Manthara

Kaikeyi’s old maid

Valmiki describes Manthara as a family maid of Kaikeyi, whose birth and family nobody knew. She had lived with Kaikeyi since the queen’s childhood in Kekaya and came with her to Ayodhya when she married King Dasharatha. Her body was bent with a hump, and her tongue was sharp.

Over the years Manthara became Kaikeyi’s close companion. Kaikeyi trusted her completely and once even told her the old story of how she had saved Dasharatha in battle and won two boons from him. Manthara never forgot it.

In the palace, Manthara was only a servant, but she was very close to the queen. She knew Kaikeyi’s pride, her love for her son Bharata and her place in the king’s heart. She knew which words would comfort Kaikeyi and which would frighten her.

Manthara’s loyalty to Kaikeyi was real in its own way, but it was a narrow loyalty. She cared only for her mistress and her mistress’s son, and she could not bear the thought of anyone else rising higher, even a prince as good and gentle as Rama.

The city in festival

On the day before Rama was to be crowned, Manthara happened to climb onto the palace roof terrace, which shone like the moon. Looking down, she saw Ayodhya decorated as if for a great festival: streets washed and sprinkled with water, flags flying, flowers everywhere, music playing and people celebrating.

Everyone in the city seemed to share one wish, to see Rama as their prince. Rich and poor, old and young were talking of nothing else. Manthara alone, standing high above the happy streets, looked on this joy with a heavy and jealous heart.

Puzzled, she asked Rama’s old nurse, who was standing nearby in fine clothes and beaming with joy, why the city was so happy. “Tomorrow King Dasharatha will make Rama the crown prince,” the nurse told her.

The news did not bring Manthara joy. It filled her with anger. She hurried down to Kaikeyi’s room, where the queen was resting, and cried, “Get up, foolish one! A great danger is upon you, and you lie here sleeping!”

Poison in Kaikeyi’s ear

When Kaikeyi heard that Rama would be crowned, she was delighted and gave Manthara a precious ornament as a reward. Manthara threw it away in anger. “You are drowning in an ocean of sorrow and do not even know it,” she said.

Kaikeyi defended Rama: he was righteous and would care for his brothers like a father. Manthara answered that after Rama, the throne would pass to Rama’s son, not to Bharata. Kaushalya would rule the palace and Kaikeyi would become her servant. Worse, Bharata might be sent far away, or even killed, to keep the kingdom safe for Rama’s line.

Slowly Kaikeyi’s face changed. “How can I stop this?” she asked. Manthara reminded her of the two boons and gave her a plan. She must go to the “chamber of anger”, lie on the floor in soiled clothes and refuse every jewel or comfort the king offered. Then she must ask that Bharata be crowned and that Rama be sent to the forest for fourteen years, for in that time Bharata would become firmly rooted as king.

Kaikeyi was now completely won over. She praised Manthara as her truest friend and promised to have a golden ornament made for her hump. Then she went into the chamber of anger, exactly as Manthara had planned.

When Bharata returned

The plan succeeded. Rama went to the forest with Sita and Lakshmana, and Dasharatha died of grief. But when Bharata came home from Kekaya, he refused the throne and mourned deeply for his father and his brother.

One day Manthara appeared at the eastern gate of the palace, dressed in fine clothes and covered with ornaments. The guards seized her and brought her to Shatrughna, saying that she was the one who had caused Rama’s exile and the king’s death. In great anger Shatrughna dragged her across the floor, and her ornaments scattered all around.

Bharata stopped him. “Women must not be killed,” he said. “If Rama, who is devoted to dharma, heard that we had killed her, he would never speak to us again.” Shatrughna let her go, and Manthara fled to Kaikeyi, trembling.

Not even Kaikeyi could defend her now. The queen who had praised Manthara as her truest friend watched her own son turn away in disgust from everything Manthara had worked for. After this, Valmiki does not speak of her again.

What Manthara teaches

Manthara did not lift a weapon. Her only power was her words, spoken to someone who trusted her. By playing on Kaikeyi’s love for her son and her fear of losing her place, she turned a loving mother into the cause of great sorrow.

Valmiki also shows that the answer to such harm is not more cruelty. Bharata, the very prince she claimed to help, rejected her plan, and he spared her life for Rama’s sake. Manthara’s story is a lasting lesson about the danger of jealous advice, and about how good people refuse to answer wrong with wrong.

Valmiki’s account also reminds us that Kaikeyi was not forced. Manthara gave the advice, but Kaikeyi chose to follow it. The Ramayana holds both of them responsible, and it shows that each of us must guard our own heart against harmful words.