RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  Sita was silent a long moment. Everyone gathered around waited as well. Luv and Kush looked up at her face, holding her hands tightly.

  “I will,” she said at last.

  A great cheering rose from the ranks of the Ayodhyan army. Word had spread through the army of all that had transpired that day and everyone knew that Rama had found his long-exiled wife and sons. To the masses, it meant that Ayodhya had found her queen. After the threat of war hanging over their heads and the likelihood of war against their neighboring kingdom of Videha no less, it was a treat to see their liege’s martial obsession diverted into a more gentle preoccupation. Kings who loved were easier to love than kings who warred.

  The expression on Rama’s face as well as Sita’s showed nothing but love.

  A white-cloaked figure strode forward with a stern face. Pradhan Mantri Jabali gestured at his king. “Samrat Rama Chandra, you cannot simply take her back.”

  Rama shot Jabali a cursory glance. “I can do as I please. She is still my wife.”

  “She is an exile. And she was exiled for good reason. Her secret kinship to Ravana, lord of Lanka, and the fact that it was kept hidden from us for so long, endangering not just our kingdom but all mortalkind, is partly the reason. But there is also the matter of her purity.”

  “Purity?” spat Nakhudi, stepping forward angrily. “You speak of purity? How pure are you? How pure is any man? Why do men only speak of purity when it comes to their women!”

  Jabali gestured dismissively at Nakhudi, ignoring her outburst. “As a husband, you may do as you please. But as king of Ayodhya, you must also uphold dharma. And dharma demands that any woman you choose to instate as Queen of Kosala should prove herself worthy of that position and respect. You cannot expect your people to respect you if they do not respect your wife.”

  “Why should they not respect her?” Rama asked, forehead creased but his tone not angry, not yet.

  “For the same reason that any husband hesitates to respect his wife if she stays for even one night under another man’s roof.” Jabali pointed accusingly at Sita. Luv and Kush glared angrily back at him. “Your wife was abducted by Ravana and stayed for months under his control.”

  “Yes,” Rama admitted, “but we learned later that he was her father by birth.”

  “That is irrelevant to the question of purity. Who knew what transpired with her during the time she was incarcerated in Lanka? A den of demons, lair of rakshasas and all manner of vile asuras.”

  Rama’s face hardened. “She underwent the agni-pariksha as was required by our customs. She passed the test of fire successfully.”

  Jabali shook his head. “The error you made, if I may call it that, was in holding the agni-parikhsha without any witnesses present.”

  “There were witnesses by the millions,” Lakshman countered, stepping forward. He gestured at Hanuman, standing to one side quietly, watching the debate with his arms folded over his greying chest. “Our friend Hanuman was there. As were the entire vanar nations and rksaa nations.”

  Jabali’s face twitched in a half-smile. “I meant civilized witnesses. Aryas. The noble folk. Not monkeys and bears!”

  Hanuman bristled at the tone of derision but made no comment or move. After a decade spent with mortals he had probably become inured to their racist epithets although it was evident that he did not appreciate them.

  “Then take my word for it,” Rama said. “And my brother’s. We were there. We witnessed her succeed in the agni-pariksha.”

  “And what of the past ten years?” Jabali asked slyly. “Once again she has been away from your house, who knows where or with whom?”

  Rama had no answer to that. Even Lakshman was silent. Bharat and Shatrugan looked on angrily but said nothing because they could not offer anything worthwhile in such a matter. It was Maharishi Valmiki who spoke up then.

  “I will vouch personally for the reputation of Lady Vedavati whom you know as Queen Sita,” Valmiki said. “Her honor is spotless.”

  Jabali laughed harshly. “We cannot take your word for it, Maharishi. The people must be appeased. And the people are not easily appeased. They have been betrayed too often. The conniving late Queen Kaikeyi, the scheming asura-worshipping Daiimaa Manthara, the intrusions into Ayodhya, the near-invasion by Ravana’s son Atikiya. Jabali spread his arms, affecting a guileless expression. “It is not I who questions the authenticity, Samrat Rama. It is the people. They would need to see it with their own eyes in order to be certain.”

  “See it?” Lakshman asked angrily. “Do you mean we should hold another agni-parikhsa just to appease the people’s doubts?”

  Jabali shrugged. “If she is truly innocent of wrongdoing and pure as you claim, there is nothing to fear. Besides, it is not I who demands this test, it is dharma.”

  “Dharma!” shouted Nakhudi scornfully. “You change your interpretation of dharma to suit your own interests!”

  Jabali wagged a finger of warning at the oversized woman warrior. “Mind your tongue, woman. Otherwise you may well be compelled to undergo an agni-pariksha as well.”

  “Enough!” Rama said angrily. “If this is the only way, then it must be done.”

  He looked at Sita. “I know you are spotless and beyond reproach but what Pradhan Mantri Jabali says is true, a king serves his people and the people will talk. We set very high standards of morality in Ayodhya and in order to enforce those standards I must prove that my family and I abide by them as well. Nobody must have the right to raise a finger and say a single word about you or anyone else in our house once you return home. Therefore I ask you to do this, not for my sake or even for your own sake, but for the sake of the people we serve. For the sake of dharma. Do this one last thing and we shall be together again, forever.”

  Sita looked at him sadly. “I thought you might have changed after all. I thought you genuinely meant it when you begged my forgiveness, that you sincerely wished to undo your mistakes and do the right thing at last. I kept my love preserved like an acorn in a bushel for ten long years, in the hope that someday perhaps we might be reunited, that someday you would see the light of reason. But today I realize that it is not possible. You never truly desired forgiveness. You were never sincere in your proffer. You did not ask with genuine intention. All you desired was a queen, not a wife. A figurehead to place on the throne beside you, like the stone statue of me your army carries before it. A pure, perfect idol of a woman. Not a woman herself.”

  “Sitey,” Rama said, “you misunderstand me entirely. I came here to ask you to come back. But I live in the service of my station. A king serves the people. Yatha raja tatha praja.”

  “‘As does the king, so do the people,’” Sita translated. “So do it. Show the people that you believe in my fealty. That you do not need a fire sacrifice to prove my…purity! Do this and prove to them that to doubt an honest woman is itself a stain on her reputation. To point a finger is itself a sullying of honor. To gossip and speak about someone without their being found guilty of any wrongdoing is itself a crime. Deny this unfair demand and prove to your people that dharma comes from conviction not compromise. Dharma breaks but does not bend. Dharma is the same for men as well as women. Do this and show the praja that you are truly a raja of dharma. Not merely a servant but a king of dharma. Do this, Rama. Do this for the sake of all mortalkind for you are as close to a god as it is possible for a man to be. Do this one thing and you shall be pure yourself, unsullied, and undoubted by history for all time to come. The eyes of countless generations watch you now. You are the one being judged, not I. Do this and prove to all humanity forever that Rama, King of Dharma, can pass this final agni-pariksha. The test of trust. Prove that you believe without question in my so-called purity and need no superstitious ritual to confirm it for the naysayers and doubters of the world.”

  Rama was silent a long moment. Even the birds in the forest seemed to have fallen silent as if listening and waiting now for Rama’s response. The entire army, arrayed out for yojanas
behind Rama’s royal chariot, waited silently as well, word of mouth having passed on the urgency and import of what was being discussed here. The world itself waited.

  Finally, with head bowed, Rama sobbed a single sob and said two simple words, “I cannot.”

  Sita was silent for a long moment, even longer than the time Rama had taken to respond. Finally, she raised her head, lifting her hands from the shoulders of her two sons who looked anxiously up at her. And she said in a voice that cracked like thunder: “Then be a broken god forever!”

  ELEVEN

  The earth heaved and cracked beneath Sita’s feet. Luv and Kush cried out and stumbled, reaching out for their mother, not asking for her help but in order to help her. To their surprise, Maatr pushed them away with a firm but not unkind gesture. They staggered back even as the entire section of ground on which Sita stood broke free of the surrounding earth and rose up high into the earth, as if shoved by an invisible fist from below. Everybody around her fell back, staggering and stumbling away from the rising fist of ground. Debris and stones fell, and packed dirt crumbled and spilled over as the ground split. Everybody moved back, away from the heaving earth. A great gaping hole opened in the ground, cracking in a rough circle over three yards wide that forced everybody to move back. Then the cremation pyres heaved and lurched, and fell into the gaping hole! At once, fire leaped up, huge gouts of flame blazing up, as if the smoldering pyres had ignited some underground fuel. The fire roared over a dozen yards high, rising steadily.

  Luv and Kush went berserk with panic. “Maatr!” they cried out together, scrambling to their feet. They ran forward, halting at the crumbling edge of the rough circle that had appeared and which separated them from the fist of risen earth upon which Sita still stood. Flames roared upward from the circular gash in the earth and dirt and pebbles crumbled and fell away from beneath their scrambling feet. Nakhudi saw the danger and leaped forward, grasping hold of one of them with each meaty arm. She held them tight, pulling them back. Great archers they were and gifted with the power of brahman, but when it came to simple muscular strength, they were no match for Nakhudi’s wrestler bulk.

  Still, they struggled mightily. “MAATR!” they cried, young boyish voices almost girlish in their panic.

  Sita turned and raised a hand, palm outwards, to comfort them. “Do not fear for me, my sons,” she said affectionately, “I am safe in my mother’s arms.”

  As the other ashramites moved back out of the way, guided by Dumma and the other rishis, Rama and his brothers came forward to try to help. Bejoo and Somasra came forward as well. But the distance was too far to leap, the flames too ferocious and each time anyone came close to the edge, the flames seemed to leap higher, almost as if forbidding anyone from trying to save Sita.

  “Stay back, my friends,” she said, her voice clearly audible to all in the ashram clearing. Word of what was transpiring was constantly being passed on from soldier to soldier through the long lines of Ayodhya’s army. Those who were within viewing were gawking with amazement, unable to comprehend what was happening. “Prithvi-maa, the earth herself is my birth mother. It was she who was seeded by Ravana resulting in my birth. That is why Maharaja Janak of Mithila found me while ploughing his field. I was literally born of the earth in a furrow. And now, to that same earth I shall return.”

  “MAATR!” cried her sons. Nakhudi’s powerful arms strained to hold them back as they fought and kicked and struggled to break free. Had she let go, there was no doubt they would have tried to leap across the cleft to rescue their Maatr—and would surely have died trying.

  “Sitey,” said Rama from beside them. “Sitey, forgive me! I know I have transgressed against you. I came here today to try to make amends.”

  “And you failed, Rama,” she said sorrowfully. “You failed utterly. That is why you will always be a broken god. Revered and worshipped, honored and admired, but also doubted and despised. Each time someone speaks of your great works and exploits, another will remind them of your banishment of your wife and ask what god would do such a thing and question your divinity? Today you had a chance to answer them once and for all, to silence those doubters, and you failed yet again. Now, for as long as your memory shall live, you shall be adored as a deva yet doubted as a man.”

  “I am a man,” he said, dropping to his knees before the fiery pit. “Just a man. Know me as a man. Understand me as a man. Not as a god.”

  She shook her head sadly. “That is the eternal dilemma of heroes and those who worship them. How can greatness have flaws? How can perfection contain a blemish? How can a deva do wrong? And eternally, in answer to those questions, people shall answer a single name: Rama. They shall offer you prayers, yes. But they shall do so knowing that they are prayers offered to a broken god.”

  “Come to me, Janaki,” he said, tears rolling from his eyes. “Join with me again. Make me whole.”

  “Don’t you want your agni-pariksha?” she asked bitterly. And the flames roared up, engulfing her.

  “Maatr,” her sons cried.

  “Cry not for me, my sons,” her voice said from within the flames. “These fires shall not burn me, nor the earth suffocate. The heat of the sun will not blacken my skin, nor the cold of winter freeze my blood. My bones will not turn to dust with the passing of time nor will my hair shrivel and come undone. I shall return to the earth and shall be eternally present in her every aspect. Think of me every time you see a flower bloom, a tree offer you shade, or the ground provide you with sustenance. I go home to my mother’s bosom. For that is our sanskriti. When a woman is not accepted at her husband’s home, she must go back to her mother’s house. And this is home to me. From whence I came, thither I return. Before I go, witness my agni-pariksha, tell all in Ayodhya of me, for even in parting, I remain Rama’s wife, and lest a single finger be raised in accusation or a single gossiping tongue speak with doubt, let all see and bear testimony that the sacred agni did not singe a hair on my head or harm me. Pure, did you say, Pradhan Mantri Jabali? Is this pure enough for you? Or do you need to ladle ghee upon my body to satisfy yourself further? Perhaps what men like you truly desire is to cremate women alive rather than accept that they are flesh and blood and human as you are. If Rama is a broken god it is because of this one flaw: he could not accept his own wife without questioning her purity!”

  And the flames shot up impossibly high, reaching for the sky, until the pillar of flame was visible all across the land, across the length and breadth of the kingdom, and every man, woman and children paused and stared skywards, and saw upon the top of the pillar of flame, the figure of their long banished but beloved queen Sita Janaki of Mithila, standing on that searing flame, yet untouched and unharmed. And every heart went out to her and every voice spoke in veneration. “Devi-Maa,” they said, the highest exaltation possible. Mother Goddess. And if she had not been until then, she became in that moment, Mother Goddess Sita. Then and now and forever.

  The pillar fell. It descended as suddenly as it had risen, and plunged deep into the earth. As Sita returned to ground level, the pillar paused, as if her mother Earth permitted her daughter one final goodbye. And she reached out to her weeping sons and blessed them. “Ayushmaanbhavya, sons, rule as one, live as one, and follow this one law at all times: One dharma for all.”

  And then she descended into the earth and was swallowed whole. The flames were sucked in and vanished. The cracked earth heaved again and moved together, with a grinding sound that resembled a great stone sil-butta being churned. The broken pieces fit together as perfectly as a china pot fitted back together. And a moment later, the ground was as it had been before, without a single crack or wisp of flame or trace of anything that had happened.

  Only the absence of the cremation pyres served as reminder that indeed, Sita had been here only moments earlier. And was gone now.

  SAMAPTAM

  The doe leaped out of Rama’s arms. He had enfolded her in a gentle embrace, careful not to grip her too hard, and when he sensed
her muscles tensing for the leap, he made no attempt to stop her. She jumped upwards and away, bounding across the grassy knoll in the direction of the river. Reaching the rim of the knoll, she paused and turned her head. Her ears flicked as she looked back with wide alarmed eyes. He smiled and rose to his feet, speaking softly, his voice barely audible below the sound of the river.

  ‘Did I scare you? That was not my intention, little beauty. I was only eager to be your friend. Will you not come back and speak to me again?’

  The doe watched him from the edge of the precipice, her body still turned towards the path that led down to the river, only her head twisted back towards him. She made no move to return, yet she did not flee immediately.

  Rama took a step towards her, then another. She did not run. He took several steps more, but when he was within twenty paces or so, her flank rippled and her ears flickered at a faster rate.

  So he stopped again. He called to her. She stayed where she was, watching him. For a long moment, they stayed that way, the man and the doe, watching each other, the river rushing along, the sun breasting the top of the northern hills to shine down in its full glory. In the distance, the city caught the light of the new day and sent back a thousand glittering reflections. Towers and spires, windows and arches, domes and columns, glass and brass, silver and gold, copper and bronze, crystal and shell, bead and stone, all were illuminated at once, and Ayodhya blazed like a beacon of gold fire, filling the valley with a luminous glow. In the light of this glorious new day, it was easy to dismiss the nightmare as just that, a bad dream. And yet … he could still hear the sound of Sita’s voice, hear her last words, see her engulfed by the pillar of fire as it descended into the embrace of the earth—

  He stopped and sighed.

  He straightened and stared at the city. His beloved Ayodhya resplendent in the sunlight of a new day, a new season, a new harvest year. He walked forward, eyes fixed on the blazing city. Before they had grown old enough to be sent to gurukul, he and his brothers had spent any number of days here in the shade of this mango grove. Playing, fighting, racing, all the things that young boys and young princes alike were wont to do. He had come here today hoping these nostalgically familiar environs would cleanse his mind of the nightmare that life itself seemed to have become. So far he hadn’t been entirely successful. He hadn’t expected to be.