The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  At that moment, Lakshmana’s rekha was broken and the forest heaved a sigh. Now fate would take its course. Ravana stepped, smiling, across the threshold. Sita had no eyes for her visitor. Time and again, her anxious gaze scanned the trees through her door to see if Rama and Lakshmana returned. Then, in her feverish state, she thought she must answer the parivrajaka’s questions. She must please him, or suppose he cursed her?

  Sita said, “I am Janaka’s daughter Sita. I am Rama of Ayodhya’s wife. Twelve years ago, Dasaratha was about to crown my husband yuvaraja. But his queen Kaikeyi held him to his word, given a long time ago for saving his life, that he would grant her two boons, whatever she wanted. She asked that Rama be banished to the Dandaka vana for fourteen years, and her own son Bharata be crowned yuvaraja.

  “Have you heard of my husband Rama, my lord? He is famed for his dharma and his valor. Do be comfortable in our home. Rama and Lakshmana will return shortly and they will be happy to see you.”

  He saw her eyes darted repeatedly to the open door.

  Now being so close to her, hearing her husky voice, Ravana said, “Sita, have you heard of a great Rakshasa called Ravana? All the beings of the three worlds live in terror of him; his very name strikes fear in their hearts.”

  He gazed at her with ineffable longing. He was wise enough to know he was a lost man. He put restraint behind him and said, “I, Sita, am Ravana of Lanka.”

  And when his eyes blazed darkness, she knew he spoke the truth. Abandoning pretense, desire naked in his voice, he cried, “Since the moment I saw you, my heart has burned with a love it has never known before. Come to Lanka with me; it is a jewel in the ocean. My city is built on a mountain, and if you look out of any window, you can see azure water stretching away to the horizon. Day and night you hear the wash of the waves, like ancient song. There are gardens in my palace such as you may dream of; they are lovelier than Indra’s Nandana.

  “This forest life is not for you. Come with me; become my queen. From now on, my heart is yours to command.”

  He spoke simply, without artifice, and Sita was angry when she saw he was completely serious. She said, “Listen to me, O king. Rama is everything to me: my life, my world, my sun, my stars. You know nothing about him; he is the greatest man alive. Your asking me to go with you is like the jackal importuning the lion’s mate.

  “You don’t understand how dangerous your desire is. Rakshasa, go away from here. Save your life while you can, before my husband comes back and kills you.”

  Now the Demon’s presence unnerved her. She sensed the enormous evil of him, and sensed his desire reaching for her across the room like a beast of prey. She saw how his eyes burned. Speech ebbed from her in fright, and her limbs shook as if she was in death’s presence.

  Ravana saw she finally realized who he was. With a smile on his assumed features, he said slowly, “You know nothing about me, Sita; let me tell you a little. I am Visravas’s son. Kubera is my brother and I vanquished him in battle. Because of me, he abandoned his city and went to live on Kailasa. I keep his pushpaka vimana in my palace.

  “I am Ravana, at whose name Indra trembles and sends me tribute. Vayu blows softly on Lanka for fear of me, and Surya shines gently on my island. Is that not enough for you, my perfect Sita? Forget Rama; he is just a man.” Ravana laughed. “Just a boy, who hasn’t the courage to defy his old father. What can he give a fascinating woman like you? You need a king to love you. You are born for greatness, Sita: to be my queen. Don’t waste yourself; come away with me.”

  Sita shivered. But hearing abjectness also in his voice, she took courage, and cried, “You say Kubera is your brother. You say the great Visravas is your father. How can you, of all people, speak like this to another man’s wife? Ravana, if he sees you here, Rama’s arrows will cleave your heart. Begone, Rakshasa, fly!”

  How she rued everything she had said to poor Lakshmana. But it was too late for remorse. Ravana rose in anger. He clapped his hands twice and stood before her as he was in nature: a Demon, his skin shiny and his fangs bared in a smile. Ten heads, all of them terrible, stared at her. Some licked their lips, some grinned, and all the eyes on ten heads shone with lust.

  In his voice deep as the sea, harsh as the wind in a desert, and grave as death, the Rakshasa said to Sita, “Once again, I beg you, accept my love willingly. Now you see who I am. I swear to you, upon my honor which moved Mahadeva himself, that never once, tender one, will I displease you in the smallest thing. I will be your slave; I will love you forever. Rama has nothing to offer you. Turn away from him, Sita: be mine from today.”

  Sita darted for the door. With a growl, he caught her. Easily as if she were a child, he draped her across his shoulder and strode out to where his chariot waited.

  Sita screamed, “Rama, save me!”

  Ravana climbed into his chariot with her flailing in his arms.

  “Lakshmana!” screamed Sita, but she had sent him from her.

  Without a whisper, the mule chariot rose from the ground and Sita saw the earth fall steeply away. Panting like an animal caught in a hunter’s snare, she cried to her karnikara trees, “O my friends, tell Rama that Ravana took me. Ravana of Lanka.”

  Then the chariot was high enough, and it flashed south through the sky toward distant, exotic Lanka.

  15. The valor of Jatayu

  Jatayu sat sleepy on the highest branch of a friendly tree, when he saw the chariot drawn by glowing mules fly above him, with a woman in it screaming for help. Languidly, the lord of birds flapped into the air and flew alongside the wizardly ratha.

  Sita saw him and cried, “Jatayu, save me! Tell Rama that Ravana carried me away.”

  Wings tucked into the wind, gliding along easily beside the chariot, Jatayu warned the Evil One, “Rama is the Lord of the earth. You fly the way of death, Rakshasa.”

  But Ravana loosed an arrow at the great bird and singed his wing. With the ululating cry of a fighting eagle, Jatayu attacked the Demon. The bizarre mules brayed in terror and tossed the chariot about like a feather in a storm. Jatayu was old and nearly blind, but he was from an ancient and noble line. He was also willing to die to stop the Rakshasa from carrying Sita away.

  Like light, the eagle raked the Rakshasa’s hide with his talons. Ravana howled and his dark blood fell down to the earth below. Ravana shot ten searing arrows at Jatayu, who dodged them and rose high above the chariot. He swooped down like a fishing eagle for its silver prey beneath the waves. He snatched Ravana’s jeweled bow out of his hands with his beak and snapped it.

  Jatayu flew at the green mules. He fell on them with wings like swords. He raked their eyes with his talons, blinding them. He killed them in the air and the chariot hurtled down to the earth. Just before it shattered on the ground, Ravana snatched Sita up in his arms and leaped out.

  He set her down. Baleful eyes on fire, roaring dreadfully, the Demon drew his great curved sword. Jatayu swooped on him again; but tiredly now, he was too old for this. With two strokes of his weapon Ravana hewed off Jatayu’s wings. The eagle fell, blood spouting from his wounds, his life leaking out.

  With a scream, Sita ran to the fallen Jatayu. She embraced him and his blood drenched her clothes. She kissed him again and again, crying, “Oh Jatayu, you have died for me.”

  Growling like a tiger, Ravana seized her again. Now with just his own power, he flew up into the air and home toward Lanka.

  Holding her in his arms, he flashed through the cobalt sky. They say the sun lost his brilliance when he saw that crime, and the wind stood still. The Rakshasa carried Sita, wearing xanthic silk, as a thundercloud might the golden moon. The Devas wept at the sight; the rishis of Devaloka were terrified. Only Brahma was unperturbed. He sighed and said, “Fate takes her course now.”

  Sita was like a streak of lightning against the Rakshasa’s dark chest. The lotuses she had worn in her hair fell away to the sad earth. She drooped like a plant pulled out from its soil. She still struggled, but barely now, against his mighty
clasp. As she kicked her legs weakly, her anklet broke around her foot and fell shimmering like stardust.

  “Rama!” cried Sita. “Lakshmana! Look what is happening to me.”

  She sobbed in Ravana’s arms. She cajoled him; she threatened him. But he was just glad to hold her against him as they flitted across the sky. He was pleased his plan had worked so flawlessly. He did not consider Maricha’s death a flaw, but a life well given in a good cause. Ravana shut his eyes in pleasure; he had what he wanted. Slowly, he would seduce her in Lanka, and she would see that he was right: that her destiny lay with him.

  Sita begged him; she beat her fists against his chest. Then she fell silent and struggled no more, but watched the ground below her for some hope, any. When they flew over a mountain, she saw five monkeys on its summit. Quickly she undid her necklace and her earrings. Ripping some cloth from her sari, she tied the ornaments in the square of glowing silk and threw it down to the monkeys.

  Ravana laughed. “In good time you will learn to forget about your Rama. Yes, you will learn.”

  Sita cried again, “Rama! Lakshmana!”

  The monkeys heard her. Looking up, they saw a woman borne away by the Rakshasa; they saw the bright bundle she let fall from above. Ravana flew on. Across the sea he flew, holding her with just one arm now, and never suspecting it was his death he clasped to him. He held her firmly, though, knowing she might well kill herself by leaping out of his grasp.

  16. Sita in Lanka

  Over the darkening southern strait, Ravana came to Lanka with Sita in his arms. He alighted in his palace, big as a city itself, on the pinnacle of the hill upon which his capital was built. At once his guards surrounded him.

  He called for the rakshasis of his harem. The Demon gave Sita into their care. “Look after her as if she is my life. Let no one approach her or speak to her without my consent. I will call for her shortly; take her away until then.”

  He clapped his hands and summoned eight trusted warriors. He commanded them, “Fly to Janasthana. Go armed to your teeth, for our enemy is deadly. Spy on Rama in the jungle and inform me of his every movement. Stalk him, and kill him if you can.”

  Ravana allowed himself a moment to gloat: he had some revenge now for the death of Khara and the others. Rama must already be heartbroken. Better still, the Master of evil had just abducted the most beautiful woman in the world. It was true she resisted him; but how long would her stubbornness last? In his considerable experience with women, the best of them, the most worthwhile of them, always resisted him at first. Perhaps they were afraid, or they did not wish to seem wanton. But not one had held out for long. Finally they all succumbed and were glad of it, once he took them to his bed.

  The Rakshasa believed there was no exception to the rule, not even Sita, the most beautiful woman of them all. He would be gentle at first; that would win her over. But then, the Rakshasa was hardly himself today: there was already an important difference between Sita and all the others. The rest had been conquests, prey for the Beast. Today, he was the conquered one. The moment he laid eyes on her, Ravana had fallen hopelessly in love. He no longer knew what he did; only that his every moment was full of her: her eyes, her hands, her skin, her voice.

  Like a skiff on a stormy sea was Sita surrounded by Ravana’s rakshasis. Her face was streaked with tears and she still sobbed, her eyes cast down, long lashes covering them.

  In a while, Ravana came haughtily to her and waved away the rakshasis. But Sita did not raise her face to him. He seized her arm and pulled her roughly through his palace. He dragged her up flights of silver stairs and stood her at gold-framed windows that gazed out at spectacular views of the ocean. He hauled her onto a lofty terrace, with carved pillars of solid gold, and flung out his arms to show how vast and how splendid were his island and his city. But she did not see the lakes or the sprawling gardens with their deer and peacock, exotic trees, and banks of rare flowers brought here from the world over. Her heart was frozen with fear.

  Impatiently Ravana said, “I am the Emperor of ten million rakshasas across the earth. All of them shall be your subjects. You will have glory and power beyond your dreams: the thousand princesses in my harem shall be your handmaidens. Forget your Rama. He is too feeble for a woman of your beauty: a tapasvin at the whim of his father’s queen! Compare us, and you will know the difference between a weakling boy and a great king.

  “Forget him, Sita; you will never see him again. Accept that destiny contrived to place you in my hands: because you belong with me. Come, let me show you the pushpaka vimana; we will roam the sky in it. Accept my love, princess; no one has been offered it before. Let your eyes look at me and your heart be glad, knowing how much I love you.”

  The declaration of love came so naturally from the monster. Such tenderness was in his voice that he might have been amazed to hear himself. But Sita only sobbed more bitterly to listen to him; her hope grew dimmer with every word she heard. They went down the silver stairway again, and out into a walled pleasure garden.

  He said softly, “You don’t realize what it is I lay at your feet. But you will soon, when you see it is the earth I offer you. Look, I kneel before you, my precious one.”

  He did so, impulsively, and laid his head at her feet! But she leaped back from him, and set a long blade of grass she drew out of the ground like a green sword between them. Sita said coldly, “You know nothing of my Rama, that you compare yourself to him. He will come to Lanka and kill you as he did Khara. You have desecrated the sanctity of my body by touching me with your hands, Rakshasa. Rama’s arrows will color the earth with your blood.

  “You boast that you are more powerful than the Devas and the Danavas. But my prince will raze your city and feed you to the God of death. You say you are a great warrior; yet you have the character of a thief in the night, coward that you are who can kidnap a defenseless woman. Ravana, I have come to Lanka to become your death.”

  His face turned red at her taunts. He bared his fangs and snarled at her like an animal. Then, controlling himself, he said quietly, “I am not moved by the greatness of your little kshatriya. I have drunk the blood of a thousand princes like him. As for you, you have exactly one year to consider my love. Yes, I love you, or you would already be dead for what you have said to me. If you accept this love that consumes me, you shall be queen of the world at my side.”

  Now all ten of his heads appeared, and Sita gasped to see them again. The central one was silent, thoughtful. But the one right on top, the smallest, evilest one, sneered, “If you don’t come to me in a year, you will be cut in small pieces and be my morning meal instead.”

  Nine heads laughed madly and fell to whispered discussion among themselves about which choice she would make. His main face dark, his lips still throbbing at what she had dared say to him, Ravana turned and stalked out of the asokavana where he had brought her again.

  17. Rama’s despair

  As he ran back toward the asrama at Panchavati, Rama knew evil was about. Maricha must have known he would be killed; yet he had been willing to die. Either that or he dared not but give up his very life for the one for whose sake he had become the golden deer. Rama did not care to think what power could terrify a rakshasa like Maricha so much that he would rather die than cross its will.

  He ran toward the asrama in panic. He was certain he had been lured away from Panchavati so that something unthinkably foul could enter it. But Lakshmana was there; what evil could pass his brother? Then Rama remembered Maricha’s dying scream and he feared to think what it had been meant to achieve. He raced through the jungle and a jackal howled in his path, startling him.

  “Grave danger waits for me!” he thought, and plunged along the twisting trail. Around the next corner he ran straight into Lakshmana running toward him: they both cried out and drew their swords. Rama saw his brother was sobbing and took him in his arms.

  When the younger prince was a little calmer, Rama said gently, as he might to a child, “You were right; the
golden deer was Maricha.” But he was agitated himself. “You have left Sita alone; we must fly to her. Oh, I wonder if we will find her alive. I have seen such sinister omens on my way and I feel shrouded in darkness. Some implacable terror has come into our lives: evil one can only begin to imagine. You shouldn’t have left her, my brother, not even when you heard Maricha scream.”

  They arrived at the asrama, and no Sita came out to greet them. A wounded silence lay over the hermitage. Rama ran in and saw the signs of a struggle inside. He saw the earthen vase of karnikara lying broken, its flowers crushed, its water spilled. He saw five lotuses from Sita’s hair strewn on the ground, two of them trampled. A cry escaped poor Rama.

  “She is gone, Lakshmana!” he wailed. “They must have been rakshasas come to avenge themselves on me. Why did you leave her when I told you not to? You should have known it was not I who screamed. I left you to watch over her, Lakshmana, and now she is gone.”

  He lost control of himself. He seized Lakshmana’s shoulders and shook him. Lakshmana wept again. “I did not want to leave her. But she began to say terrible things to me when she heard the scream. She said, ‘You won’t go to save your brother, because you want me for yourself.’ I could not bear it. She cried she would kill herself if I did not come to look for you. I had no choice, Rama: she was like one possessed; she would not listen to me.”

  But Rama was desperate. “Women are like that when they are frightened. You should have known better than to give in to her. And now she must be dead. Oh, Sita!”

  Rama ran in and out of the kutila. He looked for her under her favorite trees. He called her name over and over again. He sobbed like any man who had lost his wife. Suddenly, he cried in hope, “She must have gone to fetch water.”