On Kaikeyi

Character analysis is the theme of the following essay by Pradip Bhattacharya on Kaikeyi. It presents Kaikeyi as a victim of deceipt by Dasaratha who married her with a promise which he broke to make Rama the King after him.

The Ramayana story is an illustration of how the dictum 'yat bhaavam tat bhavati' works in real life. Dasaratha acted in haste to make Rama his successor, breaking his solemn promise to make Kaikeyi's son his successor. The results that followed the action based on his intention were not in his control and the story of Ramayana unfolded -- banishment for fourteen years, his own death, abduction of Sita, battle with Ravana.

The article by Bhattacharya suggests that the person to be blamed for all this is Dasaratha, not Kaikeyi who was merely the instrument for the operation of the rule: action arises from intention, results inevitably follow action. (The web-site boloji.com hosts many interesting articles by various authors on a variety of subjects).

Kaikeyi "That Horrible Woman": -- Understood At Last *

Our greatest national epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, bristle with irony.
The ostensible root of the misfortunes visited upon the protagonist is also the bedrock on which the epic is founded.
Would the world have the Song Celestial, if Dhritarashtra, the veritable trunk of the tree of adharma,
had not asked Sanjaya to relate what was happening on Dharamakshetre Kurukshetre?
And what would be left for the Adi-kavi to relate in the life of Rama devoid of fourteen years' exile?
The Mahabharata story can exist, its epic status unimpaired, without the Gita; but without a Kaikeyi, the Ramayana?
It degenerates into a tame "and they lived happily ever after" fairy tale with the marriages of the four brothers.
Yet, over the millennia, Kaikeyi has been bracketed with Shakuni as the villain-of-the-piece and her role ever seen as on par with Dhritarashtra's.
Actually, Kaikeyi's fate has been worse than Shakuni's. Read the complete article at
http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/057.htm