Sugriva, an Icon of Friendship.
Sugriva stands tall as an icon of friendship in Ramayana. The friendship forged between Sri Rama and Sugriva was initially a tactical kind, it involved both give and take.
Sri Ram wanted the monkey army to search for his dear wife Sita, who was abducted by Ravana, and also a reliable troop to fight for him.
Sukriva wanted to regain his lost Kingdom. He primarily wanted to save his life from his estranged and powerful brother Vali.
Rama and Sukriva then decided to help each other. First Rama would help Sukriva get rid of his brother Vali and regain his Kingdom.
Later, Sukriva on his part would help Rama to locate and retrieve Sita, who was in the custody of Ravana.
Therefore, this relationship was forged for the benefit of both parties, but it soon transformed into a genuine friendship between the two.
Sugriva was the brother of Vali, who ruled their ancestral Kingdom of Kishkintha. The Kishkintha is on the shores of Tungabadra in Karnataka.
Initially, both of them, Vali and Sugriva were good to each other. Vali and Sugriva both loved and trusted each other like any brother would.
Once a Danava by the name of Dundhupi had come to the place of Vali and challenged him for a fight. Dundhupi couldn’t stand the might of Vali and he soon fled into a cave.
That cave was very vast and intricate with only one entrance to it.
Sugriva was following Vali, who entered the cave in pursuit of the arrogant Dundhupi who had challenged him.
Sugriva stood guard outside the cave. The wait was long. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned into a year. There was no trace of either Vali or Dundhupi, coming out of the cave.
One day, Sugriva heard a loud cry from inside the cave and blood started flowing from the cave. Sugriva mistook that Vali had been killed by Dundhupi and the blood that had come out was that of Vali.
Vali had a chain worn around him. This chain enabled him to get half of the strength of the one who challenged him face-to-face.
With this boon, Sugriva should have thought that Vali would have killed Dundhupi and he would come out as a victorious man.
Instead due to fate, Sugriva somehow thought that Vali had been killed by Dundhupi. So, to protect his Kingdom and its subjects, he threw a big rock to close the cave.
He came back to the Kingdom and announced that Vali had been killed in the battle between him and Dundhupi. He announced himself as the next King to them. He then ruled the Kingdom. He also took the wife of Vali along with his wife Ruma into his harem.
In the meanwhile Vali wanted to come out of the cave and found that the entrance had been blocked by a heavy rock. He tried calling Sugriva several times but Sugriva was not there to reply to him.
He then using his strength, with great effort pushed the rock and came out of the cave. He went straight to his Kingdom and saw Sugriva ruling there as a King.
Seeing his brother Vali alive and kicking, Sugriva immediately rose from the throne and fell at the feet of his elder brother and welcomed him.
He offered the throne to Vali and pleaded with him to forgive his misjudgment.
Vali would not take any of those arguments. He would beat him blue and black.
To escape from the fury of Vali, Sugriva fled to all four sides of the Bharat and found refuge nowhere. He found refuge in Matanga hills near Kishkinta, where the Maharishi Matanga lived, and who had earlier cursed Vali that he would die if he entered that place, due to some offense made by him, earlier.
Sugriva lived there with his trusted lieutenants, Hanuman, and others without the fear of Vali.
Time passed this way and Vali, now took his wife Tara along with the wife of Sugriva, Ruma by name into his harem.
Vali didn't dare to come to the Matanga hills and Sugriva was spared of his life by living in that place.
In the meanwhile, Ravana had abducted Sita from Sri Rama and had taken her to Sri Lanka. He had kept her as a captive in the Ashoka grove.
While Sita was being carried away by Ravana, Sita cut a portion of her saree took some of her jewels, made them into a bundle, and dropped to the ground.
This incident was witnessed by Sugriva and others. Immediately one of the vanara’s dived and caught hold of the jewels and kept it with them. They were not able to fathom who the lady was and who was carrying her away.
They kept the jewels with them so that they could return them to the lawful owner of the jewels one day or the other.
Later, Rama and Lakshmana come into their forest guided by the exalted Sabari, to meet Sugriva and earn his friendship.
Initially, Sugriva does not trust them and feared that they had come into his domain on the advice of Vali to kill him.
So, he despatched Hanuman to investigate their intentions and also to gather information about both of them.
Hanuman talks to Rama and Lakshmana and enquires them as to their lineage and their intention to come into the forest. He also said to them that they seemed to have lost something precious to them. Rama was impressed by his words and expressed his admiration towards him to Lakshmana.
Hanuman was convinced that the friendship between Rama and Sugriva would benefit both of them and he took them to the presence of Sugriva.
After a series of tests, Sugriva is convinced about the prowess of Rama and Lakshmana and they enter into an agreement that Sri Rama would help Sugriva to win back his Kingdom by killing Vali, and in return, Sugriva would help him in locating and retrieving Sita.
So, as per their agreement Vali was killed by Rama and Sugriva was established as the King of Kishkinta.
Sugriva then despatched scores of vanaras to different parts of India to locate Sita.
To Hanuman, who went in the southern direction, the instructions were clear that he had to search all the places in mainland India and after that, he had to go to Sri Lanka and continue his search for Sita, there also.
Had Sugriva wanted to mislead Rama and Lakshmana he would have said to his vanara soldiers ‘make a motion of searching. If we can locate her it is okay. If not do not bother. Why should we fight for strangers like Rama and Lakshmana, Travel for some distance make a motion to search Sita, and come back with the news that she was not found anywhere?’
Rama and Lakshmana had no way to cross-check the same. Hence, Sugriva would have easily led a jolly good life.
Instead, Sugriva asked his soldiers to give their utmost to locate Sita and come within a month.
Hanuman crossed the oceans, found Sita in Lanka, and came back to Sugriva.
Rama and Lakshmana were elated when they heard the news that Sita was alive and she had been protecting her chastity.
Rama orders that the monkey army start to Lanka the next day.
They built a bridge across the ocean and all the vanara monkeys and Sugriva along with Rama and Lakshmana crossed the ocean.
From the first, Ravana was perplexed with Sugriva. The war strategy of the Rakshasas was to somehow isolate Rama and Lakshmana and deprive them of the support of the vanara army.
The thought process from the side of the rakshasas goes like this; ‘Yes, Sita had been abducted by Ravana. Then, the two parties to the conflict were the Rama and Lakshmana on one side and the Rakshasas on the other side. Why are the vanaras who had not been harmed in any way coming into this conflict in support of Rama?’
In one instance, Kumbakarna the brother of Ravana captured Sugriva and took him as a prisoner inside the fort of Lanka. But, Sugriva somehow freed himself from the captivity and escaped back to his forces.
The idea of Kumbaran was to take Sugriva as a prisoner and negotiate with him so that the vanara army goes out to their places leaving behind Rama and Lakshmana to fend for themselves.
The rakshasas never dreamt that Rama would be able to build a bridge across the oceans and reach their doorsteps.
It had been the established practice of Ravana to abduct the wives of other Kings and take them to his domain which was located in the middle of the ocean and violate them. In the case of Rama also he employed the same technique.
But as the saying goes a thief will eventually be caught, Ravana was caught napping in his own game, in the case of Rama. This was a classic example of abduction going wrong.
Ravana was cornered in his place. It was made possible only by the energetic efforts of the vanaras. The vanaras under the command of ‘Nalan’ the son of Vishwakarma, built the bridge in a record three days to reach the ramparts of Lanka.
Ravana thought, that without the support of vanaras, Rama and Lakshmana would not even have entertained the thoughts of coming anywhere near Lanka, let alone fighting with them. Leave alone their coming into the vicinity of Lanka, they would not have known the location of Sita, without the help of the vanara army.
Hence their strategy was to somehow drive a wedge between Rama, Lakshmana, and the vanara army.
In this endeavor, they were never able to succeed, thanks to the steadfast devotion of Sugriva to his given words to locate and retrieve Sita.
The war between Rama and the Ravana was fought with so much intensity and ferocity that at several places the rakshasa commanders had lost the will to continue to fight the war.
During the war, twice Rama and Lakshmana fainted away and in both instances, Hanuman went to the Himalayas to bring the Dronagiri hills to get the rare herbs like Mrutha Sanjeevani, Vishayakarani, Sandhanakarani, and Savarnyakarani to revive them.
Sugriva could have left them to their fate, but as a true friend, he left no stone unturned to save Rama and Lakshmana.
When the war was over and Sita was rescued all the vanaras along with Rama, Lakshmana and Sita proceeded towards Ayodhya in Pushpak Vimana.
Upon their return, Rama asked Bharata to allot his Palace to Sugriva and Vibheeshana.
When they reach Ayodhya, Bharata who did not know the ordeal faced by Rama and Sita, was astonished about the way Sugriva a total stranger to them, no way connected to them by blood, had come to the rescue of their brother Sri Rama.
He calls Sugriva their brother and gives him the respect due to one.
Sugriva is the ideal friend the one can get and I am wonderstruck at his steadfast loyalty towards Rama and his empathy towards his losses. It is an asset to have such a friend in life and Sugriva serves as a good example of true friendship.
