Rama has fallen silent. The din of the field is what it was, Ravana’s chariot stands where it stood, and Rama is still on foot. Outside, everything is as it was. The change is inside Vibhishana, and Tulsidas gathers that change into a single doha.
Hearing the Lord’s words, Vibhishana was filled with joy and took hold of his lotus feet. And he said: Rama, treasury of grace and of joy, under this pretext you have given me the teaching. There are two movements in this episode, and both of them go toward the same feet. Before he asked his question, Vibhishana had bowed to those feet, bent low and full of doubt. Now he takes those same feet in his hands, full of gladness. Between the two lie only Rama’s words. The bow belonged to worry; the grasp belongs to joy. The hands that were folded a few moments ago are now holding on. Set the scene where it belongs. The two armies have already closed, every fighter is locked with the match he chose, hills and whole trees are flying through the dust and the lion-roars, and in the middle of it a prince of the rakshasa line kneels on the ground and holds the feet of a warrior standing on foot, and he is full of joy. On a field where everyone is trying to bring someone down, one man has gone down of his own accord, and he is the stillest point in the whole of that hour.
One word in Vibhishana’s sentence carries the whole of this part: misa, a pretext, an excuse. Vibhishana has understood that what he asked for and what he received are two different things. He had asked about a chariot, about Ravana, about the fight of that one day. What he received reaches past that one fight and covers a whole life. And he says this without a trace of complaint. He calls it grace, and he names Rama a treasury of grace and of joy, holding both at once, the grace that gives and the joy that comes of it. His doubt is nowhere to be found. He raises no second question and offers no argument. There is a grateful heart, and there are the feet it holds.
And Vibhishana has done one thing more here. Rama had spoken of whoever holds such a chariot. Vibhishana heard him, and in that same moment he fitted one wheel of that chariot inside himself: fortitude. The man who came unsteadied stands now holding Rama’s feet, named steady of mind, and he no longer has any need to look toward Ravana’s chariot.
Then, in the same breath, Tulsidas returns us to the war. From that side Ravana of the ten necks is roaring his challenge; from this side, Angada and Hanuman. Rakshasas and bears and monkeys are fighting, each of them calling on the name of his own lord. The Vibhishana Gita ends here, in the exact middle of the battle where it began. Ravana’s chariot is still there. Rama is still on foot. And the question that rose at the sight of them is no longer in anyone’s mind.
When you rise from this episode, carry one thing with you. Rama gave his teaching where the question rose, in the dust and the lion-roars, without waiting for a seat or a quiet hour, and the one who listened received it in that same place. The chariot he described is built exactly where you are standing, and from the day even one of its parts stands firm, it is your own.
Source: Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, Lanka Kanda