Ramayana series2 – Vali-Sugriva – Don’t judge without understanding

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Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
Today we will discuss about how relationships can be ruined when there is judgment without understanding. This is a lesson which is very graphically and tragically taught through the interaction of the two Vanara royal princes, Vali and Sugriv. Vali and Sugriv were brothers, sons of Rukhsaraj.
And after Rukhsaraj was the king of the Vanaras retired, Vali became the king and Sugriv became his assistant. And these two brothers were not just related by blood, they were related with the heart. They were best of friends and they fought against terrible demons together.
They lived for each other and they were ready to die for each other. And yet circumstances would conspire tragically in a way that would separate these two till death. Once a terrible demon Mayavi came to Kishkind, which is the kingdom of Vali and challenged him to a fight.
Vali along with Sugriv at his heels immediately came out. Seeing these two huge monkeys charging towards him, Mayavi panicked and fled. Knowing that Mayavi was a dangerous demon who would again and again come and terrorize his citizens, Vali gave chase.
Realizing that he could not get these two terrible monkeys off his back, Mayavi disappeared into a cave. It’s a deep dark cave which is actually the entrance to a chain of dungeons inside, a chain of underground passageways. So, as the two brothers were ready to charge in to catch him, Vali told Sugriv, wait here.
If somehow there are many ways inside and somehow he slips out and tries to escape, you catch him from here. We know that this chain of caves does not have any other exit. So, you guard the entry point so that it doesn’t become an escape point for him.
Sugriv was reluctant. These demons are very cunning. He may have some associates who may attack you from behind.
Let me come with you. Vali said, no, stay here. And because it was the older brother, because it was the king, Sugriv agreed.
And Vali went inside. And for a long, long time, Sugriv was waiting outside. There was no sound at all.
His anxiety was increasing. And finally, he heard a terrible sound, devastating sound, which was the roaring of this demon. And there was no sound at all.
Sugriv’s heart started sinking. He inferred from the fact that he heard only the sound of the demon and not the sound of Vali, that somehow this demon had killed Vali. Although Sugriv was shattered on contemplating his brother’s death, still he knew his responsibility to his citizens.
After all, he was a member of the royal family and he considered carefully, if this demon is so powerful that he can kill my brother, then it will be difficult for me to kill him. And it will be impossible for our citizens to defend themselves from him. So better let me trap him here.
Let the cave in which he has escaped become his grave. Thinking like this, Sugriv used all his strength to push a giant boulder onto the opening of the cave. The cave became completely covered.
The demon was trapped inside. Then Sugriv went back to the kingdom, dejected, informed the citizens of what had happened. And they had a national period of mourning for honoring their deceased king.
And then the ministers and the courtiers told Sugriv that the kingdom needs a king and Vali’s son Angad is too small right now to become a king. So it is your responsibility. Although the death of his brother was a raw wound still in his heart, but still Sugriv knew his royal responsibility and he accepted the throne.
A few days later, the courtiers who were sitting in the court suddenly heard some thunderous sound. It appeared as if some giant person was charging into the palace. And there they saw Vali looking disheveled, bloodshot eyes glaring murderously at Sugriv.
He charged towards Sugriv to attack him. Sugriv’s heart joy knew no bounds to see his brother whom he had thought was dead alive. He got off his throne to welcome him.
But when he saw the bloodshot rage in Vali’s eyes, he understood what had happened. Vali was suspecting that he Sugriv had conspired to seize the throne from him. Sugriv immediately got off his throne, ran to Vali’s feet and fell at his feet to welcome him to explain to him.
But Vali was furious. He started pounding Sugriv, traitor, I trusted you as my brother and you tried to kill me. Sugriv tried to explain, but Vali had been completely convinced about his interpretation of what had happened.
He had killed the demon in the cave, but not wanting to waste any energy while he was exerting to kill that demon, he had remained silent while the demon was screaming, being beaten by Vali. After killing the demon, when he had come to the exit of the cave, he found a huge boulder covering it. And the boulder was so huge and the cave had been covered so thoroughly that he realized this could not have happened by any natural forces.
He knew that he had kept his brother as a guard over there. How had his brother disappeared and this boulder appeared to cover the cave? He called out for his brother, but he had got no response. He tried to push and push to move the boulder, but it was almost impossible to move.
After much effort and creativity, finally, with the last reserves of his strength, he had managed to push the boulder aside. And had come out, he had seen no Sugriv. He had seen no sign of any confrontation that might indicate that Sugriv had been killed or wounded or driven away and somebody else had placed the boulder over there.
So, his suspicion started increasing that Sugriv had put this boulder on the cave’s entrance. And why would Sugriv do such a thing? He thought, maybe my younger brother wants a kingdom that I own. And when he came to the palace and he saw Sugriv sitting on the throne, he felt his suspicion confirmed and he started pounding Sugriv.
Sugriv had not the heart to defend. He was shattered by the thought that his brother for whom he would on any day give up his life was now suspecting that he had tried to assassinate him. That thought that my brother is suspecting me of this so disheartened him that he lost any will to fight.
Realizing that he was very angry, Sugriv decided to flee from there. He hoped that Vali’s anger would calm down after some time and then he would clarify. As Sugriv tried to flee, seeing this, Vali’s suspicion got further confirmed.
He is a criminal. That’s why he is fleeing from me. So he gave chase and Sugriv ran, ran, ran.
Vali chased him. Sugriv had to flee from the kingdom itself. Although Sugriv fled, Vali did not rest in peace.
Sugriv wanted to come back and clarify, but every time he would try to come, Vali would come to attack him. Eventually, Vali started pursuing him, not just whenever he entered into the kingdom back, but wherever he went. Sugriv after trying to hide in various places far and wide, eventually realized that he would just not be able to escape from Vali because Vali was relentless in his determination to punish the brother who he thought had betrayed him.
So finally, Sugriv found shelter near the Pampa Sarovar, Lake Pampa, where a curse given by a sage to Vali prevented him from coming in that area. Long ago, when the demon Dundubi had attacked Vali, Vali had defeated, destroyed the demon and in a show of his martial prowess, he had picked up the carcass, the dead body of Dundubi and hurled it far away and that body had gone and fallen in the sacrificial arena of a sage Matanga, who had been performing sacrifices. When the blood spilled and defiled the sacrifice, the sage got angry and he said, whoever is the fool who has defiled the sacrificial arena, if he comes in this vicinity and dares to defile this vicinity by his degraded presence, he will fall dead.
Although Vali was a formidable warrior, he knew that the curse of the sages was insurmountable. Thus, he stayed away from there and that is where Sugriv had to stay to save himself from Vali’s wrath. Now, in this situation, if you see, both Sugriv and Vali made inferences that Sugriv inferred that Vali had died and Vali inferred that Sugriv had betrayed him.
Both of them, they made improper conclusions from proper observations. The proper observation for Sugriv was that, oh, he didn’t hear any sound of his brother, he heard only the sound of the demon. That is a proper observation.
The inference was wrong, the conclusion that my brother is dead, that is wrong. Vali also had proper observations. Oh, this boulder which could not come in place by natural forces is covering the cave.
Sugriv is sitting on the throne. So, now from these observations, the conclusions that both of them arrived were possible, were even reasonable, but they were not necessarily inevitable. So, both of them came to wrong conclusions and quite often we too in our interactions come to wrong conclusions.
We are not omniscient. We have limited scope of how much can we know and based on our observation of some situation, we come to some inference. This is like this, this is like that, this person is like this, this person is like that.
And sometimes our inferences may be correct, sometimes our inferences may not be correct. And quite often, what inference we arrive at about a person depends on what preconception we have about that person. If you already have some suspicion about someone, then if they do some activity, which seems to be negative, immediately we attribute a negative motive to them.
This is often called as the attribution error. Attribution error means that if we see that a particular person is doing something objectionable. If we see somebody eating a lot and if we don’t like that person, we’ll say, this person is a glutton, eats so much.
On the other hand, if we eat a lot, we’ll say, I was hungry. The other person could also have been hungry. But no, we are charitable in attributing intent to ourselves.
But we are uncharitable when we attribute a motivation to someone to whom we are unfavorably disposed. Someone whom we don’t like, we see them sleeping a lot. Such a lazy person.
If we ask them to sleep a lot, we’ll say, I was tired. The other person could also have been tired. But we don’t consider that alternative.
So there is observation. But from observation, different inferences can be drawn. What kind of inference we may draw that is determined by what kind of conceptions are already present in our mind.
And if we are not open minded enough to recognize that my inference may or may not be correct. If we are overconfident in our capacity to understand things, then we will arrive at wrong conclusions and think that those conclusions are right. So relationships are often foiled when we judge people without understanding the situation that they are in.
So both Sugriv and Vali arrived at wrong inferences. But the difference was that Sugriv had no chance for clarification. When he concluded that Vali was dead, he knew that he couldn’t afford to take the risk of either going into the cave or waiting for someone to come out of the cave because a demon who had killed Vali could easily kill him.
So he did not have the opportunity to clarify. It was too risky for him at that point. But Vali surely had that opportunity.
Vali could have considered that this is my brother. He has served me for so long. We have been together for years and years, for decades.
At least let me hear what this brother is saying. And even if Sugriv had been guilty, Vali did not have much danger in hearing from Sugriv because Vali was more powerful. So he could in any day have subdued Sugriv.
But he did not even entertain Sugriv. He did not allow him to clarify at all. He observed, he judged and condemned.
Normally in any court, when there is a complainant, there is a plaintiff who says, you know, this person has done like this, like this, like this. There is an accuser who accuses. And the person who has been accused, the defendant, is given a chance to tell their side of the story.
If a judge simply hears the accuser, doesn’t hear the defendant and then arrives at a judgment, that judge would be considered very biased. The judgment would be considered unfair. So unfortunately, you know, we may not always go to courts where such things happen.
But in our court itself, in the court of our own heart, we often judge people without giving them a chance to defend themselves. And this can ruin relationships. If we judge people without understanding them, then we may break relationships which could otherwise have gone very well.
And what happened eventually, these two brothers who were like two souls in one, one soul in two bodies, they became lifelong separated. And while he was so hell-bent on somehow or other killing Sugriv, that eventually Sugriv had to join forces with Ram. And Ram had to kill Sugriv, kill Vali.
Sugriv’s heart was broken when Vali was killed. But that was the only way the whole tragic confrontation could end. Thankfully, Ram’s intervention ensured that Vali did not go to the grave with his misconception about Sugriv.
When Ram’s arrow pierced his chest, and that powerful warrior who had never been defeated by anyone was fell to the ground, that fall brought down not just his body, but also his ego. In his heart at the back, he’d always held some nagging feeling, maybe I’ve treated my brother unfairly. But he had neglected that voice.
But when finally Ram spoke to him censuring him for the unfairness and the cruelty with which he had dealt with his brother, Vali’s eyes opened. And at that time, Vali amended his ways. Vali had been given a necklace, a celestial necklace by his father, Sun God.
And the God of the heavens, Indra, had given this to him. And that necklace meant that as long as he was wearing this, he would never die. So although he’d been mortally wounded, but that necklace kept his life.
And his wife Tara, his son Angad, they all came running when he had fallen. Sugriv was there, Ram was there. When Vali understood that he had grievously wronged Sugriv, he apologized to him.
And he reconciled with him. He says, oh brother, I treated you unfairly. Please forgive me.
And then he told him that my wife Tara and my son Angad are innocent. Whatever anger you have towards me, please don’t take it out against them. Tara time and time again told me that I should reconcile with you, that you were my well-wisher, but I never listened to her.
It was my mistake. And then he turned to Angad and said, oh son, do not think that your uncle is the cause of my death. It is my own misdeeds that have come and killed me.
In this way, he ensured that there was no animosity between him and his nephew, between his son and his uncle. So the chapter of animosity which had started with his misjudgment ended with him. And he told Tara that stay under the shelter of Sugriv.
He told Sugriv to protect Tara. And then with his last breaths, he took out his necklace. He could easily have given this necklace to his son Angad, but he gave that necklace to Sugriv.
And in this way, not only through his words, but through his actions, he demonstrated his repentance. And then in the presence of Ram, he departed from the world. Initially he had felt that Ram had been unfair to him by killing him.
Ram told him, if you feel that what I have done is unfair, I can give you back your life right now. Then Vali told Ram, after he had understood how he had wronged Sugriv, he said, deaths, it is many lives the soul gets in this world, and many deaths also. But a death in the presence of you, oh Lord, is extremely rare.
I do not want life again. I would rather die in your presence. So in this way, Vali bridged the valley that he had created between him and Sugriv.
However, for us, we may or may not get such a chance. The Lord may not intervene in our life. And that is why it is important for us to not judge people hastily.
We find somebody doing something objectionable, rather than jumping to a conclusion, we need to give people the clarity and clarify and try to get a proper understanding. And if somehow we have judged somebody wrongly, then we need to follow in Vali’s footsteps and do what he did. Vali apologized, Vali acknowledged that he had made a mistake, he apologized for his mistake, and he amended the wrong that he had done.
So these three things, acknowledging the mistake, apologizing for it, and then amending it. If we do it, then we too can mend the relationships