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Continued from yesterday’s instalment
 It is the ministers who are to keep an eye on virtuosity and selflessness and practice them first, so that they have the moral strength to insist on the king to follow them. “By the grace of their lord, O ranger of the night, ministers acquire religious merit, wealth and sensuous enjoyment as well as fame, O jewel among the victorious!” (Valmiki Ramayana, Aranya Kanda, Canto XLI, Sloka 8)
And when the ministers are not virtuous, it affects the king whom they are supposed to advice, and through him the people who are ruled by that king. “In the reverse case, however, everything becomes useless, O Ravana! Other people meet with adversity through the fault of a master!” (Ibid, Sloka 9) It does not simply stop with your downfall. It pulls the people down with you down into the abyss. And it is for this reason, a king has to be protected from wrongdoing.
“Virtue as well as fame have their root in a king, O jewel among the victorious! Hence the rulers of men deserve to be protected under all circumstances.”
(Ibid, Sloka 10)
‘I cannot just stop with finding fault with your ministers alone, Ravana, it is you who are responsible for their lack of temerity,’ Märïca seems to imply when he says “No state can be ruled by a king who is severe, nor by him who is most adversely disposed to people, nor again by him who is boorish (in his manners) O night-stalker!” (Ibid, Sloka 11)
If you are not just, if you are not straightforward, if you are nor free of the desire to possess that which is not right and that which belongs to others, you don’t have the moral courage to correct the people whom you rule and who copy your example. If you are not free from wanton and purposeless anger, you become unapproachable and anyone would be naturally afraid of and indeed be reluctant to show you the path of rectitude. They would rather sing your praise and stop with that. Drunk with your praise, your pride increases and your pride takes you to the precipice and when you reach there, you lack the vision to see the danger of taking a further step from there. And your counsellors would also be silent.
 ‘kadum soRkkaL porukkadha menmaikk kaadhum,’
Those whose ears are so soft as not to listen to harsh words (that show what is really right, as against what they think is right)
‘karum kallil visham thOindha nenjum koNdOr’ and have a heart that is as hard as a rock, that is steeped in poison,
‘padum seydhi thOndrum munnE paduvar kaNdaai’ will fall for sure, even before they come to know of it, sang Subramanya Bharati. And we find that all these ideas are enshrined in the speech of Märïca, who dares to venture on showing what is right to this ‘ten-headed-headless’ king.
‘I am telling you all this out of the affection that I have for you, as your uncle. Do not earn the wrath of Rama the unparalleled warrior. It would take you to the very gates of hell and would take all your kith and kin as well as your subjects also along with you. Therefore, when you are showing hatred against me, realise that your hatred is really towards yourself and your subjects.’
Ravana is not the one to listen!
More follows...
Hari Krishnan
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