The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  “Thus, Malyavan, Sumali, and Mali went to Lanka with their people, and when they saw the unearthly city, its streets paved with precious vaidurya, its mansions built of solid gold, they did not hesitate to make it their home.

  “In that same time there lived a gandharvi called Narmada, and she had three daughters. Narmada knew Malyavan, Sumali, and Mali had gandharva blood in them, through their own mother. She knew they were masters of the earth by the boons Brahma had granted them. On a day when the Uttara Phalguni nakshatra was plain in the sky, she gave her three daughters to the rakshasas to be their wives.

  “As the gandharvas of the air do with the apsaras of Devaloka, the young demons made love with their enchanting brides. Malyavan’s wife was called Sundari, and she was as beautiful as her name proclaimed. He gave her a brood of fierce and handsome sons: Vajramushti, Virupaksha, Yajnakopa, Durmukha, Suptaghna, Matta, and Unmatta. He also gave her a beautiful daughter, Anala.

  “Sumali’s wife, Ketumati, was lovely as a full moon and dearer to her husband than his life. Their sons were called Prahastha, Akampana, Vikata, Kalikamukha, Dhrumraksha, Danda, Suparshva, Praghasa, and Bhasakarna. Their daughters were Raka, Pushpokata, Kaikasi, and Kumbheenasi.

  “Mali’s lotus-eyed wife, Vasudha, the gandharvi, bore him two daughters, Anala and Anila, and two sons, Hara and Sampati. The boys became Vibheeshana’s ministers.

  “With Brahma’s boon, and sons as mighty as they had, Malyavan, Sumali, and Mali soon conquered the Devas, the rishis, the nagas, and the yakshas. They ranged the worlds like the wind, and they ruined every yagna they found and killed the rishis who performed them. Their hubris and savagery grew with their power, and the terrified Devas came to Siva, the Un-born, the God of Gods, and cried, ‘Mahadeva, Sukesa’s sons are the bane of the worlds. We have no sanctuary anywhere in creation. They come to Amravati when they please, drive us from our homes, and cry that they are Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; that they are Indra, Soma, Surya, Vayu, Yama, Agni, and Varuna! We beg you, Lord, kill the rakshasas for our sake: there is no peace left in creation.’

  “But Sukesa was Siva’s bhakta. Sankara said to the Devas, ‘The rakshasas’ death is not written at my hands. Go to Narayana; he will find a way to rid you of them.’

  “The Devas flew to Vaikunta, to the home of the Blue God who lies upon the sea of eternity. Piteously, they said to him, ‘Vishnu, save us. Sukesa’s sons have Brahma’s boon and they torment us as they like. We beg you, cut open the rakshasas’ faces with your chakra; give them as a gift to Yama. Melt the fear from our hearts, Lord, even as the sun does the frost upon the mountain.’

  “Slowly, Vishnu said, ‘Yes, I know Sukesa has Siva’s boons and I know his sons have Brahma’s blessing. I will kill them all for you, Devas. Be at peace.’

  “When Malyavan heard what Vishnu had promised the Devas, he called his brothers and said, ‘The slayer of Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashyapu, of Namuchi, Kalanemi, Samhrada, Radheya the mayyavi, the just Yamala, Arjuna, Hardikya, Sumbha, and Nisumbha, and a thousand other great Asuras and rakshasas, has said he will kill us, as well. How will we resist the terrible Vishnu?’

  “Sumali and Mali said to their brother, their king, ‘We have imbibed the Vedas, we have been just rulers to our people. We have observed our rakshasa dharma and we have no enmity with Vishnu. It is the craven Devas who have poisoned Narayana’s mind against us. It is for their sake he has sworn to kill us. Let us kill the Devas and remove the very cause of Vishnu’s anger toward us.’

  “A vast rakshasa army was mustered, with awesome commanders like Jambha and Vritra, and the demons prepared for war. Riding in vimanas and chariots, on elephants, horses big as elephants that trod air, sorcerous mules, bulls, camels, dolphins, serpents, crocodiles, tortoises, fish, swarms of great birds, vultures, eagles, and ravens big as Garuda, lions, tigers, panthers, boars, bears, and deer called srimara and chamara, the teeming demon army gathered in Lanka. Then, with legions of millions, the rakshasas set out to kill Indra’s Devas, by earth, sea, and air.

  “Dreadful omens appeared everywhere. Clouds, formed suddenly in a clear sky, rained down pale bones and steaming blood. Jackal packs swarmed around the rakshasa legions and howled dismally. An uncanny ring of vultures wheeled above and breathed fire through their hooked beaks. All the creatures of the earth seemed disturbed, and the shrieks of a thousand races of birds rent the air, as did elephant herds’ terrified trumpeting; and jungles of great cats roared their anxiety above the sounds that every other living beast made. It seemed the very elements, the panchabhuta, would dissolve and the worlds would be undone. Scarlet-footed pigeons and vivid mynahs darted above the rakshasas in frenzy.

  “But the rakshasas were the sovereigns of the three worlds. They were swollen with the pride of their conquests, their wealth, and their power. They paid no mind to the omens that would have moved a blind and deaf man to fear for his life. The demon army rode on, and Malyavan, Sumali, and Mali at its head were like the three flames of the apocalypse. And the rest relied on these three as the Devas do upon the Trimurti.

  “The rakshasas streamed on toward the Devas’ city. Vishnu saw them and he filled his twin quivers with arrows, mounted Garuda, and flew down to fight. He was as bright as a hundred suns, his armor gleaming, the Panchajanya and the Sudarshana, the Saringa and the Kaumodaki glittering in his four dark hands. He wore a shining garment, like a wrap of lightning across his body blue as a thunderhead.

  “Some legions of the rakshasa army were blown away by the wind stirred by Garuda’s wings. The golden eagle was like a flying mountain. Then, roaring, the rakshasas rallied. They surrounded Vishnu and assailed him with every manner of ayudha and astra. As locusts fly into a paddy field, bees into a jar of honey, moths into a great flame, crocodiles into the sea, and the worlds themselves into Mahavishnu at the dissolution, the demons’ arrow swarms flew into blue Narayana.

  “They struck him, they even drew blood; but they did not harm the Blue One. Then he drew back his own bowstring and loosed a tide of arrows at the rakshasas. Narayana’s cloudbanks of arrows, his streams, his rillets, his rivers of arrows, cut down the demons in thousands, in hundreds of thousands, in an eyeflash, in a wink. Blood, too, flowed in waves, in frothing brooks, in rivulets, in a sea, at Purushottama’s cosmic archery.

  “Vishnu raised his sea conch and blew a blast on it deep as the sky. The rakshasas’ mounts turned tail in absolute terror. The greatest demons were struck by his impossible volleys and fell like mountains riven by thunderbolts. Blood flowed from their wounds like the red cataracts of the monsoon flashing down the Himalaya. But the God did not tire; he reveled in his yagna of death: he severed their necks, smashed their banners, their chariot wheels, their bows, their limbs, stopped their screams. Like rays from the sun, waves from the sea, serpents from a mountain, rain from a cloud, his arrows flowed in torrents from his miraculous Saringa.

  “The rakshasas fled from the dreadful Hari, like lions from the Sarabha, like elephants from a hunting lion, like leopards from a tiger, like dogs from a leopard, like cats from a dog, like rats from a snake. They fled down to earth, back to Lanka.

  “Vishnu flew after them. Then Sumali covered Vishnu in a drifting mist of arrows. He rode up to the Blue God and roared at him, waving his arm above his head even as an elephant waves his trunk. With a smile, Janardhana severed the head of Sumali’s sarathy. The rakshasa’s horses bolted. Now Mali charged Vishnu. As the birds of dusk streaked with the last rays of the day fly into the caves of the krauncha hill, Mali’s gold-tipped arrows flew into the Blue One’s darkling body, thousands of shafts.

  “Vishnu aimed his own volleys at Mali, and they drank the demon’s blood thirstily, as serpents drink nectar. Vishnu cut down Mali’s banner, smashed his bow in his hand, shattered his chariot, and killed his horses. Leaping down with a fulminant roar, the rakshasa struck Garuda on his golden head with his mace, even as Yama once struck Siva. The eagle quivered; he spun round in pain and turned his back on the battle. Thin
king for a moment that Vishnu had turned to flee, the rakshasa army roared its delight, like a sea at night when the moon is full.

  “Even with his back turned, Vishnu cast the Sudarshana chakra at Mali. Time’s wheel, blinding as the sun, the disk cut Mali’s head from his throat and it fell on the ground, spouting blood even as Rahu’s head did, when Mohini gave the Devas all the amrita to drink. Above, the sky erupted in peals of thunder, and petal rain fell down from Devaloka as Indra and his people were swept by joy.

  “Roaring like ten prides of lions to see their brother killed, Malyavan and Sumali fled. They fled back into their city with what remained of their legions. Even as they went, Garuda recovered and began to flap his wings again, so thousands of rakshasas were blown into the sea. Some had their soft, handsome faces cut in two by the wheeling, ubiquitous chakra. Some had their chests crushed by a blow from the Kaumodaki. Some were dissected by arrows like bolts of lightning from the Saringa.

  “Demon entrails floated like garlands upon the crimsoned waves. Like clouds driven by Vayu, the rakshasas fled before the terrible Vishnu. And he slaughtered them all around him and they lay in death’s final postures like blue mountains.

  “Seeing the massacre of his people, Malyavan came back to fight, as waves do to the sea after briefly touching the shore. His eyes bloodshot, his great body shaking, the king of the rakshasas cried to Vishnu, ‘Padmanabha, is this dharma? That you continue to kill my people, when they have abandoned all thought of war? They flee before you and yet you hunt them like animals. You will not find heaven for yourself with this murdering. If you must fight, Narayana, here I am before you. Fight me, if you dare!’

  “Vishnu said softly, and his voice drowned every other noise of land, sea, and air, ‘I must keep the word I have given the Devas that I will exterminate your race. I will sacrifice Swarga to keep my word.’

  “With a growl, Malyavan cast a shakti at the Lord, striking him squarely in his deep blue chest. It glittered there like a streak of lightning across a cloud. Smiling, Vishnu drew out that shakti and flung it back at the rakshasa. It struck his jeweled chest as a thunderbolt might a mountain. Malyavan fell in a swoon; but he rose at once, and rushed at Vishnu and struck both him and Garuda blows like thunderclaps with a fist clenched around an iron band studded with long, sharp spikes.

  “Garuda flapped his wings and blew the demon back into the city of Lanka, and his brother Sumali and his legions with him. With that, somehow, the rakshasas’ spirit was broken. They knew they could not stand before blue Narayana. The demons fled with all their people down below the earth, into deep, glimmering Patala, where their kind belong,” Agastya said in Rama’s sabha.

  3. The birth of Ravana

  Rama said to Agastya, “Muni, tell us how Ravana was born.”

  The maharishi resumed: “Sumali wandered the Patalas for an age. When his terror of Vishnu receded, he rose to the surface of the earth again and ranged the sea-girt world of humans for another age.

  “One day, he saw the splendid Vaisravana flying above him in the pushpaka vimana, on his way to see his father Visravas. Vaisravana had come to Lanka and lived there with his nairritas. Sumali said to his daughter Kaikasi, ‘My child, you are a young woman now and it is time you were given in marriage. Remember, the honor of three families rests in the hands of a daughter: that of her father’s clan, her mother’s, and her husband’s, as well. See that you preserve all three, my Kaikasi.’

  “She asked, ‘Father, to whom do you mean to give me?’

  “‘To the Muni Visravas, so you will have sons as splendid as Surya Deva.’

  “Kaikasi bowed to her father, and she took herself to the tapovana where Visravas was performing agnihotra. The young rakshasi did not know that it was an inauspicious time to approach the rishi. She came and stood near him with folded hands while he was absorbed in the ritual. She stood staring down at her feet, bashfully, and scratched the ground with her toe to attract his attention.

  “Visravas looked up from his puja and saw a young girl standing near him, her face like the full moon. He said slowly, ‘Who are you? Whose daughter? And why have you come to my asrama?’

  “‘Brahmarishi, I am Kaikasi. I have come because my father Sumali told me to. I beg you, divine the rest for yourself.’

  “Visravas sank into dhyana. Then, emerging from his trance, he said, ‘I see why you have come to me. You have come to have sons by me. But you have come at the wrong muhurta. So, O woman with the gait of a she-elephant in rut, you will have savage rakshasas for sons’

  “‘Brahmavadi, I beg you, let not all my sons be like that.’

  “The rishi paused a moment; his face softened, and he said, ‘Young woman, your last son shall be a man of dharma, like all the rakshasas of our clan.’

  “Then the muni took Kaikasi unto himself and gave her children. Kaikasi was first delivered of a dreadful infant, with ten heads in a cone, with great fangs in them. His hair was like strands of fire; his lips were coppery like his eyes. When he was born, all the fell creatures of night gathered round that asrama and they circled his mother from left to right, in a bizarre and ominous ritual.

  “Eerie clouds scudded into the sky and rained down showers of blood. Flaming meteors, thousands of them, fell onto the earth, making great craters and hissing into the sea, so the waves stood up like mountains and smashed against the shore. The very earth was agitated, as if with some terrible fear, and strayed from her true orbit.

  “Kaikasi’s first child was born roaring fiercely from all his ten heads and his father named him Dasagriva. Soon after, Sumali’s daughter had another son, and he was the biggest baby ever born. His ears were like great jars, so he was called Kumbhakarna. Next, Kaikasi gave birth to a perfectly hideous daughter, and she was Surpanaka. Last of all, a serene and handsome infant was born to the rakshasi and he was called Vibheeshana. He was hardly like a rakshasa, by his appearance or his nature, and soft flowers fell out of Devaloka to bless his birth.

  “Those children grew up in the forest where Visravas lived in dhyana. From the first, Dasagriva and Kumbhakarna had restless, lustful natures, and they spent their days in satisfying their every appetite. They hunted for sport and for food, and when they were a little older, they did not hesitate to slake themselves on any woman, of any race, whose path crossed theirs in the forest. Vibheeshana was a restrained, wise youth from the first; he spent his time at study and serving his father.

  “Dasagriva, also, gave some of his time to studying the Vedas and other ancient revelations. And to his own father’s surprise, that wild and ferocious Rakshasa outstripped his brother Vibheeshana, easily, at learning. But while Vibheeshana lived by what he learned from the Shastras, Dasagriva did not.

  “One day, Vaisravana, who is also called Kubera, the Lord of the nine treasures, arrived in his vimana to visit his father. Kaikasi called her eldest son and showed him how lustrous and fortunate his half-brother was. She said, ‘Look at his vimana, how it shines. He flies anywhere he likes in it. And he is a Lokapala: the master of all the wealth in the world. My son, I want you to be Vaisravana’s equal. That is what your mother wants for you.’

  “Dasagriva was thoughtful for a moment. He stared long and hard at Kubera’s pushpaka vimana. He pursed his lips and said quietly, ‘I will be more powerful than Kubera. He is the Lord of but one-quarter of the earth. I will rule the three worlds’

  “His mother embraced him fervidly. She kissed all his ten heads, which appeared and vanished, uncannily, around his central face. So it was that Dasagriva first decided to sit in tapasya. He went with his brothers to an asrama at sacred Gokarna and began his intense penance. And once he set his heart to it, that rakshasa’s tapasya was past compare. It was his ancestor Brahma whom Dasagriva worshipped.”

  4. Dasagriva’s tapasya

  Rama asked Agastya, “Tell me about Dasagriva’s tapasya, Muni, and his brothers’.”

  The rishi said, “Their penance lasted an age and each of the brothers had his own
method.

  “Kumbhakarna stood amidst four fires in searing summer, and the fifth was the blazing sun above, until the skin peeled from his body. He never flinched. During the monsoon, he knelt on the ground, often in the middle of a river, while the rain and the floods swept over him ceaselessly, and he was truly wet to his bones. In winter, too, he stood on, never stirring, in icy water. For ten thousand years, Kumbhakarna performed tapasya.

  “The gentle Vibheeshana stood on one leg for five thousand years, even like dharma in the kali yuga. At the end of his penance, apsaras danced on clouds and fine showers of unearthly petals fell on the good rakshasa. Vibheeshana spent another five thousand years imbibing the Vedas, until he knew them backward. He recited them while he stood with his face and his arms raised heavenward and stared at the sun, the stars, and the moon, never blinking, never looking down. And this rakshasa experienced only delight during all his ten thousand years of tapasya, as if he were in the Lord Indra’s Nandana.

  “Dasagriva, the eldest, went without food for ten thousand years. And at the end of every thousand years, he offered one of his heads into one of the four fires he had lit around himself. Thus nine thousand years passed and finally the Rakshasa was about to offer his tenth head, and his life, to the flames, when Brahma appeared before him like a sea of grace, with all the Devas around him.

  “‘Dasagriva’ said the Pitamaha, ‘a tapasya like yours must be fruitful. Never has this earth seen such a penance. Ask me for any boon, Rakshasa, and it shall be yours.’

  “Dasagriva bowed solemnly before the four-faced Creator of the universe. He said, ‘Pitamaha, the root of all life’s fear is death. Make me immortal, so I shall never be afraid.’

  “Brahma said, smiling, ‘Immortality is not mine to give. I am not immortal myself. Ask me for anything else, something I can give you.’ Dasagriva thought for no more than a moment, then said, ‘Let me not die at the hands of any of the greater races of heaven or earth. Let no suparna, naga, yaksha, Daitya, Danava, rakshasa, Deva, gandharva, kinnara, charana, siddha, rishi, muni, or predator of the wild kill me. As for mortal men, puny humans, I have no fear of them, they are like straw.’