Chapter 95 — Danda's Kingdom

Rama listened to Agastya's account of Shveta, then asked about the forest itself.

“Why had that place become so empty?” he asked. “How did a forest where a king performed tapas come to be without people, animals, or birds?”

Agastya answered with an older account.

In the Krita age, he said, Manu, the first lawgiver and ruler of that ancient line, had a son named Ikshvaku. Manu placed him in authority over the line of kings on earth and gave him a charge that was not simple permission to command.

“Protect people with danda,” Manu told him. Danda meant the authority to punish and enforce order. “But do not use punishment without cause. When punishment falls rightly upon those who have committed an offense, it leads a king toward dharma. Therefore be careful with it.”

After giving this counsel, Manu went to Brahma's world. Ikshvaku was left to establish his line on earth.

He had a hundred sons. The youngest of them was Danda. Agastya describes him without concealment: he was foolish, untrained in good conduct, and unwilling to serve his elders. His father saw the grave fault in him. The name Danda, he said, had been given because punishment would one day fall upon his body.

Yet Ikshvaku did not leave the son without a realm. Between the Vindhya and Shaivala mountains he gave Danda a kingdom. The place lay among beautiful mountain slopes. There Danda founded a city called Madhumanta, and he chose Ushanasa as his priest and guide.

With a city, a priest, and a country full of people, Danda ruled for many years. The kingdom seemed prosperous, as bright in Agastya's comparison as the realm of the gods. Nothing in its crowded streets and ordered life showed what would make the place empty, or why the forest would one day bear Danda's name.

But Danda's father had seen a danger in him from the beginning. The authority of punishment had been placed in the hands of a man whose own conduct had not been made firm. The next part of Agastya's tale would show what he did with that power.