Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Yuddha · 38 of 50
38. Vibhīṣaṇa is refused
Yuddha (युद्ध)
Across the water, before Rāma moves, Rāvaṇa holds a council. The ministers tell him what he wants. The war is winnable. The woman will yield. Vibhīṣaṇa says the other thing. Give her back. A theft is not a policy, and a brother can see the end of a policy that is only appetite. Rāvaṇa insults him and disowns the advice. Vibhīṣaṇa leaves. He crosses the sea the other way, toward the enemy of his house, because the advice was refused.
The council is the poem's fairest hour to Rāvaṇa. He is warned by his own brother, in public, with time enough to stop. He does not stop. The tragedy of Laṅkā is not that a city was surprised by a monkey army. It is that the city was told, by a voice inside the family, and preferred the theft.
This is the start of the Yuddha-kāṇḍa. Some lists call the same book the Laṅkā-kāṇḍa. The shelf uses Yuddha, and means the war that a warning could still have prevented.
नेपालीमा
रावणले सभा बोलायो। मन्त्रीहरूले उसले चाहेको कुरा भने: युद्ध जित्न सकिन्छ, सीता झुक्छिन्। विभीषणले सीता फर्काउन भन्नुभयो। चोरी नीति होइन। रावणले अपमान गर्यो, र सल्लाह त्यागिदियो। विभीषण निस्कनुभयो, समुद्रपारि, घरकै शत्रुतिर। लङ्काको दुःख अचानकको आक्रमण होइन। चेतावनी घरभित्रैबाट आइसकेको थियो, र रावणले चोरीलाई नै रोज्यो। युद्धकाण्ड यहीँ सुरु हुन्छ। कतिपय सूचीले त्यसैलाई लङ्काकाण्ड भन्छन्।