by Vanamali
In him there is no subject-object relationship.
In him consciousness stands still like a mountain.” *1
Hari Aum Tat Sat
Janakivallabhaya Namaha!
CANTO II
The Avatara
Chandrakantananam bhojam
Chandrabimbopamananam
Mathamatangagamanam
Mathahamsavadhugathim.
(Rama) had the glory of the moon and (Sita) its beauty.
Rama had the gait of an elephant, and Sita of a swan.
Long, long ago in the beautiful land of Kosala on the banks of the river Sarayu was situated the magnificent town of Ayodhya, ruled by the wise and just king Dasaratha. He belonged to the Solar dynasty in the lineage of Ikshvaku, who was the son of Vaivaswatha Manu, the first of all created beings. Dasaratha had one sorrow, which was that he had no son to carry on his line. As he brooded over this, his guru, sage Vasishta, exhorted him to perform the ashvamedha yajna (horse sacrifice ritual) and the putrakameshti yajna for the sake of begetting a son. He told him to approach the famous sage Rishyasringa and request him to be the chief priest in conducting the yajnas.
It was at this time that the gods approached the Creator Brahma and begged him to intercede with Lord Vishnu on their behalf to kill the demon king, Ravana, who was harassing them sorely. Brahma conveyed the message to Lord Vishnu, who agreed to descend to the Earth taking on four forms, as the sons of Dasaratha. At that very moment, King Dasaratha had successfully completed his ashvamedha yajna and had commenced his putrakameshti yajna.
Rishyasringa had raised the ladle high and had just poured the ghee into the flaming fire, invoking the presence of Lord Narayana, protector of the world, when out of the sacrificial fire appeared a striking figure of a divine personage carrying a golden vessel containing an ambrosial confection of rice, milk, and honey. The celestial being handed the vessel to the king and told him to give it to his three queens. The king gave half of this nectarlike sweet to his eldest wife, Kausalya. He divided the remaining half into two portions and gave one portion to his second wife, Sumitra. The remaining quarter he split into two and gave one part to his third wife, Kaikeyi, and the remainder again to Sumitra. As soon as they ate the pudding, the queens became pregnant with the spirit of Lord Narayana. In the course of time they gave birth to four sons, each of whom manifested the power of the Lord in proportion to the amount their mothers had partaken of the divine confection. The first to be born was Kausalya’s son, Rama, who contained within him one half of the power of the Lord. He was born in the month of Chaitra—March/April—when the star Punarvasu was in ascendance, at a most auspicious time when five of the planets were in an exalted state. Next, Kaikeyi, the youngest queen, gave birth to Bharata, who possessed a quarter of the Lord’s powers; and finally the second wife, Sumitra, delivered twins who were called Lakshmana and Shatrugna. The king’s joy knew no bounds. In place of the one son he had wished for, he had been given four. Gifts were distributed in abundance to all. The city of Ayodhya went crazy with joy. Thus began a month-long rejoicing and festivities.
As the children grew up they were given all the training necessary for royal princes. Their guru was the great sage Vasishta. Even as a child Rama exhibited extraordinary powers of intellect and great nobility of character. Though the others were devoted to him, Sumitra’s son Lakshmana followed Rama like a shadow and could not bear to be parted from him even for a minute, whereas his twin, Shatrugna, stayed close to Bharata.
After their return from the hermitage of their preceptor, Rama was desirous of going on a pilgrimage round this holy land of Bharathavarsha. Dasaratha was pleased to grant his request and the four brothers went on a tour with their retinue. Following their return Rama’s father and brothers noticed a great change in him. He became very pensive, took no delight in the various sports and pastimes of his brothers, shunned all social contacts, and even refused to eat, unless coaxed by one of his mothers. He became pale and emaciated but politely evaded all the questions of his anxious father.
At this time it so happened that the sage Vishwamitra came to the court with a request. The king assured the sage that his wish would certainly be granted. Vishwamitra then asked Dasaratha to send his son Rama to kill the two demons, Maricha and Subahu, who were marauding his ashrama and preventing him from completing his sacrificial rites. The king was stunned to hear this request and feared for the safety of his son, who was barely sixteen years of age. He offered to send his entire army to help the sage or even to come himself but the sage refused all these offers because, he said, Rama alone had the power to kill the demons. At last, urged by his own guru Vasishta, Dasaratha reluctantly gave his consent and ordered an attendant to fetch Rama. The attendant returned and gave the news that ever since his return from the pilgrimage, the prince had been strangely lethargic. He seemed bereft of hope and desire and attached to nothing.
Hearing this Vishwamitra said, “His condition is not the result of delusion but is the result of wisdom and dispassion, leading to enlightenment. Let him be brought to the court.”
Rama came to the assembly hall and bowed to his father and the sages. His loving father asked him, “My dear child, why are you so sad and dejected when you have everything in life? Who has harmed you? What has happened to you?”
Rama replied, “During my recent pilgrimage through this holy land of ours, I saw many sights that I had never seen before. Agony and suffering did I see, and poverty, disease, and death. A new trend of thought has taken hold of me. What happiness can we have from this ever-changing world? All beings take birth only to die, and die only to be born again. I see no meaning in this transient phenomenon that has its roots in suffering and ignorance. Everything in the world depends on our mental attitude, but the mind itself seems unreal, even though we are bewitched by it. We are not bonded slaves, yet we have no freedom. Ignorant of the world, we have been wandering aimlessly in this forest of samsara for many lives. How can this suffering come to an end? My heart bleeds with sorrow when I think of these things, and I do not feel like eating or sleeping, much less engaging myself in vain pursuits, unless I have an answer to these questions.”
He went on in this strain for some time and the whole assembly was struck by the depth and perspicacity of the young boy’s reflections. At last he said, “I do not consider someone to be a hero who is able to battle against an army. I regard him a hero who is able to conquer his mind. By reflecting on the pitiable state of living beings who have fallen into this pit called samsara, I am filled with grief. My mind is confused. I have rejected everything but I am not yet established in wisdom. Hence I am partly caught and partly freed, like a tree that has been cut, but not severed from its roots. Pray tell me how I am to reach that supreme state of bliss?”
All the assembled sages and people were thrilled to hear Rama’s speech and settled themselves down to hear the reply of Vishwamitra and Vasishta.
Vishwamitra said, “O Rama, you are indeed foremost among the wise and there is nothing further that you need to know. However, your knowledge needs confirmation, and I earnestly request sage Vasishta to instruct you so that all of us who are assembled here may also be inspired. Vasishta is truly a liberated sage who is not swayed by sensual pleasures and who acts without motivation of fame or any other incentives.”
On hearing Vishwamitra’s request, the great Brahmarishi Vasishta proceeded to instruct Rama on atmic knowledge and brahmic bliss. This discourse came to be known as the “Yoga Vasishta.” Though many people had listened to this marvelous discourse, it was only Rama, of mighty intellect, who could grasp in its totality the essence of Vasishta’s teachings.
This was how Rama at the tender age of sixteen became a truly liberated being, steadfast in his quest of dharma, caring not for the pursuit of personal happiness but only for the pursuit of righteousness, for he realized that only in dharma could a person find eternal bliss.
At the end of this learned discourse, his father gave him permission t
o accompany Vishwamitra and accomplish whatever the sage had in mind. Lakshmana followed him. The king watched them go, with anxious eyes, but did not dare to say anything, for he did not want to incur Vishwamitra’s wrath.
When they reached the river bank, Vishwamitra gave them two mantras that would make them invincible and protect them from fatigue and hunger. Proceeding further they came to a forest in which many hermits lived in fear of the demoness Tataka. Vishwamitra told the princes about this demoness who, though born a woman, was endowed with the strength of a thousand elephants. She and her sons, Maricha and Subahu, roamed the forests and killed anyone who came there. They also molested the sages who lived in that forest and stopped them from performing their sacrificial rites. Every time the sages raised their ladles to pour the oblation of ghee into the fire, they would find that their fires had gone out due to the blood, bones, and fecal matter that had been thrown into it. Vishwamitra asked Rama to kill Tataka and thus save the forest dwellers.
Since Tataka was a woman, Rama was reluctant to kill her and decided to maim her so that she would no longer trouble the sages. Taking up his bow he twanged it loudly. This infuriated Tataka and she rushed toward the sound. Seeing the princes, she showered rocks and uprooted trees on them and kept appearing and disappearing in the sky in order to confuse them. Rama was sorely perplexed as to what he should do. Vishwamitra told him to kill her immediately before she could wreak further havoc. She deserved no sympathy, said Vishwamitra, and was far from being a weak woman. Thus commanded by Vishwamitra, Rama hesitated no more, for he realized that it was his duty to kill her since Vishwamitra had brought him there for that express purpose. As she rushed toward him with the intention of making an end of him and Lakshmana, Rama shot a deadly arrow at her so that she fell lifeless in her tracks. Thus he earned the gratitude of all the sages and other forest dwellers. It was a king’s dharma to protect his people, thus Rama was forced to kill Tataka even though she was a woman.
That night, the forest dwellers slept peacefully without fear of being molested by Tataka. In the morning Vishwamitra gave Rama many powerful missiles by which he could defeat all enemies, as well as knowledge of how to recall them. Then he took them to his own ashrama, where the hermits were delighted to see them. The next day Vishwamitra commenced his yaga, after having instructed the two princes to be strictly vigilant for the next six days to see that the sacrifice was not interrupted. Just as the yaga commenced there was a fearful clamor in the sky and the two demons—Maricha and Subahu—swooped down on the sacrificial altar, scattering blood, pus, and bones. Rama ran out and hurled a missile at Maricha that sent him hurtling eight hundred miles away to the ocean. Next he killed Subahu without difficulty and thus preserved the yaga as he had promised.
Next day the sages apprised him of the sacrifice of the bow, which was being held in the town of Mithila by the great sage King Janaka. All of them proceeded toward Mithila, and on the way, the sages regaled the boys with an account of Vishwamitra’s birth and history as well as the story of the Ganga. They also told them the story of the churning of the milky ocean by the gods and demons.
Along the way they came to a deserted hermitage that had belonged to the sage Gautama. His beautiful wife Ahalya had been cursed by him and had turned into a stone for having unwittingly betrayed him. As Rama entered the ashrama he placed his foot on the stone and Ahalya was immediately released from her curse and rose up in all her beauty. Gautama also returned and the reunited couple paid homage to Rama.
As the party entered the flower-bedecked town of Mithila, where the festival of the bow was being held, Vishwamitra told the story of how the bow had belonged to Lord Shiva and was so huge that none could lift it. However, at a very young age, when Janaka’s daughter, Sita, was playing with a ball, it had rolled beneath the bow. The king was astonished to find the child effortlessly lifting the bow to remove the ball. Then and there he decided that anyone who aspired for his daughter’s hand would have to lift the bow, bend it, and string it. Many princes came to try their luck and went away disappointed. Vishwamitra knew that Rama was the one to wed Sita, and that is why he took him to Mithila. As they entered the palace gates, Rama’s gaze was drawn to an open window in the palace through which he could see the head of a young girl. As if drawn by his look, she turned and looked straight into his eyes. So intense was her gaze that he felt a shock wave pass through him. His heart left him forever and flew into the beauteous eyes of the child. She was none but a child, but child though she was, she also knew that in him, she had found her life partner. The boys walked on and the girl kept hoping with all her might that he would be able to bend the bow and marry her, for she was none other than Sita, the adopted daughter of King Janaka.
Some years before, when the king had been plowing the ground for a yaga, he heard the gurgling chuckle of a baby. He stopped the plough just in time and found a beautiful baby girl in the furrow. He gathered her up tenderly and decided to adopt her, for she was charming. He called her Sita, which means “a furrow.” Now she had grown into a lovely young woman.
Vishwamitra and the princes were welcomed by King Janaka with great joy. He told them the story of the bow and of his daughter, Sita. Vishwamitra assured him that Rama, the son of Dasaratha, would easily bend the bow. Five thousand able-bodied men were needed to carry the chest containing the bow into the hall. The lid was opened and the bow was revealed to everyone. Urged by Vishwamitra Rama took up the gigantic bow as if it were a mere toy and bent it until it broke. There was a thunderous noise like the breaking apart of a mountain. The whole Earth shook and shuddered with the impact. All present fell to the ground except for the two princes, the sage, and the king. Everyone gazed at Rama in wonder. The king was delighted, for he had almost despaired of finding a husband for his daughter; all the mightiest kings of the land had tried their luck with the bow and failed. He immediately sent speedy messengers to Ayodhya to invite Dasaratha to his son’s wedding.
When the king arrived, accompanied by Bharata and Shatrugna and a vast retinue of followers carrying loads of gifts, he was met with all due honors by King Janaka. Janaka suggested that his younger daughter, Urmila, be given in marriage to Lakshmana; and his brother’s two daughters, Mandavi and Srutikirti, would make suitable brides for Bharata and Shatrugna. Dasaratha was delighted to accept such beautiful brides for his sons.
At the auspicious hour called vijaya, the nuptials took place. Vasishta prepared the altar in the center of the marriage pavilion and decorated it with sandal paste, golden platters, vases filled with flowers, incense burners, conchs, bowls filled with offerings, and golden vessels containing unpolished rice, roasted and smeared with turmeric powder. Scattering darbha grass on the altar, sage Vasishta began the ceremony with the recitation of the sacred marriage mantras given in the Rig Veda. King Janaka now led his beautiful daughter, bedecked with ornaments, into the marriage pavilion. He took her hand and placed it firmly in Rama’s. Sita looked up shyly at her husband, and as their eyes locked, both realized that they had already seen each other and chosen each other some days ago, when Rama had arrived in Mithila. They could not bear to tear their gaze away from each other and hardly noticed that the king was giving his daughter Urmila to Lakshmana, and his nieces, Mandavi and Srutakirti, to Bharata and Shatrugna.
Clasping the hand of his bride, Rama led her three times around the sacred fire and thus plighted his troth. His brothers followed suit. The combined wedding took place with great pomp and éclat.
The wedding party left the very next day for Ayodhya. On the way they were accosted by the invincible Parashurama, who, though born a Brahmin, was yet a Kshatriya in his valor and might. He had sworn to exterminate the entire race of Kshatriyas, since one of them had killed his father. Vasishta and the other sages tried to placate him but the irascible Parashurama, who was supposed to be another avatara of Lord Vishnu, ignored all of them and addressed himself to Rama alone: “I have heard of your great prowess in breaking the mighty bow of Lord Shiva.
I have with me the even mightier bow of Lord Vishnu. If you are indeed a true Kshatriya and a man of valor, take this bow and string it, and come for a duel.” Dasaratha was totally bereft when he heard this challenge and begged Parashurama to let the boy go, but the latter ignored him and challenged Rama again. Undaunted by the fierce appearance of the sage, Rama took up the bow and strung it with ease. Turning it toward Parashurama, he asked him in an authoritative voice, “O holy Brahmin! Tell me at whom I should discharge this arrow.”
Recognizing his master, the fierce Parashurama became meek as a fawn and said, “O Rama, I realize that you are none other than Lord Vishnu, for no one else can string this bow. I surrender all my powers to you and will now retire to Mount Mahendra for further austerities.”
After Parashurama left Rama handed the bow of Vishnu to Varuna, the lord of waters, and the wedding party proceeded without interruption to the city of Ayodhya, which had been richly festooned to welcome the princes and their brides.
For the next twelve years Rama and Sita delighted in each other’s company. Sita was as good as she was beautiful and Rama came to love her even more for her nobility of character as for her charm and beauty. As for Sita she was enchanted with her handsome and noble husband and thanked the gods who had given her such a boon. Their love for each other grew with every passing day, and they could not bear to be parted even for a moment. Thus the days and months passed like minutes for the radiant couple and time ceased to exist, while they gazed into each other’s lotus-petal eyes.
Vasishta says:
“As waves are seen in the tangible ocean, so in the formless Brahman
the world exists without form.
From the Infinite the Infinite emerges, and exists in it as the Infinite.
Hence the world has never really been created.
It is the same as that from which it has emerged.”