Dundubhi, Vali and Matanga's curse

Classical

Why Sugriva could hide on Rishyamuka: a buffalo-demon's blood.

Rama has just promised to help Sugriva, and Sugriva wants to be sure. In sarga 11 of the Kishkindha Kanda, he praises Rama, saying his blazing arrows could burn the worlds like the sun at the end of time. Then he describes the enemy: Vali.

Vali, Sugriva says, performs his dawn rites by traveling in one morning from the eastern ocean to the southern, the western and the others. He leaps to mountain peaks, throws them and catches them, and he uproots strong trees to show off his strength.

Then Sugriva tells of Dundubhi, a buffalo demon the size of Mount Kailasa, with the strength of a thousand elephants. A boon had made him arrogant, and he went to the Ocean and demanded a fight. The Ocean declined, saying he could not fight, and sent him to Himavan, the mountain king and father-in-law of Shiva.

Dundubhi went to Himavan's forest, tossed white rock-faces about and bellowed. Himavan answered gently. He was a refuge for sages, he said, and had no skill at war, and he asked Dundubhi not to provoke him. Dundubhi grew furious. Himavan sent him on to Vali, Indra's son and ruler of Kishkindha, comparing Vali's readiness for combat to Indra's duel with the demon Namuchi.

Dundubhi came to Kishkindha in buffalo form, bellowing, shaking the earth, uprooting trees and goring the gate with his horns. Vali came out of the palace with his women, among them Tara, and asked why he was shouting at the gate. Save your life, he told him.

Dundubhi insulted him for being among women and suggested he enjoy the night before fighting. He added that it was a sin to kill a drunk or unprepared opponent. Vali sent the women away, denied he was drunk, and accepted the challenge.

Vali put on the golden chest pendant his father Indra had given him, seized Dundubhi by the horns, whirled him around and slammed him down. Blood ran from the demon's ears. The fight was long and brutal, Dundubhi weakening while Vali grew stronger, until Vali lifted him and dashed him to the ground and killed him. Then he threw the corpse a yojana away.

Drops of blood, carried by the wind, fell on the hermitage of the sage Matanga. He came out, saw the carcass, and concluded that a monkey must have thrown it. Using his ascetic power he cursed whoever did it. Vali was forbidden to enter the area within a yojana of the hermitage, and would die if he did. His companions who stayed in the forest were cursed too. If Vali came to the forest the next day, he would turn to stone for many thousands of years.

The monkeys told Vali. He went to Matanga with folded palms and begged for mercy, but Matanga ignored him and withdrew. Vali, frightened, never again went near Mount Rishyamuka.

That, Sugriva tells Rama, is why he lives there with his ministers, Hanuman among them: Vali cannot follow. He points to Dundubhi's pile of bones and to seven large sala trees that Vali once shook, one after another. How, he asks, can you defeat such a man?

Lakshmana smiles and asks what makes Sugriva sure Vali can be killed. Sugriva proposes a test: if Rama can split one sala tree with a single arrow, he will be convinced. Rama smiles and lifts the dry skeleton on his big toe, throwing it ten yojanas. Sugriva admires it but objects: when Vali threw it the body was heavy with blood and flesh, and now it is dry and light. So Sugriva asks for the arrow through the sala tree, and Rama promises to fire it. Sugriva closes by comparing Rama to the sun among lights, the Himalayas among mountains and the lion among beasts.

The curse explains one of the strangest facts of the Ramayana's geography: why a king as strong as Vali cannot touch a refugee who sits on a hill in his own kingdom.

Who: Dundubhi, Vali, Sugriva, Matanga

Bound to

Mayavi, the cave and the brothers' feud causes

Shabari and the Matanga sages' prophecy located-at

Places: Rishyamuka hill (Hampi)

Where this comes from

valmiki · Valmiki Ramayana, Kishkindha Kanda (valmikiramayan.net translation) sarga 11
read for this telling · valmikiramayan.net Valmiki Ramayana Kishkindha Kanda sarga 11

See it on the tree · All stories

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