After Jatayu’s death, Rama and Lakshmana searched the forest for any trace of Sita with no clear direction and no allies. It was pure chance — or, as the epic frames it, destiny — that led them to Kishkindha, the kingdom of the Vanaras, monkey-like beings of immense strength, and into contact with a fugitive prince named Sugriva, hiding in exile on a mountain his own brother dared not approach.
Sugriva’s story mirrored Rama’s own more than either man initially realized. He and his older brother Vali had once ruled Kishkindha together, until a misunderstanding during a battle with a demon convinced Vali that Sugriva had betrayed him and tried to seize the throne in his absence. Vali returned from the fight alive, drove Sugriva out of the kingdom, seized his wife, and swore to kill him on sight. Sugriva had been living in hiding ever since, protected only by the fact that a curse forbade Vali from setting foot on the specific mountain where he sheltered.
Rama and Sugriva recognized in each other a shared grievance — both exiled, both wronged, both missing something a brother had taken. Hanuman, Sugriva’s most trusted minister, brokered the alliance formally: Sugriva’s forces would help search for Sita across the known world, and in exchange, Rama would help Sugriva reclaim his throne and his wife from Vali. It was a bargain built on mutual need, and both men entered it in good faith.
The method by which Rama fulfilled his end of the deal has generated debate for centuries. Sugriva challenged Vali to single combat, as monkey custom demanded, and the two brothers fought in full view of their kingdom. Rama, waiting concealed in the trees, was meant to identify Vali and strike him down mid-fight — but from a distance, the identical brothers proved impossible to tell apart, and Rama held his arrow rather than risk killing the wrong man. Sugriva, badly beaten and humiliated, retreated and told Rama the fight had failed because Rama hadn’t intervened at all.
For the second duel, Sugriva wore a garland Rama could recognize even from hiding. This time, when the brothers clashed again, Rama loosed his arrow the moment he could clearly identify Vali — and struck him down from concealment, without ever entering the fight directly or facing him in open combat.
Vali, mortally wounded, did not go quietly. As he lay dying, he confronted Rama with a furious accusation: what right did a prince famed for his honor have to kill a man from hiding, in a duel that wasn’t even his own, without ever announcing himself or offering a fair fight? Rama’s answer, delivered as Vali’s life slipped away, rested on dharma rather than combat ethics — as a prince bound to uphold justice throughout the land, he had the standing to punish Vali for having wrongfully seized his brother’s wife and kingdom, a transgression serious enough to warrant intervention by any means necessary, not merely a fair fight between equals. Vali, hearing the argument, ultimately accepted it before he died, asking only that his son Angada be treated with kindness — a request Rama and Sugriva both honored.
With Vali gone, Sugriva was crowned king of Kishkindha, and true to his promise, he committed the full strength of the Vanara kingdom to finding Sita. Among the search parties sent out in every direction was one led south by Hanuman — a decision that would prove to be the turning point of the entire war.
What Makes This Story Timeless
Few episodes in the Ramayana have been argued over as fiercely as Vali’s death, and that’s precisely why it endures — Valmiki refuses to offer a version of Rama that is above moral scrutiny. The story invites the reader to sit with genuine discomfort: was Rama’s justification sound, or was it a convenient argument for an ambush he could otherwise not defend? Different tellings across centuries and regions have answered that question differently, and the debate itself has become part of the epic’s living tradition. What’s rarely disputed is the emotional core of the episode — two brothers, torn apart by a misunderstanding neither fully investigated, mirrored by two other brothers who chose loyalty over doubt at every turn. The parallel is not an accident.
Retold from Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kishkindha Kanda