बुद्ध्या हि अष्ट अंगया युक्तम् चतुर् बल समन्वितम् | चतुर् दश गुणम् मेने हनुमान् वालिनः सुतम् || Valmiki Ramayan 4.54.2

Hanuman considered Vali's son Angad possessed eight kinds of intelligence, four essential tactics and fourteen qualities (required of a king):

Let us understand the context behind these golden words. We left Angad, Vali’s son giving a motivation talk on three success factors in life to his team in the last episode. That came in 49th sarga of #KishkindaKand. We are now in 54th Sarga. In the five sargas after Angad’s motivation talk, his team searched for Sita with renewed Vigor (motivated by the team leader’s pep talk). They could find only a hidden cave but not Sita. Meanwhile, the timeline target given by Sugreeva expired,

Angad considered ‘fast unto death’ instead of returning empty handed and earning the wrath of Sugreeva. One of the vanara soldier, Tara (same name as that of Vali’s wife) suggested to the team to stay back in the hidden cave instead as he considered the place safe from the eyes of Sugreeva and Ram .

Hanuman did not like both the suggestions. He tried to convince Angad and the rest of the team of his views. He starts his convincing act with the above sloka. He praises Angad as having eight essential intelligence, four tactics and fourteen qualities essential for a king (to indicate how such an intelligent man take a stupid decision).

Hanuman essentially uses all the four influencing tactics attributed to Angad himself. We don’t know if Hanuman’s words are genuine or only a influencing tactic. He convinced Angad against his proposed ‘fast unto death’ using all the four tactics during the Sarga 54 in Kishkinda Kand.

What are these four tactics attributed to Angad and effectively used by Hanuman here. Not explained in so many words in Valmiki Ramayan but brought out very well during the discussion between Hanuman and Angad. They are Saama, Daana, Bheda and Danda in that order, order important in this list. Combination of these tactics can be used together to enhance the effectiveness,

#FourInfluencingStrategies

They are the strategies used for convincing groups with different interests and characteristics. Chanakya describes these strategies extensively in his #ChanakyaNiti. We deal with people of different personality, calibre in our daily life and same strategy will not be effective against all types of personalities and in all the situations. Ancient Indian wisdom devised four strategies to convince anyone to agree to our views and these strategies must be explored in that particular order. Kings used these tactics to influence their team, citizens and enemies. This is not just for leaders and influential people. All of us use these techniques in our daily lives. If we understand these well, we can use them more effectively and systematically.

#SaamaDaanaBhedaDanda

• Saama: technique of pacifying
• Daana: technique of giving compensation such as awards, gifts
• Bheda: technique of divide (and rule)
• Danda: fear of punishment

Saama – Placation – Communicate your intentions and asks clearly. The communication can be direct, indirect, formal, or informal as the situation demands.

If things don’t go as planned in the first try, you can retry and retry with a different approach. Persistence is the key to all successful negotiations

If saama does not give success, next available option is Daana.

Daana - Presentation : Money is not everything, but it can do miracles. This strategy is to buy over the acceptance of the other party by offering something in return for the acceptance. Various options here are giving awards, gifts, incentives, pay backs, etc,

Interestingly sometimes the mode of payment is non-monetary. Different people have different priorities, different expectations, and different demands. Analysis of the Situation is important to understand the need.

The primary objective is to identify and exploit the need or greed of the other party. Sometimes, you might even need to germinate the seed-of-greed in the person’s mind.

Bheda : As per Chanakya Niti, Bheda is exploiting the secrets or weaknesses of the targeted person, organization, etc. There exists a unique weakness in everyone and the neeti of bhed is all about exploiting that.

Danda refers to punishment and generally adopted as the last resort if the other three strategies do not yield desired result.

Niccolo Machiavelli said,

” It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

and long before him Tulsidas had said the same thing ” भय बिन होय न प्रीत.

When punishing, it shall be taken into consideration that:

• You don’t break any rules
• The punishment should be appropriate both in its nature and in quantity
• Should be implemented only when the other options have exhausted

More about Saama, Daana, Bheda, Danda in the next episode

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#PositiveNewsPage

Miracle Survival and Rescue at 19.700 ft

Two climbers who went missing for three tough days while making their way up an icy mountain at the Indian state of Uttarakhand have revealed that cuddling together to preserve their body heat was the key to saving them from their terrifying ordeal.

UK citizen Fay Manners, 37, and US climber Michelle Dvorak, 31, went missing since a Thursday when they got into difficulty in their trek up India's Chaukhamba mountain. Manners and Dvorak lost their bags with the climbing gears on their ascent following a rockfall, causing them to panic.

The pair sent a panicked message back to base camp to say they were in trouble having lost their climbing equipment, tent and food down a gorge. They have to go through the ordeal of staying in treacherous cold weather without a staying place and any food for 3 days. They survived confident of their rescue simply by their willpower.

Manners - an experienced climber, said: 'Only our body warmth saved us. Cuddling saved us.' While she and Dvorak were able to warm themselves up in the morning sun, they were freezing by the time night fell.

The cold, and the seemingly increasing possibility that they wouldn't get rescued, weighed heavily on them for days on end, but they were determined to be saved. At one point, they saw and heard a rescue helicopter fly over them, before being left disheartened by it leaving as the pilot could not notice them.

The rescue efforts began on Friday with two IAF helicopters searching for the stranded climbers. Climbing trained SDRF personnel joined the operation on Saturday which faced challenges due to fog and adverse weather. Finally, they were evacuated through search efforts by the Indian Air Force, the State Disaster Response Force and the State Disaster Management Authority on Sunday. Their location could finally be identified from their torch when all the lights in the base camp were switched off. Unbelievable rescue operation by the agencies deserves applause.

Incredibly, Manners hasn't ruled out attempting the Chaukhamba climb again - 'but not for a while yet'. Whatever be the challenges faced, resolve will not dimmish for determined.

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Conceived, compiled and posted as a weekly motivation newsletter #MondayMusings by Jaganathan T (www.authorjaganathan.com) every Monday so that the readers can start their work week in a positive note.

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