The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  Hanuman snarled, “Have you forgotten, taunter, how I killed your boy with a blow of this fist? Or perhaps he was not your own?”

  Ravana’s ten faces flashed into sight, snarling in memory of dead Aksha. Like dark lightning, he struck Hanuman on his chest and the vanara fell back, stunned. But shaking the fog of that blow from his head, Hanuman sprang up at once. Leaping into the air, he struck Ravana back like thunder exploding. Ravana roared; he collapsed against the side of his chariot.

  In a moment the Rakshasa stood up again. He smiled at Hanuman. “Well done, monkey! You are stronger than I thought.”

  Hanuman cried, “Fie on me that you live after I struck you. But you shall not live after I do again!”

  Once more, he leaped high to fetch Ravana another blow. But as he came down, swinging his arm, the golden chariot vanished with maya. Hanuman howled in frustration and looked around for the Rakshasa. He saw Ravana across the battlefield, engaging Neela.

  But Ravana did not relish the fight against Neela, either: using the siddhis of mahima and anima, Neela made himself big and small, as he chose. At times he grew tall as a tree; but when Ravana attacked him, he shrank to the size of a little spider monkey, so the Rakshasa’s arrows hummed harmlessly past him.

  Tiny Neela jumped onto Ravana’s banner and chattered down at him. Then he grew again and struck the Demon a bone-shaking blow. But when Ravana hewed at him with his sword, the vanara was a little monkey, gibbering at the king whose swinging blade came nowhere near him. The Master of Lanka was beside himself.

  “Stand and fight, coward!” he raged.

  But Neela grimaced at him and cried back, “Shame on you, Ravana, that you fight someone as small as me. No wonder you have taken to kidnapping women.”

  Ravana invoked the agneyastra and shot it at Neela, who was perched on the back of one of the Rakshasa’s chariot horses, terrifying the animal. A flash of green fire flared out and engulfed little Neela. But instead of being consumed by the incendiary shaft, Neela only fainted briefly: Neela was Agni’s son, and the father would not burn his own child.

  Ravana thought the vanara was dead. Baying in triumph, he turned his chariot to where he saw his rakshasas fleeing the battle. They saw a warrior approaching that none of them dared face. Lakshmana had come to fight, and Lanka quaked at the sound of his bowstring. Lakshmana’s challenge rang out across the field and Ravana advanced on him, smoldering.

  For a long time they stood, demon king and human prince, staring at each other unwinkingly, locked in a duel of gazes before they fought with arrows. Neither looked away. Then Lakshmana cried, “Are you afraid to fight, Rakshasa, that you just stand staring?”

  Ravana threw back his head and roared like ten lions. “Foolish human, dare you come to fight me alone? Prepare to pass through Yama’s gates.”

  Lakshmana cried back, “I have heard enough about your valor and your prowess. Have you come to boast or to fight? Show me with arrows how great you really are.”

  Swift as light, Ravana’s narachas flashed at Lakshmana. But quicker himself, the kshatriya cut away the burning heads of those shafts as they flew at him; they fell tamely around him, a rain of headless serpents. They writhed briefly on the ground and vanished. Already, Ravana loosed more smoking barbs at Lakshmana; quicker than the eye saw, the prince cut them down again.

  So it went: a scintillating duel between two great archers, both masters. They admired each other’s skill, and at times even shouted out their admiration across the long field where they fought. All around, rakshasa and vanara stood spellbound, watching.

  Ravana tired of the battle of lesser weapons. He invoked an agneyastra and, with no warning that he had summoned a devastra, shot that deep shaft at Lakshmana. But from the first sound the astra made through the air, Lakshmana knew what it was. He cut life out of it with a clutch of fluid and feminine arrows. So that when the agneyastra grazed his brow, it merely dazed him slightly.

  Roaring, Lakshmana loosed a coruscant volley that cleft the bow like an arc of night in Ravana’s hand. Without his bow, Ravana was hurt often and sharply. Blood bloomed on his dark, smooth skin, where Lakshmana’s barbs found their mark. Crying out in pain, Ravana invoked a more powerful weapon than any he had cause to use since his war against the Devas.

  Ravana bent his head briefly in his chariot and invoked Brahma, grandsire of the worlds. He invoked a weapon of cosmic fire. Ravana invoked the brahmashakti and, in a wink, cast the howling thing at Lakshmana. Like a comet, the recondite missile flamed at the human prince. Quick as Lakshmana was, he did not have the speed or the power to cut the shakti down. A small sun, it took him squarely in the chest; with a cry, Lakshmana fell.

  Swift as time, Ravana was at the fallen prince’s side. He leaped down from his golden chariot and tried to lift Lakshmana into it. He wanted to parade his corpse through the streets of Lanka. But the Rakshasa could not budge the prince’s body. Ravana, who had once drawn out Kailasa by its roots, could not move Lakshmana of Ayodhya. The Demon stood astounded. He saw that the fair kshatriya still breathed. The Rakshasa was thunderstruck. This human had been felled by Brahma’s shakti; it still blazed in his breast, hissing and spitting fire. Yet Lakshmana lived.

  With a yell, Hanuman flew out of the sky at the bewildered Ravana. He fetched him six blows like earthquakes across his chest and face. Blood welled in the Rakshasa’s mouth; the ten heads roared and their owner reeled. Hanuman picked up Lakshmana easily, with love, and carried him through the air, back to Rama. Rama laid his blue hand on his brother’s brow and he rose instantly as if from a slumber. Wailing in strange anxiety at Rama’s touch, the shakti flew out of his brother’s chest and back to Ravana. At once Lakshmana’s wound closed, then vanished tracelessly.

  Meanwhile, his pride stung by Hanuman, Ravana now went among the vanaras like Death himself. He fought with weapons and strength beyond their understanding, and thousands of monkeys were sacrificed to his fury. Wailing at the hell fire he attacked them with, they ran to Rama and cried, “We cannot stand against the Rakshasa. He is too terrible for us.”

  Rama picked up his bow and started toward Ravana. But Hanuman came running to him. “Ravana fights from a chariot; you should not face him from the ground. Allow me, Rama, to bear you into battle.”

  The son of the wind grew immense, and bent at Rama’s feet. Rama climbed onto Hanuman’s shoulders. And thus the prince of men first went to meet the king of the rakshasas in battle. The sound of Rama’s bowstring silenced both armies. He cried across the field, “Ravana, prepare to die! Not Indra or Yama, not Agni, Surya, or Brahma will save you now, not Siva himself. You will not find sanctuary from me anywhere, Rakshasa. Did no one tell you what I did to your people at Janasthana, that you are fool enough to want battle with me?”

  Glowering, red-eyed, ten-headed with a fiendish snarl on every face, now entirely a Demon from the pit, Ravana replied with a burn of arrows aimed not at Rama but at Hanuman who carried him. But Hanuman had Brahma’s boon that no astra could harm him. Undimmed, he plucked those barbs calmly from his flesh and shook their embers from his fur. He loomed over the two armies, with Rama like a star on his shoulders.

  Then, all at once, Rama was a blur, a dream of movement on Hanuman’s back. No one could tell where he drew an arrow from his quiver or fitted it to his bowstring, or when he shot it at his enemy. But the report of his weapon was a crack of thunder. In a thunderflash, Ravana’s chariot was broken, his horses were killed, and his sarathy struck unconscious. Rama seemed to fight from another, unworldly dimension of time. Ravana had no answer to the prince’s transcendent archery, and a shaft as jagged as Indra’s vajra plucked the Rakshasa’s bow out of his hand.

  Stunned silence fell on the armies of darkness and light. Serenely, Rama fitted another shaft, with a glowing crescent head, to his bowstring. Languidly, he knocked Ravana’s golden crown from his head. Gone was all the Rakshasa’s glory, faded in a moment his majesty. He cringed beside his shattered chariot. On the beaming Hanum
an’s shoulders, Rama shone like a dark blue sun.

  Then Rama lowered his bow! A smile touched his lips. Rama cried in awful gentleness to his enemy, so both armies heard him clearly, “I think you are tired after all the fighting you have done, all the vanaras you have slain. I could kill you now, but it would be too easy. Go home, Ravana. Be better prepared before you come to fight me again. Go now, Rakshasa.”

  Rama’s mercy was more savage than any astra. His ten faces dark with shame, his spirit broken, like his chariot and his crown, Ravana crept back into Lanka with his worthless life, which he now owed his enemy.

  The cheering of the vanaras woke the world from its swoon of disbelief. They yelled Rama’s name, again and again, and yet again; oh, they believed in him completely now! Watching from above, the Devas wore smiles on their unearthly faces. For the first time, they actually saw that Rama was more than a match for the Demon of Lanka.

  20. A monster is roused

  Ravana sat trembling on his crystal throne. Again and again he saw Rama’s arrows fly at him: shafts of time. He saw his chariot shattered, his horses cut down, and his crown broken. He saw Rama’s dark, brilliant face above him and heard the beautiful voice that mocked him before both armies, “I could kill you now, but it would be too easy. You are tired. Go home, Ravana. Come back with a new chariot and another bow.”

  Ravana sat trembling with that humiliation. Grimly he spoke to his rakshasas. “You saw how a mere man shamed me on the field. It seems all my tapasya is worth nothing. When he gave me his boon against the Devas and Asuras Brahma said to me, ‘Beware of man.’ But I did not listen. I thought, which man would dare to stand against me in battle?”

  He sighed, that matchless Rakshasa, humbled. Slowly he went on: “Many are those who have cursed me. A yuga ago, I ravished a chaste woman called Vedavati, and she cursed me. Perhaps Sita is Vedavati, born again to be my death. When I look at her face, I feel I know her from another time. For long ages, I have ruled the world; once an Ikshvaku king called Anaranya foretold that a prince born in the House of the Sun would kill me. I paid him no mind then, but now I fear it is Dasaratha’s son Rama he meant.

  “Yes, many have cursed me, among them the mighty and the sublime. Parvati cursed me once, and Nandisvara. Varuna’s daughter cursed me when I forced myself on her. My friends, today I have learned that the curses of the pure always come to pass.”

  The nine heads around his central face were not to be seen, as if they hid themselves for shame. Confessing his anxiety, sharing it, appeared to allay its intensity. Ravana said, “All this talk is of no use. Lanka is threatened as it has never been since I became king. I can think of only one solution: Kumbhakarna must be awoken; let us see how Rama faces my brother in battle.”

  Ravana ordered the guard at Lanka’s gates to be doubled, and sent his messengers to Kumbhakarna’s palace. Just nine days ago, his titanic brother had sat in the people’s sabha and sworn to support his king in the event of a war. Eight days ago, the tremendous one had gone back to sleep.

  Kumbhakarna slept deeply, but the messengers Ravana sent to awaken him were experts at their task. What they had to do was not easy; especially when it was just a week since he had fallen back into his slumber, which would last six months if he was not disturbed. Hillocks of food were heaped on great salvers carried by a small army of rakshasas. Among the dishes were young elephants, roasted whole. There was wine by the barrel and cartloads of garlands and incense. With these, and a train of nubile women, Ravana’s servants came to rouse the king’s brother. When Kumbhakarna awoke all his appetites must be satisfied at once, and all of them were enormous.

  As they unlocked the door to his chamber with the golden key Ravana gave them, the gigantic rakshasa’s snoring blasted in their ears. His breath billowed like a small typhoon around the cavernous room, whose ceiling was tall enough for the monster to stand under. Kumbhakarna lay naked, his chest heaving like an ocean, dreams flitting across his sensual face. Gently the women began to rub sandalwood paste into his smooth skin. His mountainous body was hairless.

  The giant did not stir at the women’s giggling ministrations, though there were ten of them, each one chosen just for him. They were tall, beautiful rakshasis, and rare: they alone in Lanka could bear his manhood. Quickly, they covered his massive body with the fragrant paste. They lifted his great head, four of them together, and the others draped the garlands around his neck. The food and the wine barrels had already been set down beside the bed, so there would be no delay when he awoke.

  The servants brought conches, horns, and drums with them. They knew, from the experience of years, what an effort it was to rouse Kumbhakarna. When their loud talking had no effect, they began to shout in the hope that he might stir. But he slept on. When the anointing with sandalwood paste did not so much as break the rhythm of his snores, the servants began to blow on their conches, beat their drums, and blast on their horns. Kumbhakarna slept on.

  Gingerly, they began to prod him and to shake his colossal form with their hands. He did not move. They tried to lift him from the bed, but could not. Then they began to slap his body in earnest. Not that they were pleased to do this; they feared that Ravana would have their heads if his brother did not wake up. They slapped him roughly and blew their conches into his juglike ears. They pulled the thick hairs in his nostrils. Suddenly, with a deep sigh, he rolled onto his side. Whatever dream he was smiling from left him, and his eyelids, long-lashed as a woman’s, fluttered open.

  With a roar that they had dared to interrupt his dreaming, Kumbhakarna sat bolt upright, red-eyed and growling horribly at them. Already, hunger raged in his hot body, and other lusts flamed through him as well. The servants jumped back some paces. They pointed to the heaped vessels of food and the barrels of wine. First his hungers must be fed; then they would tell him why they had come.

  Tittering, the women came forward to feed Kumbhakarna. The menservants left them to their task. When half the food had been gorged, greedily, and three barrels of wine swilled down, Kumbhakarna began to fondle the women, who had disrobed for his pleasure. As always, the satisfaction of his desire did not take very long, though he took four of the ten women, one after the other, and their cries echoed down the long passages of the palace.

  Kumbhakarna bathed, and the women dressed him and rubbed his body fragrant with the unguents and perfumes they had brought, to which he was so partial. Now the men were called back into the chamber. In his chasmal voice Kumbhakarna said, “You have woken me when I had barely fallen asleep. Tell me, who threatens Lanka? Is it Yama or Agni, Vayu or Indra?”

  Just then a minister, Yupaksha, whom Ravana had sent after the others, came in. He said, “It is not Devaloka that threatens us. A human prince has laid siege to Lanka with an army of monkeys.”

  Kumbhakarna’s expression was incredulous. “Ravana really needs me to fight a man and some monkeys?”

  Yupaksha said, “Prahastha is slain, and this man Rama vanquished our king in battle.”

  Kumbhakarna growled in surprise. The women had almost finished dressing him. He brushed them aside and stood up, a mountain of a rakshasa, towering over the others.

  Yupaksha said quietly, “Rama spared Ravana’s life. He told him to come back to fight with a new chariot and another bow.”

  Kumbhakarna roared softly; then he laughed. “What! But this has never happened to my brother before. No Deva or Danava, yaksha or gandharva has ever humbled Ravana. Surely, no ordinary man has done this to him.”

  “Ravana dares not go out to face Rama again. He wants you to kill the Kosala princes.”

  Drawing himself erect, Kumbhakarna said, “I will. Tell Ravana that before the sun sets he will see the humans lying dead in the bloody sludge of the field. I will drag their bodies through the streets to his palace, that they dared to attack Lanka.”

  But Mahodara, who had come with Yupaksha, said, “Perhaps you should meet the king before you go out to fight. He is distraught; seeing you will restore his
spirits.”

  Slowly, Kumbhakarna nodded. He loved his brother. He thought the world of him, and hated to hear that Ravana had been humiliated. Mahodara and Yupaksha hurried back to their master. Ravana sat alone and downcast in his sabha. They ran in to him, crying, “Kumbhakarna is awake, my lord. He wants to know when you will see him.”

  Ravana said dully, “I will see him at once, if he is ready to come to me.”

  The earth shuddered where Kumbhakarna set foot, on his way to meet his brother. Clad in white silks, his body embellished with glittering ornaments, heavy golden earrings in his ears, Kumbhakarna went to meet Ravana as Indra might go to Brahma. When he came out into the sun the vanaras perched on the smooth walls of Lanka, gazing in at what went on within the city, fled in fear. They had never seen anyone like him. He was full of raw splendor; his massive body blazed like a piece of the sun and it was hard to look directly at the leviathan.

  When Kumbhakarna entered the sabha, he saw at a glance the damage Rama had done to Ravana’s spirit. The haughty, regal bearing, which had set that king apart, had vanished. Instead, a forlorn Rakshasa sat on Lanka’s throne, gaunt with defeat. When he saw Kumbhakarna, Ravana sprang up with a cry. He rushed to his brother and embraced him. He led him to the outsized throne beside his own, which was always kept there and was the giant’s place.

  Kumbhakarna said resonantly, “Who has tormented you, my brother? He will not live, be he not our Pitamaha Brahma himself. No one in the three worlds who has hurt you shall escape my wrath.”

  Ravana sighed; he was restive. He said, “So much has happened while you slept. These few days have been like years, ah, like centuries. As we feared, Rama came to Lanka with his army of monkeys. Vali’s brother, Sugriva, is his ally. They crossed the sea and they have ravaged our island. Wherever the monkeys go they make a desolation of our orchards and gardens. No fruit remain on the trees, or flowers on their stems.”