The Battle of Vali and Sugriva: Wikipedia
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Vali was the son of Indra and the older brother of
Sugriva. Vali was the king of
Kishkindha, a kingdom of monkeys. He churned the oceans and earned the favor of
the gods. He was blessed with immense fighting strength. Along with his
increased strength any opponent who fought him would lose half of their own power.
Maataavi was a demon whose only love in life was to fight. When
Maataavi heard of a worthy opponent his blood boiled with excitement. He went
to Kishkinda and at the gates a great castle challenged Vali to a battle. Vali,
fearing no being, gladly accepted Maatiaavi challenge. The battle let them deep
into a cave where they did battle for many years. Sugriva only heard demonic
screaming during the battle. When he went to the cave he saw only blood. He had assumed that the demonic screaming was
Maatavvi, who had done the impossible and defeated his brother Vali.
Sugriva now believing that he the rightful king of Kishkindha,
and with the advisement of his council wanted to seal the cave. He was worried
what the demon would do to his people. Thus, the cave was sealed with an immovable
boulder. However, the screams Sugriva had heard were not Maatiavvi, but his brother
Vali. Vali was consumed with anger once he had reached the entrance of the cave. He smashed the boulder and went to find his
brother.
Vali entered his castle still in a rage. The council feared
for their lives along with Sugriva. Sugriva begged his brother to allow him to
explain himself. Vali agreed as if he didn’t like Sugriva explanation he could
still kill him afterward. Once Sugriva explained himself Vali said he was forgiven.
Author’s note:
The story is fairly similar to the original. The biggest
difference is that Sugriva has a chance to explain his actions. Vali anger was not unwarranted; however, it
seems a little much not hearing your brother out. Vali most likely believed Sigriva wanted the
throne for himself. However, Sigriva action of sealing the cave is completely understandable
as two years fighting is quite a while. Sigriva just wanted to protect his
kingdom from Maataavi.
Citation: Narayan, R. K., & Kampar, . (2006). The
Ramayana: A shortened modern prose version of the Indian epic (suggested by the
Tamil version of Kamban). New York: Penguin Books.
I liked the story you wrote this week for the storybook exercise. Particularly, I was fond of your description of the demon, and giving a good background as to his purpose and motivations. I wonder if it would have been possible to expand this explanation of purpose to the two brothers as well, I feel it really would have added to the depth of character in the story. Finally, the one thing I wished I could have seen was a closer look as to the explanation Sigriva gave to Vali, because that sounds like a tense, exciting part of the story that would have been an extremely entertaining read. Overall I think that this is a very well written story, and the only thing is I wonder what if the interpersonal components were expanded on a bit more, to add even more intrigue to the narrative.
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan! I think what you did for this story was really cool. You kept a lot of the original elements but you put your own twist on the story. When you were originally reading Ramayana did you want to know more about why Sugriva did what he did? Is that the reason why you decided to write your story explaining his actions?
ReplyDeleteHello Jonathan! I love this story and I really like how you put your own little twist to a great original story! It's weird, but I love reading about demons from Indian Epics, especially when their characters are changed up a bit with story retellings! It is really cool to read so many different stories about the same characters! This class has provided endless stories to read and learn from!
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