The Ramayana Read online

  One day he summoned his mentor at the court, Sage Vasishtha, and said to him, “I am in a sad plight. The solar dynasty is likely to end with me. I shall have no successor when I am no more. This thought torments me. Please tell me how can I remedy it.”

  At this Vasishtha recollected an incident that he had witnessed through his inner vision. At one time all the gods went in a body to appeal to the Supreme God Vishnu for his help. They explained, “The ten-headed Ravana and his brothers have acquired from us extraordinary powers through austerities and prayers, and now threaten to destroy our worlds and enslave us. They go along recklessly in their career of tyranny, suppressing all virtue and goodness wherever found. Shiva is unable to help; Brahma the Creator can do very little, since the powers that Ravana and his brothers are now misusing were originally conferred by these two gods, and cannot be withdrawn by them. You alone are the Protector and should save us.” Whereupon Vishnu promised, “Ravana can be destroyed only by a human being since he never asked for protection from a human being. I shall incarnate as Dasaratha’s son, and my conch and my wheel, which I hold in each hand for certain purposes, and my couch, namely Adisesha, the Serpent, on whose coils I rest, shall be born as my brothers, and all the gods here shall take birth in the world below in a monkey clan—since Ravana has been cursed in earlier times to expect his destruction only from a monkey.”

  Recollecting this episode, but without mentioning it, Vasishtha advised Dasaratha, “You must immediately arrange for the performance of a yagna. The only person who is competent to conduct such a sacrifice is Sage Rishya Sringa.”

  Dasaratha asked, “Where is he? How can I bring him here?”

  Vasishtha answered, “At the present time, Rishya Sringa is in our neighbouring country, Anga.”

  Dasaratha exclaimed, “Oh, how fortunate! I thought he was far off in his mountain fastness.”

  And then Vasishtha explained, “In order to end a prolonged drought, the King of Anga was advised to get Rishya Sringa to visit his country, since it always rained in his proximity; but they knew that on no account would he consent to leave his mountain retreat. While the King was considering how to solve the problem, a bevy of beauties offered their services and went forth in search of this young sage. They reached his hermitage, found him alone, and enticed him away to Anga. He had never seen any human being except his father, and could not make out what these creatures were, when the damsels from Anga surrounded him. But given time for instinct to work, he became curious and abandoned himself to their care. They represented themselves as ascetics, invited him to visit their hermitage, and carried him away.” (In Mysore State at Kigga, four thousand feet above sea level, a carving on a temple pillar shows the young recluse being carried off on a palanquin made of the intertwined arms of naked women.) “On his arrival at Anga, the rains came. The King was pleased, rewarded the ladies, and persuaded the young man to marry his daughter and settle down at his court.”

  Dasaratha journeyed to Anga and invited the sage to visit Ayodhya. A sacrifice was held under his guidance; it went on for one full year, at the end of which an immense supernatural being emerged from the sacrificial fire bearing in his arms a silver plate with a bolus of sacramental rice on it. He placed it beside King Dasaratha and vanished back into the fire.

  Rishya Sringa advised the King, “Take the rice and divide it among your wives and they will have children.” In proper time, Dasaratha’s wives, Kausalya and Kaikeyi, gave birth to Rama and Bharatha respectively, and Sumithra gave birth to Lakshmana and Sathrugna.

  Dasaratha’s life attained a fuller meaning, and he felt extremely happy as he watched his children grow. At each stage, he engaged tutors for their training and development. In course of time, every morning, the young men went to the groves on the outskirts and learned yoga and philosophy from the adepts residing there. Late in the evening, after the lessons, when the princes returned to the palace on foot, the citizens crowded the highway to have a glimpse of them. Rama always had a word for everyone in the crowd, inquiring, “How are you? Are your children happy? Do you want any help from me?” They always answered, “With you as our prince and your great father as our guardian, we lack nothing.”

  1

  RAMA’S INITIATION

  The new assembly hall, Dasaratha’s latest pride, was crowded all day with visiting dignitaries, royal emissaries, and citizens coming in with representations or appeals for justice. The King was always accessible, and fulfilled his duties as the ruler of Kosala without grudging the hours spent in public service.

  On a certain afternoon, messengers at the gate came running in to announce, “Sage Viswamithra.” When the message was relayed to the King, he got up and hurried forward to receive the visitor. Viswamithra, once a king, a conqueror, and a dreaded name until he renounced his kingly role and chose to become a sage (which he accomplished through severe austerities), combined in himself the sage’s eminence and the king’s authority and was quick tempered and positive. Dasaratha led him to a proper seat and said, “This is a day of glory for us; your gracious presence is most welcome. You must have come from afar. Would you first rest?”

  “No need,” the sage replied simply. He had complete mastery over his bodily needs through inner discipline and austerities, and was above the effects of heat, cold, hunger, fatigue, and even decrepitude. The King later asked politely, “Is there anything I can do?” Viswamithra looked steadily at the King and answered, “Yes. I am here to ask of you a favour. I wish to perform, before the next full moon, a yagna at Sidhasrama. Doubtless you know where it is?”

  “I have passed that sacred ground beyond the Ganges many times.”

  The sage interrupted. “But there are creatures hovering about waiting to disturb every holy undertaking there, who must be overcome in the same manner as one has to conquer the fivefold evils4 within before one can realize holiness. Those evil creatures are endowed with immeasurable powers of destruction. But it is our duty to pursue our aims undeterred. The yagna I propose to perform will strengthen the beneficial forces of this world, and please the gods above.”

  “It is my duty to protect your sublime effort. Tell me when, and I will be there.”

  The sage said, “No need to disturb your august self. Send your son Rama with me, and he will help me. He can.”

  “Rama!” cried the King, surprised, “When I am here to serve you.”

  Viswamithra’s temper was already stirring. “I know your greatness,” he said, cutting the King short. “But I want Rama to go with me. If you are not willing, you may say so.”

  The air became suddenly tense. The assembly, the ministers and officials, watched in solemn silence. The King looked miserable. “Rama is still a child, still learning the arts and practising the use of arms.” His sentences never seemed to conclude, but trailed away as he tried to explain. “He is a boy, a child, he is too young and tender to contend with demons.”

  “But I know Rama,” was all that Viswamithra said in reply.

  “I can send you an army, or myself lead an army to guard your performance. What can a stripling like Rama do against those terrible forces . . . ? I will help you just as I helped Indra once when he was harassed and deprived of his kingdom.”

  Viswamithra ignored his speech and rose to leave. “If you cannot send Rama, I need none else.” He started to move down the passage.

  The King was too stricken to move. When Viswamithra had gone half way, he realized that the visitor was leaving unceremoniously and was not even shown the courtesy of being escorted to the door. Vasishtha, the King’s priest and guide, whispered to Dasaratha, “Follow him and call him back,” and hurried forward even before the King could grasp what he was saying. He almost ran as Viswamithra had reached the end of the hall and, blocking his way, said, “The King is coming; please don’t go. He did not mean . . .”

  A wry smile played on Viswamithra’s face as he said without any trace of bitterness, “Why are you or anyone agitated? I came here for a purpose
; it has failed; no reason to prolong my stay.”

  “Oh, eminent one, you were yourself a king once.”

  “What has that to do with us now?” asked Viswamithra, rather irked, since he hated all reference to his secular past and wanted always to be known as a Brahma Rishi.

  Vasishtha answered mildly, “Only to remind you of an ordinary man’s feelings, especially a man like Dasaratha who had been childless and had to pray hard for an issue. . . .”

  “Well, it may be so, great one; I still say that I came on a mission and wish to leave, since it has failed.”

  “It has not failed,” said Vasishtha, and just then the King came up to join them in the passage; the assembly was on its feet.

  Dasaratha made a deep obeisance and said, “Come back to your seat, Your Holiness.”

  “For what purpose, Your Majesty?” Viswamithra asked.

  “Easier to talk seated . . .”

  “I don’t believe in any talk,” said Viswamithra; but Vasishtha pleaded with him until he returned to his seat.

  When they were all seated again, Vasishtha addressed the King: “There must be a divine purpose working through this seer, who may know but will not explain. It is a privilege that Rama’s help should be sought. Do not bar his way. Let him go with the sage.”

  “When, oh when?” the King asked anxiously.

  “Now,” said Viswamithra. The King looked woebegone and desperate, and the sage relented enough to utter a word of comfort. “You cannot count on the physical proximity of someone you love, all the time. A seed that sprouts at the foot of its parent tree remains stunted until it is transplanted. Rama will be in my care, and he will be quite well. But ultimately, he will leave me too. Every human being, when the time comes, has to depart and seek his fulfillment in his own way.”

  “Sidhasrama is far away . . . ?” began the King.

  “I’ll ease his path for him, no need for a chariot to take us there,” said Viswamithra reading his mind.

  “Rama has never been separated from his brother Lakshmana. May he also go with him?” pleaded the King, and he looked relieved when he heard Viswamithra say, “Yes, I will look after both, though their mission will be to look after me. Let them get ready to follow me; let them select their favourite weapons and prepare to leave.”

  Dasaratha, with the look of one delivering hostages into the hand of an enemy, turned to his minister and said, “Fetch my sons.”

  Following the footsteps of their master like his shadows, Rama and Lakshmana went past the limits of the city and reached the Sarayu River, which bounded the capital on the north. When night fell, they rested at a wooded grove and at dawn crossed the river. When the sun came over the mountain peak, they reached a pleasant grove over which hung, like a canopy, fragrant smoke from numerous sacrificial fires. Viswamithra explained to Rama, “This is where God Shiva meditated once upon a time and reduced to ashes the god of love when he attempted to spoil his meditation.5 From time immemorial saints praying to Shiva come here to perform their sacrifices, and the pall of smoke you notice is from their sacrificial fires.”

  A group of hermits emerged from their seclusion, received Viswamithra, and invited him and his two disciples to stay with them for the night. Viswamithra resumed his journey at dawn and reached a desert region at midday. The mere expression “desert” hardly conveys the absolute aridity of this land. Under a relentless sun, all vegetation had dried and turned to dust, stone and rock crumbled into powdery sand, which lay in vast dunes, stretching away to the horizon. Here every inch was scorched and dry and hot beyond imagination. The ground was cracked and split, exposing enormous fissures everywhere. The distinction between dawn, noon, and evening did not exist here, as the sun seemed to stay overhead and burn the earth without moving. Bleached bones lay where animals had perished, including those of monstrous serpents with jaws open in deadly thirst; into these enormous jaws had rushed (says the poet) elephants desperately seeking shade, all dead and fossilized, the serpent and the elephant alike. Heat haze rose and singed the very heavens. While traversing this ground, Viswamithra noticed the bewilderment and distress on the faces of the young men, and transmitted to them mentally two mantras (called “Bala” and “Adi-Bala”). When they meditated on and recited these incantations, the arid atmosphere was transformed for the rest of their passage and they felt as if they were wading through a cool stream with a southern summer breeze blowing in their faces. Rama, ever curious to know the country he was passing through, asked, “Why is this land so terrible? Why does it seem accursed?”

  “You will learn the answer if you listen to this story—of a woman fierce, ruthless, eating and digesting all living creatures, possessing the strength of a thousand mad elephants.”

  THATAKA’S STORY

  The woman I speak of was the daughter of Suketha, a yaksha, a demigod of great valour, might, and purity. She was beautiful and full of wild energy. When she grew up she was married to a chieftain named Sunda. Two sons were born to them—Mareecha and Subahu—who were endowed with enormous supernatural powers in addition to physical strength; and in their conceit and exuberance they laid waste their surroundings. Their father, delighted at their pranks and infected by their mood, joined in their activities. He pulled out ancient trees by their roots and flung them about, and he slaughtered all creatures that came his way. This depredation came to the notice of the great savant Agasthya (the diminutive saint who once, when certain demoniac beings hid themselves at the bottom of the sea and Indra appealed for his help to track them, had sipped off the waters of the ocean). Agasthya had his hermitage in this forest, and when he noticed the destruction around, he cursed the perpetrator of this deed and Sunda fell dead. When his wife learnt of his death, she and her sons stormed in, roaring revenge on the saint. He met their challenge by cursing them. “Since you are destroyers of life, may you become asuras and dwell in the nether worlds.” (Till now they had been demigods. Now they were degraded to demonhood.) The three at once underwent a transformation; their features and stature became forbidding, and their natures changed to match. The sons left to seek the company of superdemons. The mother was left alone and lives on here, breathing fire and wishing everything ill. Nothing flourishes here; only heat and sand remain. She is a scorcher. She carries a trident with spikes; a cobra entwined on her arm is her armlet. The name of this fearsome creature is Thataka. Just as the presence of a little loba (meanness) dries up and disfigures a whole human personality, so does the presence of this monster turn into desert a region which was once fertile. In her restlessness she constantly harasses the hermits at their prayers; she gobbles up anything that moves and sends it down her entrails.

  Touching the bow slung on his shoulder, Rama asked, “Where is she to be found?”

  Before Viswamithra could answer, she arrived, the ground rocking under her feet and a storm preceding her. She loomed over them with her eyes spitting fire, her fangs bared, her lips parted revealing a cavernous mouth; and her brows twitching in rage. She raised her trident and roared, “In this my kingdom, I have crushed out the minutest womb of life and you have been sent down so that I may not remain hungry.”

  Rama hesitated; for all her evil, she was still a woman. How could he kill her? Reading his thoughts, Viswamithra said, “You shall not consider her a woman at all. Such a monster must receive no consideration. Her strength, ruthlessness, appearance, rule her out of that category. Formerly God Vishnu himself killed Kyathi, the wife of Brigu, who harboured the asuras fleeing his wrath, when she refused to yield them. Mandorai, a woman bent upon destroying all the worlds, was vanquished by Indra and he earned the gratitude of humanity. These are but two instances. A woman of demoniac tendencies loses all consideration to be treated as a woman. This Thataka is more dreadful than Yama, the god of death, who takes a life only when the time is ripe. But this monster, at the very scent of a living creature, craves to kill and eat. Do not picture her as a woman at all. You must rid this world of her. It is your duty.”


  Rama said, “I will carry out your wish.”

  Thataka threw her three-pronged spear at Rama. As it came flaming, Rama strung his bow and sent an arrow which broke it into fragments. Next she raised a hail of stones under which to crush her adversaries. Rama sent up his arrows, which shielded them from the attack. Finally Rama’s arrow pierced her throat and ended her career; thereby also inaugurating Rama’s life’s mission of destroying evil and demonry in this world. The gods assembled in the sky and expressed their joy and relief and enjoined Viswamithra, “Oh, adept and master of weapons, impart without any reserve all your knowledge and powers to this lad. He is a saviour.” Viswamithra obeyed this injunction and taught Rama all the esoteric techniques in weaponry. Thereafter the presiding deities of various weapons, asthras, appeared before Rama submissively and declared, “Now we are yours; command us night or day.”

  When they reached a mist-covered wood on a mountain, Viswamithra told another story.

  MAHABALI’S STORY

  This is consecrated ground where Vishnu once sat in meditation. (Although Rama was Vishnu, his human incarnation made him unaware of his identity at the moment.) While Vishnu was thus engaged, Mahabali seized the earth and heaven and brought them under his subjection. He celebrated his victory by performing a great yagna, and used this occasion to invite and honour all learned men. All the gods who had suffered in their encounter with Mahabali arrived in a body at the spot where Vishnu was in meditation and begged him to help them regain their kingdoms. In response to their appeals, Vishnu took birth in a brahmin family as a person of tiny proportions; within this diminutive personality was packed a great deal of power and learning. Mahabali was quick to sense his greatness when this dwarfish man presented himself at the palace gate. Mahabali received the visitor warmly and respectfully.