Sugriva's Truth

Long ago, there were two brothers named Vali and Sugriva. Vali was the eldest of the two and a known troublemaker. One night while they were passing along, they found themselves being attacked by an enemy. This unknown enemy lunged at the brothers from the shadows and attempted to hurt them with its claws. The figure was tall, dark, and had claws so long that it could tear through human flesh. The enemy was unrecognizable until finally the enemy stepped into the moonlight and behold, it was a demon.

Vali was no stranger to danger and pursued the demon throughout the night. The demon was quick to evade Vali and led him on a wild chase through the forest. Throughout the chase, Vali was confident in his abilities and informed the demon of who he was. Vali exclaimed, "Foolish demon! You have attacked the wrong human! I am the great and mighty Vali! I will defeat you with ease!"

At this moment, the demon realized he had made a mistake and attacked a legend. Vali was known to all demons as the mighty and fearless warrior. The demon became scared and ran for his life while attempting to find shelter. The demon began to tire and was frightened because he had heard the tales of Vali and knew escaping with his life was very slim. The demon was lucky and found sanctuary in a hole. The demon crawled deep into the dark abyss of the hole, but Vali was reluctant to concede and was insistent on following the demon into his claimed sanctuary. Before entering the hole, Vali waited for his brother to catch up.

After much time, Sugriva was finally able to locate Vali in the deep and dark forest. Vali was waiting for Sugriva by the entrance of the hole because he had a message to relay to Sugriva. Vali gave Sugriva strict orders and made it clear that he was not to deviate from them in any way. Vali then pursued the demon.

Sugriva was told to stand guard at the mouth of the hole and was ordered not to leave until Vali returned. Vali also demanded that under no circumstances was Sugriva to enter the hole. Sugriva followed his orders faithfully and stood guard for hours. To pass the time, Sugriva made shelter nearby incase his brother returned. Sugriva also set numerous traps that would catch him dinner because he was fearful that if he was gone too long from guarding the hole, the demon would escape or he would miss his brother.

As time passed, hours soon became days. Days soon turned to weeks. Weeks became months. Before Sugriva knew it, he had been standing guard for one year. No one from the palace had come searching for the brother as they often disappeared on missions together for long periods of times. The brothers were of royalty and therefore no one questioned their actions.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!"

A loud cry came from the mouth of the hole and startled Sugriva. The hole had remained silent for a year and suddenly the most fierce noise had come from it. The noise sounded like someone or something was in extreme pain, but Sugriva was overwhelmed with fear and unable to decipher who the noise was from. Before Sugriva was able to gather himself and make sense of the noise, blood began flooding out of the hole and Sugriva feared the worst. His worst fear was that his beloved brother was dead and since his brother did not appear from the hole, he assumed that the blood was Vali's. Sugriva remained faithful to his brother's orders and did not enter the hole to confirm the death.

To prevent the demon from escaping, Sugriva acted quickly and filled the hole with the top of a mountain. Without hesitation, Sugriva fled back to Kishkindha and informed the people of his brother's passing. Being that Sugriva was the next living heir, Sugriva was now king.

What was unknown to all was that Vali was still very much alive and currently fighting to free himself from the imprisonment in the hole. Vali pushed with all his might and failed time after time. Finally, when Vali was just about to give up, he decided to try to free himself one more time. With brute force, Vali was able to free himself, and quickly returned to Kishkindha to confront Sugriva.

Vali accused Sugriva of betrayal, so that he might claim the throne, but Sugriva detested these claims. The two brothers began to argue and their argument caught Rama's attention.

Rama appeared at Kishkindha to avenge Sugriva. Rama was able to recall matters of the event through supernatural powers that allowed for him to see within the mind of Sugriva. After much debate, Rama validated Sugriva's story and stated that Sugriva was telling the truth. The two brothers quickly ended their quarrel and vowed to never allow a demon to come between them again.

Author's Note:

In this story, the main piece I changed was the battle between Sugriva and Vali. I decided to give them a fairy-tale ending where they can go on living their lives rather than kill off Vali as the original story did. The original story tells the tale of a brutal battle between two siblings and one of them ends up dead. The brothers are scheming against each other and are hoping that their sibling will fall. I did enjoy reading the original story, but I did not want to retell the story with such a sad ending. I have a brother and I could not imagine ever wanting to cause him harm, so I decided to take that part of the story out. I decided to make my ending about forgiveness rather than death because in the end, the bond of siblings is strong and can always prevail. I left the portion of Rama coming to Sugriva's aid in battle., but instead altered the way that Rama helped him. The part that I did choose to leave the same was Vali's characteristics of being brave and pursuing any challenge. I also left alone how he gave Sugriva specific instructions before he departed down the hole and decided to elaborate on these instructions so that the reader would know why Sugriva just left Vali to his alleged death.

Bibliography:

"Sugriva's Story" by Geraldine Hodgson