Vali questions Rama

From Kishkindha Kandam (The Empire of Holy Monkeys) of Valmiki Ramayanam

Source: http://www.valmikiramayan.net

Rama's arrow hits Vali on chest and Vali fallen down. But Vali is not dead yet. When Rama and Lakshmana approach dying Vali, he questions the propriety of Rama in killing him. Vali's questioning explicitly is straightforward befitting to the defeated mighty Vanara King. There are ancient commentaries that deduce many more meanings in picturising Vali as a devotee of Rama, who wanted to die at the hand of Rama, like Viraadha and others, as a means of salvation.

"You are a renowned prince with pleasing looks… but, which kind of death I am getting now, that too when I was in the commotion of conflict with another, alas, that ignoble death is owing to you, and what merit is achieved by you in this undertaking of yours to kill someone who is facing away from you…”

"Rama is high-born, they say, gifted with mightiness, resplendent, pursuer of vows, mindful of mercy, delighter in people's welfare, sympathetic, greatly enthusiastic and assertively committed in doing good deeds, knower of time-and-action, all these living-beings on earth are thus relating your renown, aren't they.”

"To be able to control senses and will, forgiveness, conscientiousness, resoluteness, truthfulness, and adventurousness, oh, king, are the aptitudes of a king, and even punishing the wrongdoers, too.”

"Concluding that those kingly characteristics will be obtainable in you, and even judging by the noble dynasty of yours, I have confronted Sugreeva though Tara dissuaded me.”

"When you have not appeared before me when I confronted Sugreeva my concept was, 'it will be inapt of Rama to hurt me while I am combating with another combatant, besides, when I will be unvigilant in that fight…”

"Not known that your soul is put to death, not known that you are the unrighteous flag bearer of righteousness, to me not known that you are insidious like straw covered well.”

"I have no knowledge that you are a sinner, one in the garb of a benign soul, and explicitly mantled under the garb of probity like ash covered fire.”

"I am non-guilty as I have not committed any misdeed either in your country or in your city, nor I have taunted you; I am a vanara subsisting on fruits and tubers and always moving in forests alone; such as I am, what made you to torture me when I was not combating with you en face, furthermore, when I was involved with another?”

"You are renowned to be a prince with charming looks, oh, king, and indications agreeable to rectitude are also appearing on your body.”

"Will anybody born in Kshatriya's family, a learned one in Veda-s, thereby who is rid of ambiguities with respect to right and wrong, and who is cloaked in an air of probity, execute such a ruthless deed like this?”

"Though born in Raghava's dynasty and renowned as a moralist you are actually amoral, and for what purpose you run around with this moral aspect?”

"Influencing, largesse, forbearance, probity, candour, and conquering are the attributes of the kings, oh, king, and even punishing the wrongdoers.”

"We as animals live in forests while you are city dwellers, we live by eating fruits and tubers while you enjoy feasts and banquets, our nature is such to kill and get killed, thus you and me have no correlation. And you, even if you are a man and a prince for humans, you resorted to this animalistic way of killing me lying in the wait, thus your action is worse than that of an animal, if not subhuman or un-princely.”

"Territory, gold, and silver will be the causes while counteracting somebody, in that case, by what you are decoyed into these forests of mine or in the fruits of mine.”

"In the pairs of propriety and compliance, punishment and pardoning, no admixture is exercised in kingcraft, for the kings do not conduct themselves volitionally.”

"But, to you your self-interests are primary, and you are a wrathful, capricious, contriver of kingcraft, and an impetuous shooting-happy archer.”

"Oh, king, you have no devotion to probity, nor your mind is firm about material gains, but as a free-willed one you are distracted by senses.”

"How you are answerable to gentlemen, Rama, when you have done this detestable deed of killing an unoffending one like me with your arrow?”

"A regicide, a Brahman-cide, a cow-slayer, a thief, an inveterate killer, an atheist, and a younger brother who marries before his elder, all of them will go to hell.”

"A slander-monger, skinflint, friend-killer and one who makes love with his teacher's wife, they all go to the worlds of evil-souls, no doubt about it.

"My skin is un-wearable, holy people forbid my hair and bones, and uneatable is my meat for your kind of reputable people.”

"Raghava, five kinds of five-nailed animals, viz., a kind of wild rodent, a kind of wild-boar, a kind of lizard, a hare and fifthly the turtle are edible for Brahmans and Kshatriyas.

"Sensible people will not touch my skin and bones, oh, king, nor meats from my body are to be eaten, such as I am, a five-nailed animal, I am killed.

"Though Tara appraised me with truthful and favourable words, I just disregarded her advise owing to my own delusion, and gone into the control of Time.

"With you as her espouser the Earth is not with a correct spouse, as with any lady who is with full-fledged chastity, but with a husband who is without rectitude.”

"How are you borne to that great-souled Dasharatha when you are artful, felonious, knavish, disposed to a false modesty subconsciously, and an evildoer?”

"I am killed by an elephant called Rama that snapped off its girdle-cord called tradition, that infringed the conventions of righteous people, and that discarded the goad called virtue.”

"On accomplishing this sort of unpropitious, unjustified killing, which is condemned by the righteous people, what can you say when you meet the godly men?”

"The valour that which is displayed on the unprejudiced few like us, oh, Rama, I do not see that sort of valour is shown by you in respect of your enemies.”

"Had you been in combat with me en face oh, prince, you would have been killed by me and by now you would have seen the death-god Yama.”

"An unassailable one, such as I am, I am killed by you while you remained invisible on the field of fight, as with a sinner bitten by a snake while he is asleep.”

"For which purpose I am killed, intending to do good to Sugreeva is incidental to it, you should have assigned me for that purpose in the first instance itself, and I would have brought that evil-minded demon Ravana, the abductor of your wife in one day, that too without killing him in any fight, but by fastening him by neck, and I would have presented Maithili to you.”

"I would have brought Maithili at your order even if she is lodged in oceanic waters or in nether worlds, as with the White Horse of Vedic lore.”

"The fact of Sugreeva's getting the kingdom after my going to heaven is proper, but the fact of your killing me in war, unrighteously, is improper.”

"Admittedly the world is this way, and if possible a relevant reply may gently be thought ofabout your propriety in killing me..."

That great-souled son of a vanara king Vali, whom the arrow impaled and agonised, on keenly seeing Rama whose resplendence equals the brightness of the sun, said that much and remained silent when his mouth has dried up.

Vali's killing is a puzzle from the viewpoint of imperial politics and dharma. Hence Vali questions logically about it, even at his dying stage. The questions are as below:

1] By killing one who is facing away, what worth is achieved by you?

2] You have not punished the wrongdoer

3] Killed one who is combating with another and an unvigilant one

4] In your country or city I did no misdeed

5] Non-guilty being is hurt

6] Fruits, tuber eating being is killed

7] No dispute of land, gold or silver

8] You primary aspiration is to kill without probing into good or bad

9] How do you face criticism by scholars?

10] Unnecessary killers are hell-goers

11] Un-wearable is my skin uneatable is my flesh

12] Five kinds of five-nailed animals are usable by humans

13] I would have brought back Maithili in one day.

Rama explains to dying Vali as to why he gave such a punishment. Rama categorically answers all the question put by Vali in the last chapter from the viewpoint of scriptures that lay down principle for sanaatana dharma, eternal tradition, as well as raaja dharma, king's duty.

"Uncaring for probity, prosperity, pleasure deriving, and even for the social conventions, now how do you rebuke me childishly in this matter?”

"Unconsulted are the doyens of your race that are intellectually well off and agreeable to your mentors about rights and wrongs about your deeds, oh, gentle one, how do you wish to debate with me in this matter with your primate's caprice.”

"This earth with its mountains, woods, and forests, even along with the authority to condone or condemn the animals, birds, and humans on it belongs to Ikshvaku’s.”

“He who is virtue-souled, truth-abiding, plain-speaking, and the knower of the import of probity, pleasures, and prosperity, and the one who is concerned in controlling or condoning his subjects, that Bharata is the ruler of earth.”

"In whom both scrupulousness and benignancy are there, truthfulness is firmed up, and valour as evinced by scriptures is evident, and he who is the knower of time and place is the king, namely Bharata.”

"Holding his virtuous decree desiring to keep up the continuum of righteousness, we and some other kings are wayfaring this earth in its entirety.”

“While that Bharata, the kingly-tiger and a patron of virtue, is ruling the earth in its entirety, who is there to conduct himself in an unacceptable way to morality on it?”

"Abiding in our own pre-eminent righteousness, and even abiding by the order of Bharata we punish him who deviated from the path of morality, according to custom.”

"As for you, you brought virtue to a state of decadence, rendered yourself reprovable by your own decadent behaviour, for carnality alone has become your primary doctrine, and thus you have not abided by the conduct meetly to a king.”

"It is to be known by him who treads the way of righteousness that he has three fatherly personages, namely his own father, his elder brother, and the one who accords education to him.”

"A younger brother, a son, and a disciple with good characteristics, these three are to be deemed as one's own sons, for such matters take base on rectitude alone.”

"The probity practised by principled people is very subtle and highly imponderable, and the soul that abides in the hearts of all beings alone can differentiate between just and unjust.”

"Like a blind by birth counselling with similarly blind, you being a vacillant, on your counselling only with frantic minded vacillant monkeys, what can you really fathom about right and wrong?”

"I will clarify about the words I have said, but I tell you that it is indeed inapt of you to disdain me just out of your outrage.”

"Realise this reason by which I have eliminated you… you misbehaved with your brother's wife, forsaking the perpetual tradition.”

"While the great-souled Sugreeva is still alive, you with your habit of sinful acts have lustily misbehaved with Sugreeva's wife Ruma, who should be counted as your daughter-in-law.”

"Thereby, oh, vanara, this punishment is imposed on you, for your dissolute sinning in abusing your brother's wife, thereby for your transgression of tradition and virtue.”

"I foresee no other kind of control other than punishment to him who conducts himself contrary to the society and who is deviant of conventions.”

"As a Kshatriya emerged from a best dynasty I do not tolerate your wrongdoing, and the punishment to the one who lustfully indulges with his daughter, or with his sister, or with the wife of his younger brother is his elimination, as recalled from scriptures.”

"While Bharata is the lord of land and we are his proxies adhering to his orders, and while you too have overstepped the bounds of rightness, then how is it possible to be lenient?”

"While ruling righteously sensible Bharata punishes him who oversteps the momentous virtue, and he is poised to put down lustful ones.”

"As for us, oh, monkey's lord, we effectuate our brother's orders and our duty, and we stand for curbing your kind of shatterers of ethics.”

"My association with Sugreeva is as good as that with Lakshmana, nevertheless it betided with an understanding to regain Sugreeva's wife and kingdom, and he will give succour to me.”

"I gave a promise to Sugreeva at the time of befriending him in the presence of vanara-s, and how is it possible for my kind to dishonour a given promise?”

"Thereby you have to infer that a befitting punishment is given to you, owing to all these great reasons that abound with virtue and with supreme value.”

"Anywise, you have to regard the punishment given to you is legitimate, and he whom rectitude guides has to render assistance to his friend, in any event.”

"Had you pursued rightness you too would have done the same deed in imposing such a punishment, and we hear two verses that are given to the advocacy of good conventions, which the experts of rightness have also accepted, and which are said to be coined by Manu, and I too conducted myself only as detailed in those verses of law.”

" 'When kings impose proper punishment on the humans who have sinned, they become sinless and enter heaven as with the pious souls with good deeds.' So says one verse of Manu.”

" 'Either by punishment or by clemency a thief will be absolved from sin, but the king who does not impose proper punishment will derive the blot of that sin.' So says the other verse of Manu.”

"When a renouncer has committed sin like that of the one committed by you, my venerable ancestor Maandhaata has given punishment which he desired.”

"Such sin is acquired even by other kings who are unobservant in imposing proper punishment, and those kings had to make amends for it at appropriate time, by that propitiation they used to mitigate that filth of that sin.”

"Thereby, enough with your annoyance, oh, tigerly vanara, as your elimination is devised righteously, and we too are not independent.”

"Oh, brave and best one among monkeys, further listen to another cause, and on listening that important cause you will not be infuriated.”

"I have neither angst nor ire in this matter of my eliminating you, or, your reviling me, oh, best monkey, but listen to the other point I wish to make clear. People will be capturing several animals, either covertly or overtly, with snares, springes and even with numerous contrivances.”

"Meat eating people will undeniably kill animals, either they are speedily sprinting or standing steadily, fully dismayed or undismayed, vigilant or unvigilant, and even if they are facing away, in that there is no sacrilege.”

"In this world even the kingly sages well-versed in virtue will go on hunting, and hunting is no face to face game, as such, oh, vanara, therefore I felled you in combat with my arrow because you are a tree-branch animal, whether you are not combating with me or combating against me.”

"Kings are the bounteous benefactors of the unobtainable righteousness and propitious lifestyles, oh, best vanara, no doubt about it.”

"They the kings are not to be harmed, also not to be reproved, not disparaged and nothing displeasing is spoken to them, as they are the divinities conducting themselves in human form on the plane of earth.”

"I am abiding by the ethicalness practised by my father and forefathers, but you revile me without the knowledge of rightness, just by clinging to your rancour." Thus said Rama to dying Vali.”

Vali is much distressed at heart of hearts when Rama has said categorically in that way, whereby, deriving certitude about rightness he found no incorrectness with Rama.

There are ancient commentaries that deduce many more meanings in picturising Vali as a devotee of Rama, who wanted to die at the hand of Rama, like Viraadha and others, as a means of salvation.