In the story
Mainda and Dvivida are brothers fathered by the Aśvins, the twin physicians of the gods, and are named among the foremost of the vānara warriors from the muster at Kiṣkindhā onward. They march with the southern search party, enter the enchanted cave, and come out on the shore with the rest.
In the war they fight in the front rank, meeting the rākṣasa champions in the general engagements with trees and boulders in the vānara manner. Both survive.
Why they are named
The Rāmāyaṇa's war books work by naming: an army is made real by having a roster, and the poem supplies dozens of vānara commanders with parentage and station. Mainda and Dvivida are among the handful who recur often enough to be recognizable, and their divine parentage places them in the second rank behind Hanumān, Nīla and Aṅgada.
Their descent from the Aśvins is a small piece of the epic's larger scheme, in which the vānara leaders are children of gods — Hanumān of the wind, Nīla of fire, Vālī of Indra, Sugrīva of the sun — so that the army Rāma raises is, in effect, the gods' own contribution to a war they cannot fight themselves.
A later Dvivida
The Dvivida who ravages the Ānarta country and is killed by Balarāma belongs to the Harivaṃśa and the purāṇas. Vālmīki knows no such end for him.
The roster
The war books work by naming. Vālmīki supplies dozens of vānara commanders with parentage, home mountain and troop strength, and recites them in the mouths of Rāvaṇa's own spies so that the enumeration doubles as intelligence.
Mainda and Dvivida are among the handful named often enough to be recognizable, and their descent from the Aśvins places them in the second rank behind Hanumān, Nīla and Aṅgada.
Children of gods
The vānara leadership is systematically divine in parentage — Hanumān of the wind, Nīla of fire, Vālī of Indra, Sugrīva of the sun, these two of the physicians of the gods. The first book explains it: the gods were told to father sons among the forest peoples so that a force would exist when Viṣṇu was born as a man.
The army Rāma raises is thus the gods' own contribution to a war a boon forbids them to fight.
Further reading
- Bose, Mandakranta. The Ramayana Revisited. Oxford University Press, 2004
- Goldman, Robert P. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Princeton University Press, 1984
- Nagar, Shanti Lal. Genesis and Evolution of the Rama Katha in Indian Art, Thought, Literature and Culture. B.R. Publishing, 2005
- Ramanujan, A. K. The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan. Oxford University Press, 1999
- Richman, Paula. Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. University of California Press, 1991
See also
- Sugrīva — Sugrīva is the vānara king of Kiṣkindhā in the Rāmāyaṇa, driven out by his brother Vālī over a misunderstanding, restored by Rāma's arrow, and the ally whose army wins the war after he has nearly forgotten his promise.
- Hanumān — Hanumān is the vānara minister of Sugrīva in the Rāmāyaṇa who leaps the ocean to find Sītā in Laṅkā and burns the city, and who became in later devotion the model of service and one of the most widely worshipped deities in India.
- Aṅgada — Aṅgada is the son of Vālī and Tārā in the Rāmāyaṇa, made crown prince of Kiṣkindhā at his father's dying request, who led the southern search and went as Rāma's envoy to Rāvaṇa's court.
- Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa — The Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa is the fourth book of the Rāmāyaṇa, in which Rāma allies with the exiled monkey king Sugrīva, kills his brother Vālī from concealment, and the search parties are sent out to find Sītā.
- Yuddha Kāṇḍa — The Yuddha Kāṇḍa is the sixth and longest book of the Rāmāyaṇa, covering the bridging of the sea, the siege of Laṅkā, the deaths of Kumbhakarṇa, Indrajit and Rāvaṇa, Sītā's ordeal by fire and the return to Ayodhyā.
- Svayamprabhā — Svayamprabhā is the ascetic woman of the Rāmāyaṇa who guards an enchanted underground palace, feeds the starving search party trapped inside it, and carries them out by her own power.
- Nīla — Nīla is the commander-in-chief of the vānara army in the Rāmāyaṇa, a son of the fire god, who killed Rāvaṇa's marshal Prahasta with a boulder.
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.