Rama’s rationale

Kings were duty-bound to punish erring subjects. This is laid down in the dharma sastras, said Navalpakkam Vasudevachariar in a discourse. A sinner who is punished must not be angry with the king, because once he has faced punishment on this earth, he will not go to Yama Loka. If he escapes the clutches of the law, then he will pay for his sins in Yama Loka, and the punishments there will be far worse than anything he has to face on this earth. There was a country whose king was meticulous in punishing his subjects who were guilty of crimes. But in the neighbouring country, all the subjects were good, so that there was no need for the king to punish any of them. When the people who had been punished by the king in the first country died, they went to heaven. So did the good subjects of the neighbouring country. The good people were shocked to find those guilty of criminal conduct also in heaven. How could they have come to heaven, they wondered. The answer was that because they had been punished by their king, they were not in Yama loka. If a king overlooks the wrongdoings of his subjects, then he gets a share in their sins. Just as a son’s sins come to his father, so do the sins of the citizens of a country fall upon the king.

As to Vaali’s complaint that Rama should not have killed him from behind, Rama says even when animals are hunted for flesh, it is perfectly all right to take aim from behind. Vaali has made Sugreeva’s wife his own, and must be punished for this. Srimad Bhagavatam and Garuda Puranam say that if a man forcefully embraces a woman, he will go to Naraka Loka. There, a likeness of the woman will be made, and the image will be heated. The man will be forced to embrace the heated image. Vaali, by being punished by Rama, has escaped this.