Desire 23 --

[Guest guest]

Shriman Vasudevan's postings under the head Desire are thought-

provoking and contain in-depth analysis of the events as portrayed in

Ramayanam. In this connection, I thought members would be interested

in reading the following extract from an article in the web-site

boloji.com dealing with Kaikeyi:

krishnaswamy m k

 

An extract from the article in http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/057.htm

on Kaikeyi:

[…..] two major factors explaining the conduct of Kaikeyi. The first

is that Kaikeyi is the youngest queen, which is the secret of the

fascination she exercises over Dasharatha. The second is that her

father, King of the mountainous Kekaya kingdom, agreed to middle-aged

Dasharatha's importunate requests putting the same condition that the

fisher-king, Dasaraja, put to Shantanu in response to his request for

the hand of Satyavati: that his daughter's son would inherit the

kingdom of Ayodhya. It is to avoid this eventuality that from early

childhood Dasharatha keeps sending Kaikeyi's children to their

maternal uncle's kingdom far from Ayodhya. His intentions become

quite transparent when he rushes through the formalities of declaring

Kaushalya's son as the heir-apparent in the absence of Kaikeyi's

sons, and takes care not to inform his favorite queen Kaikeyi. It is

Manthara, the faithful family retainer accompanying Kaikeyi from her

father's house, much as Shakuni comes with Gandhari, who reminded the

oblivious Kaikeyi of her husband's broken promise. That is when

Kaikeyi sees through Dasharatha's intrigue to go back on the

undertaking forming the basis of their marriage, and utilizes his

commitment to grant her two boons in order to win back for her son

his birthright. […].

Kaikeyi lets nothing stop her in safeguarding her son's inheritance -

the threat of widowhood, which becomes a reality; the outrage of all

Ayodhya, which turns into the implacable condemnation of all

generations to follow. The tragedy of Kaikeyi lies in the rejection

of her awesome sacrifice by the very person for whom she went through

fire: her son Bharata.