Chapter 56 — Vaishravana's Warning

Agastya's account did not leave Kumbhakarna sleeping as a curious detail in Ravana's household. While that immense brother lay beyond the movement of ordinary life, Ravana went out from Lanka and made his strength a burden to the world around him.

He harried gods, rishis, yakshas, and gandharvas—the powerful nonhuman beings of this world who moved in different courts and wild places. He entered their gardens, broke what pleased him to break, and treated rivers, trees, and mountains as if their beauty existed to answer his anger. The Nandana grove, the garden of the gods, was among the places his violence reached. He was no longer only the ruler who had compelled his elder half-brother out of Lanka. He was testing whether any boundary would hold.

Vaishravana heard what was happening. Ravana had taken Lanka from him, but Vaishravana had not ceased to be a ruler, nor had he forgotten that the man causing this harm was his younger half-brother. He chose counsel before war.

He sent a messenger to Lanka with words meant for Ravana's good.

The messenger found Vibhishana first. Ravana's youngest brother received him with the courtesy owed to an arriving envoy, asked after Vaishravana and his household, and brought him into the assembly where Ravana sat in the force of his new kingship.

The envoy saluted Ravana and waited a moment before he spoke.

“Your brother sends what he believes accords with both your conduct and your lineage,” he said. “You have done enough. Let restraint begin, if you can make it begin. Stand in dharma—in the order of right conduct—rather than in destruction.”

He spoke of ruined gardens and frightened rishis. The gods, he said, had heard of Ravana's movements and were considering how such violence might be met. Yet Vaishravana had not sent only a threat. Kin who had erred through youth and folly, he said, were still kin to be protected where protection was possible.

Then the envoy gave the account Vaishravana had entrusted to him. On the high slopes of the Himalaya, at Kailasa, Vaishravana had undertaken a severe observance. He saw Shiva there with Parvati. In that sacred presence, Vaishravana's own gaze had brought him pain and left one of his eyes changed. He had continued the observance for many years, and Shiva, pleased by that steadfastness, had granted him friendship. It was from that mountain, the envoy said, that Vaishravana now spoke: not as a man made secure by power, but as one who knew its limits.

“Turn back,” the messenger said. “Do not dishonor your parents, your teachers, or your brother. The fruit of an act comes after the act. Do not wait to learn what your course has made of you.”

The court held still after the envoy finished. Ravana's eyes darkened. He pressed his teeth together and looked not at the warning but through it.

“I know the words you have brought,” he said at last. “They are not the words of one who wishes me well. My elder brother thinks he is safe because Shiva is his friend.”

He had once refused to move against Vaishravana because he was elder brother and teacher. Now that restraint was gone. Ravana declared that he would rely on the strength of his own arms and conquer the three worlds. Then, before the envoy could leave the court whose custom had protected his entrance, Ravana killed him and gave his body to his rakshasa followers.

The warning had reached him. He had answered it.

Ravana made the rites for departure, mounted his chariot, and set his course for Kailasa, where Vaishravana lived. Behind him, Lanka's bright halls received the news of war. Vibhishana had watched an envoy welcomed in peace and destroyed for speaking plainly. Agastya's story moved with Ravana toward the mountain.