The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  6. In the asokavana

  Dawn broke over the horizon, and the first shafts of pale light divided the sleeping ocean, full of dreams, from Ravana’s island. Hanuman in his tree heard the Vedas being chanted loudly and was startled awake. Within his palace, Ravana had also awakened early. The image he woke with was of Sita’s perfect face; he had dreamed of her all night.

  The Lord of Lanka rose from his bed. He had no eyes for Mandodari, who, as she lay asleep with her lips a sigh apart, was a picture of sweet seduction. He pulled on the fresh robes of white silk laid out for him. Putting on a necklace and golden bracelets, so brilliant they dispelled the last straggles of night that lingered wistfully in the world, he left his apartment. He strode through interminable passages and arrived by his own private entrance in the asokavana where his heart lay captive.

  But as he went like a storm through the antapura’s passages, there were others already awake: lovely women, who had dreamed of his virile face and form. They wanted a few moments with him, if not in their beds, at least like this, out in the open. All along his way through the harem, they approached him with soft caresses; but he strode impatiently along. Those women followed him to the asokavana, in a small throng. Some brought chamaras to fan him with; others held lamps to light his way, since the corridors were still dark.

  Like Indra surrounded by his apsaras, Ravana came out into the crisp dawn. Not looking left or right, without a glance at the silken sea that lay like a languorous woman herself below Lanka, the Rakshasa made straight for the little shrine of the white pillars, where Sita sat sleepless and distraught.

  Hanuman hid himself behind a screen of leaves and peered down at Ravana. Now he saw even more plainly how magnificent the Rakshasa was: tall and dark, handsome as Kamadeva. His white robe was like froth at the crest of the turbid sea of presence and power that was Ravana. In his time, Hanuman had seen other kings of the world, but never one nearly as arresting, as awesome, as this emperor. Greatness sat lightly on those rippling shoulders; fame and measureless authority radiated from his central face. Ravana had the power to make his cluster of nine heads become invisible at will. At dawn today, he came out with just one face showing, because he did not want to risk repelling Sita.

  For all the dark majesty it wore, Ravana’s face was haggard and careworn. The single-mindedness with which he stalked to the little temple in the asokavana cried out that great Ravana was strangely vanquished: that his vast kingdom meant less to him than the woman who sat sorrowing within that retreat. She had become all the kingdom he wanted, all his heaven and earth. Ravana breathed the image of Sita; he slept and woke in her obsession.

  From his perch, Hanuman could see into the little temple. He saw Sita grow pale, when she knew Ravana had arrived. Swiftly, in a reflex of fear and shame, she covered her body with her hands. Like frightened birds, her eyes flew this way and that, avoiding his smoldering stare as he came and stood tall and ominous before her.

  He drank deeply of the sight of her with his red gaze. He did not appear to notice how disheveled she was, or the dirt that streaked her tear-stained face. Before him Ravana, master of the worlds, saw only his hopes, his life, his heaven and hell; and if he had known it, his death as well. She stared down at the bare earth she sat upon. She was like a branch, blossom-laden, but cut away from her mother tree, and sorrowing on the ground.

  Ravana sighed. In his voice like somnolent thunder, he said, “Whenever I come here, you try to hide your beauty with your hands. But for me any part of you I see is absolutely beautiful. You are the perfect woman; beauty begins with you. Honor my love, Sita, and you will discover how deep it is. My life began when I first saw you, but you treat me, so cruelly.”

  She said nothing, never raised her eyes up to him. Hanuman, little monkey in his tree, trembled with what he saw and heard.

  “You say it was dishonorable for me to abduct you; but you forget I am a rakshasa. It is natural, and so entirely honorable, for me to take another man’s wife if I want her. It is even honorable for me to force myself on her if I choose. That is a rakshasa’s nature, and his dharma.”

  Sita gasped. At once Ravana regretted what he had said. He went on more gently, “I will never force myself on you, because I love you. I will wait for you to return my love, to give yourself to me willingly. You are my day and my night, and all my dreams. I feel I was never alive until I saw your face.

  “Abandon this wretched grief; you were born to be a queen of queens. It does not suit you to sit on the bare floor like this, with your clothes soiled, your hair unwashed, your face covered by a screen of dirt, and starving yourself almost to death. When he made you, Brahma crowned his long quest of creation. You are the woman he labored through the ages to make. No man, no Deva or gandharva, why, not Brahma himself, can resist your beauty. No blame attaches to me for loving you as I do. The fault lies not in my love, but in your perfection.”

  Color, a flush of shame, touched her cheeks as if his words were fire in her ears. It was not her Rama who spoke them, but they came unhindered into her hearing.

  “Wherever I look, asleep or awake, I see your face. Even when I am dead, I know my eyes will see nothing else. I do not ask you to return my love with the same passion I have for you. Not even a shadow of it. I only ask you to begin to think kindly of me, to care for me a little. I beg you, come and rule my palace as my only queen. All the others will serve you as sakhis, even Mandodari. I will be your servant.

  “Everything that is mine shall be yours. Time and again, I have vanquished the Devas and gandharvas in battle. Apart from what they bring me as tribute, I have taken untold wealth from them. The rarest silks, and jewels you cannot dream of, will be yours, even as they should. They will adorn your perfect body as they were made to. All my endless kingdom will be yours; only, set aside this stubborn grief.

  “Sita, fate is all-powerful. You and I were created for each other. Why else would you have come to me at all, by the long and winding way that you did? Brahma intends that we should be together. Don’t resist the will of God. Shed your grief, my love. Bathe, and put on the finest silks on earth. Adorn yourself with the most precious ornaments in the three worlds. And let me look at you, ah, let me feast my eyes on you!”

  He was helpless for this insane love. Already, whenever he was able to tear his thoughts away from Sita and consider what he had plunged into, Ravana realized it was no less than his death he courted so ardently. Six months of the year he had given her to yield to him had passed, and she was as obdurate as ever. Each time he came to her she gave him the same answer, and with each visit to the asokavana his obsession grew, and his despair.

  Ravana had no joy or peace any more in the arms of his wives. Out of old habit, he had made love to them, desultorily, for the first month Sita was in Lanka. But he found such aridness in these couplings that he gave up seeking to quench his fatal desire elsewhere. He had not been in Mandodari’s bed for five months, and the others could not hope to tempt him at all.

  Initially, his frustration when he saw Sita so lovely before him, and so unattainable, would drive Ravana into a frenzy. He would growl and scream at her. But soon he grew calmer; for the first time in his life, he began to resign himself to his own helplessness. He realized the only way into her heart was if she decided to give herself to him.

  He had exhausted all his arguments of power, wealth, and virility. He persisted in them only out of habit; there was no conviction in him any longer when he boasted to her. At last, he knew all he had to offer this most exceptional woman was his love. And while doing her best not to be cruel, because she saw that he loved her in his dreadful way, she spurned him over and over again.

  Now, out of habit, Ravana said, “What can he give you that I cannot? You are denying your own nature, Sita. Other women have been brought here as spoils of war, as frightened as you were when you first came, more so. But when they knew me, none of them resisted me for more than a week. None, once they tasted my love, ever wanted to leave
me. You are stubborn. It is only stubbornness and fear, not love, which bind you to your Rama.

  “He is not my equal, in wealth or power, valor, or even tapasya. Forget your wandering hermit. By now he has lost his mind from sorrow. Be sensible, as your humankind always is. Just think there is no hope of Rama ever seeing you again, no hope that he can cross the ocean that separates Lanka from Bharatavarsha. Give up your stubbornness; it is all you have to lose.”

  His eyes roved over her slender form, and they blazed. He whispered, “Oh, Sita, give yourself to me! I will love you as women only dream of being loved. Rule my heart, and be queen of the worlds as you were born to be. We will walk hand in hand in this asokavana and you will discover the meaning of happiness.”

  But again she picked up the long blade of grass and set it between herself and him like a naked sword. She said, “I am the wife of another man, Rakshasa, and my husband is my life. How can you even think of me as becoming yours, when I am already given to Rama? Given not only for this life, but forever, for all the lives that have been, and all those to come. I have always belonged to Rama, and always will. You have many beautiful women in your harem; don’t you keep them from the lustful gazes of other men? How is it, then, you cannot conceive that I would be true to my Rama? That it is natural for me, because I love him.”

  He looked away from her. Not that he saw anything except her face, even when he did. But he could not bear what she said. Never had he encountered such chastity, and to believe in it would mean denying everything he had lived for. A smile curving his dark lips, Ravana turned his gaze from her.

  But Sita went on, undaunted. “You court death for yourself and your kingdom. Have you no wise men in your court, who advise you against your folly?”

  Ravana laughed, “They all know I am a law unto myself. They know I am invincible.”

  She looked up briefly into his eyes and, her voice firmer, said, “You have violated dharma and punishment will come to you more quickly than you think. You don’t know Rama; he is not what you imagine him to be. You speak of this sea being an obstacle between him and me. But I say to you, Ravana, even if the ocean of stars lay between us, my Rama would come to find me.”

  Something flickered deep in Ravana’s plumbless heart, and she saw it in his eyes. But she did not know whether it was fear, or a sorrow too distant to fathom.

  “But it is not too late for you, Rakshasa. Take me back to Rama and he will forgive you. I will tell him you did me no harm. I am part of Rama as the light of the sun is part of the star. Nothing in all the worlds, no cause in the yawning ages of time, will persuade me to give in to you. Take me back to Rama, before doom comes to Lanka.”

  Ravana stared at her in amazement. He looked at his women around him, and, throwing back his dark head, began to laugh. “Are you trying to frighten the Lord of the rakshasas, at whose name the universe trembles?”

  “If Rama is angry, nothing in the universe can save you. You don’t know who he is. Indra’s vajra may fail to harm you, or even Yama’s paasa. But when Rama strings his Kodanda and Lanka shudders, you will know the terror of your death has come for you. As the sun covers the earth with his rays, Rama will cover your city with his eagle-feathered astras; and each one shall be a flaming army among your people. And then it will truly be too late for you.

  “Rakshasa, there is no escape for you anywhere. Take me back to Rama and ask his pardon. He is kind beyond your understanding; he will forgive you. Listen to me, Ravana, you do not know what you have done.”

  The smile vanished from his face. In a voice as menacing as a serpent’s hiss, he said, “My love for you, which you scorn so arrogantly, preserves your life. No one else could speak one word of all that you dare to say to me and hope to live. I should have you tortured for speaking to me as if I were just anyone, but my love prevents me.”

  The veins stood out on his temples from the anguish she caused him. His skin turned a ghastly pallor, his lips twitched. Deep in his eyes, terrible wrath and untold tenderness hunted each other; shadows, dark and bright, flitted across his face. He clenched his fists and drew himself erect. He said to her in deadly quiet, “Two months more I will give you, out of my great love. Remember to be in my bed before those sixty days are past. If you are not, my cooks will serve you to me in pieces for my morning meal.”

  The women who had come with Ravana felt sorry for Sita, but none of them dared speak on her part. They tried to convey their sympathy to her with their eyes.

  She flashed fearlessly at Ravana, “You have often called Rama a weakling hermit. When his arrow is buried to its feathers in your black heart, you will know who my Rama is. Very soon, Rakshasa, you will be just a few handfuls of ashes, and all your glory with you. Even as you dare look at me with lust in your eyes, you do not know that I could burn you up, and myself, with my paativratya. But I will leave you to Rama. Now that I have seen how evil you are, I think fate conspired to make you abduct me. So Rama would come to kill you.”

  His lips quivered. But having thrown herself at time’s mercy, she mocked him, “You say you are the bravest man in all the world. You say you vanquished Indra and Kubera in battle. But you stole me from my asrama like a thief, when my husband was away. Rakshasa, you are more a coward than a hero.”

  Ravana’s eyes were the color of the dawn that lay out on the sea. For a long moment, he said nothing, but grew very still. Then with a cry he drew his sword and stood over her, the weapon raised in both hands, glinting over her head. Hanuman almost fell out of his tree; he had no time to intervene. A smile tugging at her mouth, Sita raised her face and gazed calmly back at the Demon’s terrible eyes. Thus they remained, locked in a silent struggle of wills, and the violence of it made the rakshasis around Sita scamper away, whimpering, and even Ravana’s mistresses drew back in fear.

  But at last, just as Hanuman was about to fly to Sita’s rescue, Ravana threw back his face and howled abysmally, like a wild beast struck by an arrow. He thrust his sword back into its sheath, and screeched at her, “What do you want with that adharmi whom his father banished, that impoverished, half-naked tapasvin, when you can have my love?”

  Turning on his rakshasis, he cried, “Coax her, threaten her; do anything you have to! Your task is to make her come to me. If you fail, I will have your lives as well.”

  Still, he stood staring at her as if his eyes would lose their vision if he turned them from her face. Then, one of his once-favorite women, Dhanyamalini, who grieved for both her lord and Sita, came to him in that little temple. As Hanuman watched in amazement, she wound her slender arms around his neck like green vines, and kissed him full on his lips, so even he turned to her in surprise. The fascination of Sita was briefly forgotten, and his rage. Dhanyamalini was terrified the duel of wills between Ravana and Sita would break out again. He was in the mood for it, and the next time he would kill her.

  Dhanyamalini cried, “Why do you waste your time with her? It has been so many moons since you came to my bed. Every night, Ravana, I he awake staring at the stars and wondering, will my king come to me tonight? Will he come to drink the fever that burns my body and turns my dreams away? But every night you lie alone, thinking just of Sita. She is not worthy of you, my lord. Come to my bed and let me take your anguish from you. Forget her for a while. Brahma has not willed that she be fortunate enough to lie in your arms.”

  Bemused, and realizing the peril of staying on there, Ravana allowed Dhanyamalini to lead him away. After he had left, Sita sat very quietly, drained. A rakshasi brought her some food and water. She ate a morsel and drank just enough to keep herself alive.

  * * *

  Later, inside the palace, Dhanyamalini turned crying softly from Ravana. Minister to him tenderly as she would, she could not arouse her king at all. Sita’s face haunted him, and he lay quite impotent in that lovely rakshasi’s bed.

  7. Trijata’s dream

  When Ravana left, the rakshasis began to cajole Sita again. They knew their master would not think t
wice to kill them if Sita did not give in to him. These were not beautiful consorts, who ever warmed the Rakshasa’s bed. They were coarse warrior women who guarded his female prisoners, his spoils of war. It fell to them to persuade the more desirable captives brought back to Lanka that the best course open to them was to go to Ravana’s bed. No woman, ever before, not gandharvi or apsara, kinnari, siddhi, or Asuri, had held out against their persuasions for more than a few days. But this human princess was different. Six months had passed and there was no sign of her yielding.

  After the morning’s encounter between Sita and their master, the rakshasis of the asokavana were alarmed. They were determined to persuade her, by fair means or foul.

  “The most beautiful women would give anything to spend a night in Ravana’s bed; but you refuse him.”

  “She is vain.”

  “And foolish; she doesn’t know what she is doing.”

  “Silly creature, your beauty blinds you to the truth of your plight. But beauty does not last long. Be Ravana’s queen, arrogant one, and you will have wealth beyond your dreams.”

  “And power.”

  “Such pleasure in his bed that you could not dream of. Do you know how virile a rakshasa is? And this is not just any rakshasa, but Ravana himself.”

  They brought their fanged faces close, making her gag with their putrid breath. They smiled and snarled at her; they hissed in her ears like serpents. Sita wept. Little Hanuman sat in his tree, wisely restraining himself from committing any rashness; though his blood boiled and he longed to tear those rakshasis limb from limb.

  Sita said, “I would rather die than be unfaithful to Rama.”

  They growled like a pack of wild dogs, snapping around her. Seeing that reason and argument had little effect on Sita, they began to threaten her.

  “What a tasty meal she will make.”