Nalakūbara Śāpa

Nalakūbara was the son of Kubera. His wife was the apsarā Rambhā. In the Uttara Kāṇḍa of the Rāmāyaṇa, Rāvaṇa violates Rambhā in a forest, and Nalakūbara answers with a śāpa (a curse): if Rāvaṇa ever touches a woman who does not freely want him, his ten heads will split into a thousand pieces. This śāpa kept Rāvaṇa from touching Sītā in all the time she was held in Laṅkā.

Rāvaṇa meets Rambhā

In the time of his great conquests, Rāvaṇa was travelling through a beautiful forest. This was the Caitraratha forest or a place near it. There he met Rambhā, one of the most famous apsarās of svarga. She was dressed for a meeting with her husband and was walking through the forest to him.

Rāvaṇa was overcome by her great beauty. He stood in her way and told her what he wanted. Rambhā tried to reason with him. She told him plainly that she was the wife of Nalakūbara, the son of Kubera, and Kubera was Rāvaṇa’s own half-brother. So she was, in effect, his daughter-in-law (vadhū). She asked him to think of the honour of his family and of dharma.

Rāvaṇa paid no heed. He had already received the divine vara (a boon), and his pride was at its height. Neither family duty, nor dharma, nor the woman’s own wish could stop him. He took Rambhā by force.

Nalakūbara’s śāpa

Rambhā went to her husband Nalakūbara and told him what had happened. Nalakūbara was the son of Kubera and the grandson of Viśravas, so he belonged to Rāvaṇa’s wider family. He was filled with righteous anger. He performed ācamana (the rinsing of the mouth with water for purity), took water in his hands, and spoke a śāpa with exact words:

“From this moment on, if Rāvaṇa touches any woman, any woman at all, who does not herself freely want and welcome his touch, his ten heads will at once break into a thousand pieces.”

The śāpa did not take away Rāvaṇa’s power or his life. It was aimed at one thing. It took from him for ever the power to take any woman by force. He could still feel desire, and he could still go up to a woman. But the moment his hand touched a woman who was unwilling, he would die.

The śāpa and Sītā

This śāpa explains a striking fact about Sītā’s time in Laṅkā. Rāvaṇa had huge bodily strength and could easily have used force. Yet in all her months there he never touched Sītā. He came to her again and again in the Aśokavana, day after day. He pleaded, he threatened, he spoke of his power and glory, and he offered her every luxury. But he never touched her.

Sītā stood firm in her refusal. She would not even look at him straight. She put a blade of grass between herself and him as a sign of a barrier, and she spoke to the grass instead of to Rāvaṇa. In spite of all this, his hands never reached her.

The Uttara Kāṇḍa shows that this was not self-control born of any goodness in Rāvaṇa. It was the working of Nalakūbara’s śāpa. If he touched Sītā, who certainly did not want him, his ten heads would split into a thousand pieces and he would die. In this way the śāpa kept Sītā safe from harm for the whole time she was held captive.

Other śāpas on Rāvaṇa

Rāvaṇa gathered śāpas from several sources, and each held back a different part of his behaviour:

• Vedavatī’s śāpa: that she would be his destroyer.
• Anaranya’s śāpa: that a king of the Ikshvāku line would kill him.
• Nalakūbara’s śāpa: that he could not violate any unwilling woman.

Sources

• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Uttara Kāṇḍa, Chapter 34 (Rāvaṇa meets Rambhā)
• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Uttara Kāṇḍa, Chapter 35 (Nalakūbara’s śāpa and its effect on Sītā)