collection":"Hinduism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_hin_rys_rys2012_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_hin_rys_rys2012_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_hin_rys_rys2012_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/hin/rys/rys2012.htm","summary":"This is a passage from the Valmiki Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic, specifically from the Ayodhya Kanda (Book 2). It presents a pivotal dramatic scene in which Queen Kaikeyi confronts King Dasharatha as he lies collapsed on the ground, overwhelmed with grief over the impending fate of his beloved son Rama.\n\nKaikeyi invokes the paramount dharmic value of truth-keeping, citing exemplary kings \u2014 Shaibya, who gave his own body to a hawk to honor a vow, and Alarka, who plucked out his own eyes for a Brahmin \u2014 to pressure Dasharatha into fulfilling his sworn promise: to exile Rama to the forest and install her own son on the throne. The king, described as bound by his oath as inescapably as Bali was by Indra's snare, is torn between paternal love and the absolute obligation of a spoken word. He renounces Kaikeyi and her son in anguish but cannot escape the trap of his own dharma. Ultimately Sumantra, the royal charioteer, is dispatched to summon Rama, departing in the joyful but mistaken belief that Rama is being called for his coronation.\n\nThe passage is distinctive for its psychological intensity \u2014 Dasharatha's physical collapse, his near-blindness with grief, and his helplessness \u2014 and for Kaikeyi's characterization as simultaneously wicked (p\u0101p\u0101) and rhetorically masterful, wielding dharmic argument as a weapon.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Ramayana in Sanskrit: Book 2: Chapter 12","tradition":"Hinduism","translated_text":null,"word_count":641}