Week 3 Reading Diary A: Rama's foolishness

Image source: Vali and Sugriva fight while Rama, Lakshmana and Hanuman watch from in hiding.

Today I'm going to write about my favorite (or rather the one I find most intriguing) story from this reading (pages 89-130, specifically pages 92-105). This story is the story of how Rama was very foolish to get involved in a familial dispute and actually killed someone who had never done him any wrong by shooting him from behind a bush! I just want to know who made him judge, jury, and executioner and what right did he have to take the life of a non-evil, non-demon king of another race?? At the beginning of the chapter, Narayan supports my belief that this was a foolish thing for Rama to get involved in by saying that even the greatest of men sometimes make mistakes. I can understand why Rama would have wanted to get involved in this because he felt that someone else had been done a wrong, but there were so many other ways to go about it. For instance, instead of just deciding that Vali was wrong and killing him so that his brother could take his place, he should have considered that there are two sides to every story and that Vali had every right to think that his brother had tried to de-throne him and bury him alive. He was wrong, in my opinion, to not listen to his brother's side of the story, but being rash and reacting badly to being buried alive does not necessarily warrant a death sentence does it? Instead of just killing him, Rama could have first tried to go to Vali and explain Sugreeva's position in the matter. Sure Vali won't listen to Sugreeva without trying to kill him, but the way he describes Rama to his wife shows that he has at least some respect for him and maybe would have listened if Rama had tried to explain. Failing that, he then could have either moved on and let them work out the family squabble on their own or gone back and aided Sugreeva in a more honorable way than just distracting Vali and killing him. But alas, that is not what happened. I can also understand why Rama would want to jump to Sugreeva's aid in order to get aid in return for defeating Ravana, but he could just as easily have asked for the stronger brother's assistance (sure Vali had tried to kill Sugreeva as revenge for feeling that Sugreeva had tried to do away with him, and sure he was an adulterer, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have helped Rama because by the way he was talking about him to his wife, he doesn't hate him and thinks that he is an honorable man). I'm not sure yet how I will retell this story, but maybe I'll show Vali's side of things like I showed Thataka's side of things; maybe for this semester I will play the devil's advocate over here and just show everyone how wrong Rama was sometimes even though he was a reincarnation of the god Vishnu.