Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Ayodhyā · 10 of 50
10. Mantharā
Ayodhyā (अयोध्या)
Mantharā is Kaikeyī's servant, a hunchback, and the poem is hard on her body in a way this page will not repeat. What it will repeat is her mind. She hears the drums of a consecration and she is not glad. She goes to Kaikeyī, who is glad, who has loved Rāma something like a son, and she talks until the gladness is gone.
The argument is a court argument. If Rāma is king, Bharata is a dependent, and Kaikeyī is the woman who will stand behind Kausalyā for the rest of her life. A co-wife's fear, which had been sleeping because the husband was kind, is waked as a calculation. Mantharā tells her she has power she is not using. The two boons. A promise the king made in a war, unwitnessed by the present moment, still owed.
Kaikeyī resists, and then she does not. The poem does not make her a stranger to the house. She is the beloved queen. That is why the damage can reach the king. A person he does not love could not do this. Mantharā's victory is to turn a mother's fear into a legal claim. She tells Kaikeyī to go to the anger-room, the krodhāgāra, and to lie on the floor until he comes. The consecration is still set for morning.
नेपालीमा
मन्थराले अभिषेकको बाजा सुनिन्, र खुसी भइनन्। कैकेयी खुसी थिइन्, किनकि उनले रामलाई छोरासरह माया गर्थिन्। मन्थराले दरबारको हिसाब सुनाइन्। राम राजा भए भरत आश्रित हुन्छन्, र कैकेयी जीवनभर कौसल्याको पछाडि पर्छिन्। मन्थराले उनलाई दुई वर सम्झाइन्, राजाले युद्धमा दिएको, अझै तिर्न बाँकी वचन। कैकेयीले प्रतिरोध गरिन्, अनि हार मानिन्। उनी घरकै हुन्, प्यारी रानी। प्रेम नगरेको मान्छेले राजालाई यति भाँच्न सक्दैनथ्यो। मन्थराले कैकेयीलाई क्रोधागारमा गएर राजा नआउञ्जेल भुइँमा सुत्न भनिन्।