Kaikeyī

Kaikeyī is the second queen of King Daśaratha of Ayodhyā and the mother of Bharata. She was a woman of great beauty, intelligence and courage. Yet she became the one through whom Rāma’s exile came about. Her demand for two varas (boons), pushed on by her servant Mantharā, began the chain of events in the Rāmāyaṇa.

Character and early life

Kaikeyī was proud but not cruel. She was generous, but she could be led by others. Daśaratha was drawn to her for her beauty, mind and courage.

In a battle she saved the wounded Daśaratha. She acted as his charioteer and kept him alive. For this Daśaratha gave her two varas (boons), which she could claim whenever she wished. Her love for Bharata was real. It became the way that Mantharā’s poison reached her heart.

The two varas

Daśaratha was making ready to crown Rāma as yuvarāja (crown prince). This should have been a day of joy for all. Mantharā went to Kaikeyī and filled her mind with fear and jealousy. She spoke of Kaikeyī losing her place, of Bharata being pushed out of power, and of Kausalyā’s triumph. Against her own good nature, Kaikeyī was convinced.

Mantharā sent her to the kopa-gṛha (also called kopa-bhavana), the room of anger in the palace. A queen who lay there put pressure on the king to come to her himself and hear her complaint. Kaikeyī took off all her ornaments and lay on the floor with her hair loose, as a sign of protest.

Daśaratha could not find her in her rooms. He learned that she was in the kopa-gṛha, so he went to her and sat beside her. In tender words he promised her anything she wished. He swore on Rāma himself that he would grant it. In this way Kaikeyī won his binding promise before she named her varas. This made her demand even harder for him to refuse.

Then Kaikeyī asked for two things. Bharata was to be crowned yuvarāja. Rāma was to go to the Daṇḍakāraṇya forest for fourteen years and live as an ascetic. These words broke Daśaratha. He fell to the floor like a tree cut down. He could not refuse, because his word was dharma. He could not obey without destroying what he loved most. The Agni Mahā Purāṇa (Chapter 6) says that the satya-pāśa (bond of truth) held him.

The Putrakāmeshṭi and the birth of Bharata

In the Putrakāmeshṭi, the yajña (fire ritual) for obtaining sons, the queens received the sacred pāyasam (sweet rice). Kaikeyī received a share, and Bharata was born from her womb. The Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa tells this in the Bāla Kāṇḍa, Chapter 16.

The place of the exile in the Rāmāyaṇa

The tradition holds that Kaikeyī’s act is the axis on which the whole Rāmāyaṇa turns. Without Rāma’s exile there would be no meeting with the ṛshis of the forest, no rescue of Ahalyā, no alliance with Sugrīva, no crossing to Laṅkā and no end of Rāvaṇa. Rāma had come to fulfil the purpose of his avatāra (descent), and her demand served that purpose. The tradition also holds that Sarasvatī herself entered Kaikeyī’s tongue at that moment.

After the exile

Bharata came back from Kekaya and learned the truth. He blamed Kaikeyī completely. He told her to her face that she had destroyed the family, killed her husband and sent the innocent Rāma away. He said she had done it for his sake, without his knowledge and against his wishes. He refused the throne. Kaikeyī got what she had aimed for, but it brought the opposite of what she wanted for Bharata’s happiness and for her own standing.

Liberation through the sheep’s cry

The Manohara Khaṇḍa of the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa tells how Kaikeyī was freed during Rāmarājya (the reign of Rāma). Rāma had arranged adhyātma (spiritual) teaching at night all over Ayodhyā. During one such night Kaikeyī heard sheep calling “mē mē”.

In that charged night the sound struck her as more than an animal’s cry. “Mē mē” means “mine, mine”. It was the sound of mamakāra, the deep claim of “mine” that drives all beings round the cycle of saṃsāra (birth and death). The whole crisis of the Rāmāyaṇa came from that one root: her insistence on “mine”, on Bharata’s claim and on her own special place. The sheep, in the simple way of animals, gave voice to the very error that had shaped her life.

In a flash Kaikeyī saw through the veil of mamakāra that had ruled her. The urge to possess fell away. With it fell away her sense of being a small, claiming self. She gained jñāna, the direct knowledge of the self beyond all possession. Then she reached Vaikuṇṭha together with Kausalyā and Sumitrā. All three queens were freed by the grace of Rāma’s adhyātma teaching.

The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa shows this as the fitting end of her story. Her mamakāra had set the whole story in motion, and she was freed by seeing what mamakāra is. What had bound her became what freed her. The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa tells this in Chapter 2 of the Manohara Khaṇḍa.

Sources

• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa, Chapters 6–7 (context)
• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa, Chapter 16
• Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Ayodhyā Kāṇḍa, Chapters 9–12
• Agni Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 6
• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Manohara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 2