When princess Kaikeyi married King Dashrath and travelled from Kekeya to Ayodhya, her
favourite maid Manthara accompanied her to her new abode. Manthara was old and
hunchbacked and Kaikeyi’s father, King Aswapati felt that Kaikai will be happier with an old
companion in her new surroundings. Nobody knew at that time that Manthara would trigger
conflict in Ramayan. She resents queen Kaikeyi’s boundless love for her step son Ram and
repeatedly poisons her against the family. Kaikeyi resists her for a long time but when King
Dashrath decides to coronate Ram as his successor, Manthara instigates Kaikeyi to seek the
two boons King Dashrath promised her after saving his life on battlefront. Kaikeyi falls into
Manthara’s trap and asks 14-year exile for Ram and crown for her biological son Bharat.
In some versions of the epic, the deities are projected to be against who Ram’s coronation and
lure Goddess Saraswati’s to make Manthara’s words come true. In another story Rama is
supposed to have broken Manthara’s knee while playing stick- and-ball as a result she was
born hunch-backed in her next birth and determined to take revenge on the prince.
To be continued