If anything, despite the tragic gloom that hung about them, despite the atmosphere of uncertainty and unease at the bitterly unfair slaughter and massacre, there was still an air of dignity in the face and bearing of each and every one. Even King Sugreeva, the oldest and weakest, bore himself with stubborn pride, although he had lost a son, Angad’s younger brother, no older than little Sakra, to the terrible ‘killing stones’ as the vanars now called the sorcerously created rocks and pillars. After all, they were still Rama’s soldiers, and there was still a war to be fought. A war for dharma.
Rama spoke in a quiet yet clear voice appropriate to the occasion, briefing them on all that he had observed and studied during the long night of the killing stones. Sugreeva nodded from time to time, Angad interjected a comment or two, and others added their own contributions to the gathering of intelligence on what the enemy’s plan might entail next. Hanuman described to them all how, when seen from high above, Ravana’s scheme seemed quite clear. By raising the sorcerously constructed fortress, he had enclosed all of Rama’s forces in a central walled-in area, some several yojanas wide and long. Unable to retreat back to the sea, vulnerable if they attempted to scale the towering smooth-faced stone ramparts, the vanar and bear senas were left with only one choice: to proceed southwards towards the capital city.
‘Then that is what we shall not do,’ Angad said angrily, almost spitting with vehemence. ‘We shall not fall into his trap.’
‘Aye,’ said General Susena, whose left paw had been nearly severed by a descending block. He held the disabled paw against his chest, face pale from blood-loss but no less fierce with war-lust. ‘My Mandaras will take the front line and mine their rakshasa bellies the way we mine silver!’
Several grunts and noises of agreement echoed this sentiment. Rama waited for them to finish, then shook his head decisively, once. ‘No. We shall do exactly as they wish. We shall march south and besiege the capital.’
General Vinata of the Mandeha vanars frowned. ‘But my lord Rama, we may be marching into a trap.’
General Satabali, who had lost two brothers and a wife to the killing stones, grunted in agreement. ‘Most certainly. They wish to shepherd us into an ambush like sheep. It is evident from the lie of the land as Hanuman described it. I could even point out the likely spot where the ambush will take place.’ He indicated a spot on the dirt map that Nala had sketched quickly but expertly as Hanuman had described his sky-view of Lanka. ‘Here, here, and here. They will strike us from the flanks and behind, using the natural cover of the terrain and these thickets to conceal their approach until the very last minute. Then, they will no doubt throw open the city gates and sally forth to catch us in a pincer and crush us.’
‘My vanars know whereof they speak, Rama,’ King Sugreeva said. ‘Heed their advice well, my friend.’
‘I respect their knowledge of warcraft and do indeed heed their advice, King Sugreeva. But when the enemy makes his plan known, he also makes his weaknesses known.’
Several furred faces frowned. ‘What do you mean, Lord Rama?’ General Nila asked, his dark fur still matted in places by the blood of comrades and loved ones he had tried to save.
Rama looked at each of them in turn. ‘In my father’s court at Ayodhya, as a boy, I saw many emissaries from far-flung lands arrive and speak at length about their peoples, cultures, social customs, and other matters. Among these nations was a land far beyond the redmist ranges, a great nation spread across an archipelago of islands. It is said to be a beautiful land, a veritable heaven on earth, and its people are as beautiful as the land they live upon. We Aryas have many things in common with them, including our adherence to morality and the strict tenets of law and custom. Yet there is a great deal of difference between us, and it is in these differences that we can learn so much. For instance, among their warriors, there is a principle of war termed shima.’
‘Shima?’ Angad repeated with not a little trace of puzzlement. ‘I have never heard of such a thing before. Is it a siege machine? For that is one thing we do not have. We will need siege machines to breach the walls of Lanka.’
‘The walls of Lanka,’ Lakshman said curtly, without preamble or any attempt at diplomacy, ‘are made of the same stone blocks as those walls that skirt the plateau.’ He inclined his head in the direction of the walls that, while not visible here, miles from the rim of the cliffs, still loomed large in everyone’s mind’s eye. ‘A siege machine that can breach three-yard thick stone walls has not yet been invented, to the best of my knowledge.’
Angad looked as if he was about to retort sharply to that but restrained himself. He nodded, understanding both Lakshman’s response and his directness. In a sense, Hanuman thought, the young prince of Kiskindha and the second prince of Ayodhya had many qualities in common.
The bear king’s baritone rumbled like thunder.
‘Go on, Rama,’ Jambavan growled. ‘Tell them about shima. Tell them about how, at times, letting the enemy know your plans is an effective strategy. For he then believes that he knows your plan of attack and defence and arranges his forces accordingly. So he is already reacting to you instead of acting. While you, knowing that he knows your every move, are free to change your plans at any moment, thereby surprising him and forcing him to continue reacting, except that now, he knows not what you will do next, and because his forces are deployed to deflect your alleged plans, he is unable to reposition them quickly enough to respond to your new movements.’
Jambavan’s eyes bored into each one in turn as he looked around at the war council. ‘Rama means to use the precept of shima to feed Ravana information regarding our war plans, giving out all our military secrets to the lord of rakshasas and setting us up for an even greater massacre than the one we suffered last night.’
EIGHT
There was dead silence for a long moment as everyone absorbed the bear king’s words.
Finally, Sugreeva spoke. ‘A remarkable strategic manoeuvre. I have never heard of such a tactic in all my years. Is that what you intend, Rama?’
‘It is, my lord Sugreeva.’
Angad frowned and scratched his head unabashedly. ‘It sounds … complicated. Will it work?’
Lakshman gave him a withering look but refrained from answering that rhetorical query directly. Angad shrugged as if to say, Well, I didn’t want to admit that I don’t really understand a word of it.
General Satabali spoke, his age-ripened features cast in deep contemplation. ‘That is not the question to ask, Prince Angad. The questions to ask are, “How may this be accomplished?”, by which I mean how may we pass on our plans to Ravana, and more pertinently, “What are those plans to be?’’ ’
Rama said quietly. ‘The plans are the same we discussed yesterday evening at our war conference. They were designed for a direct siege-assault on Lanka’s forces at the gates of the city. The triple formation, the order of attack, the flank troop movements, the counter-circling … we shall let Ravana believe that all that information is the sum total of all we have planned for the forthcoming battle today.’
General Satabali stared in dismay. ‘Our entire battle plan? But Rama—’
Rama held up a hand, palm outwards. ‘Before you say anything further, my good general, you should know that the plan we are speaking of—yes, our entire battle plan—is already in the enemy’s possession. It has already been delivered to Ravana, and even now, the spies who transported that information are back amongst us, sniffing out more intelligence.’
He gestured at the open clearing in which they stood, bordered on all sides by a dense thicket of a mixture of trees and foliage. Their gathering stood in the very centre of the open area, several dozen yards from the nearest tree or rock. Hanuman knew why, as Rama had asked him to scout out and find a place meeting these requirements before summoning the war council to this spot.
‘Why do you think I chose this location for our conference? Even now, eager eyes watch us.’
Angad started, twisting around,
his eyes popping. ‘Spasas! Among us? Impossible! My angadiyas would sniff out a rakshasa a mile away, even before it approached our ranks. So would any vanar for that matter.’ At a growl from Kambunara, he added hastily, ‘And any bear too, I have no doubt!’
Rama met Hanuman’s eyes. ‘But what if they do not smell or look or act like rakshasas? What if they appear to be, to all intents and purposes, vanars, no different from your own people?’
‘Vanars?’ Sugreeva asked, then sighed plaintively. ‘Yes, I have heard of this from the olduns. There is a line of rakshasas capable of altering their shape and outward appearance. But what of the smell, Rama? How can they make themselves smell like us?’
‘Why don’t we ask them how, my lord Sugreeva?’ Rama said simply. He nodded at Hanuman. ‘Flush out our rakshasa spies.’
Hanuman rose into the air, hovering a couple of yards above the others. Suspended in the air, visible to anyone watching from the thicket around them, he issued a sharp, piercing whistle. It was the pre-arranged signal.
At once, a flurry of movement exploded in the trees to the south-west of the clearing. Leaves and twigs flew and fell to the ground, as a brief, violent struggle broke out in the upper branches of the trees bordering the clearing. The shrieking of outraged vanars carried all the way to the council. The struggle did not last long, because, Hanuman knew, the trap had been laid carefully and shrewdly. The one thing the spies had not been expecting was to be spied on themselves! Yet again, he admired Rama’s ingenuity as a warrior as well as a master strategist of warcraft. When he had carried his lord down from the ramparts, Rama had done more than restore strength and courage to his tortured soul; he had given him simple, explicit instructions about a dozen chores to be carried out at once. The work had cleared his addled brain more effectively than any hours-long pravachan.
He marvelled at Rama’s sharpness. Even his own preternatural powers of perception had not sensed the presence of the spasas the previous evening. Yet Rama had, and had devised a plan even while dealing with a hundred other details as well as the terrible tragedy of the night before. That itself infused Hanuman with new strength: to be guided by such a leader was sufficient to instil shakti in the weakest warrior.
A few moments later, a group of figures dropped from the trees to the ground below. One of them rolled and leaped up and attempted to flee, but was quickly caught once again, subdued, and bound tightly. From this distance, all the parties involved looked exactly like vanars. And even as the captors forced their struggling, cheekaing prisoners to march towards the war council in the clearing, there was no way to tell them apart. Hanuman sniffed the air carefully, but all he scented was indication that the prisoners had been consuming a diet that would be considered unorthodox, even repulsive, to a Kiskindha vanar. Which could be said of almost any of the variegated tribes of vanars that were part of the great collective of Rama’s patchwork army.
As the group of vanar captors and prisoners came closer, he heard the other generals exclaim. He knew what they were wondering at: the three vanars who were herding the two captives were none other than the same Kiskindha spies whose lives King Sugreeva had spared after their assassination attempt on his life, at Rama’s request. They had cowered, fearful for their lives that day on Mount Rishimukha. Today, they strutted boldly, their faces bright with pride at having accomplished their given task. They stopped within a few yards of Rama and the war council, forcing the two captive vanars to their feet. The prisoners bared their teeth and issued low growls but complied. One of them, a mangy-looking vanar with buck teeth and a chewed-up tail, glanced fearfully at Hanuman. Evidently, they feared him the most of this assemblage. That was to be expected, for if they were rakshasas they certainly knew of his rampage in Lanka just two days ago. And after the night of the killing stones, not just they, but any rakshasa in Lanka had good reason to fear Hanuman’s wrath. He could feel his body expanding involuntarily as his pulse raced. It would bring him great satisfaction to grow to giant size, take these two wretched infiltrators in his fists and pound them on the stone ramparts that had slaughtered so many of his compatriots, staining that sorcerous stone with their cursed blood. But Rama’s orders had been quiet yet clear: the spies were not to be harmed in any way.
Their captives pinned to the ground, and placed under the baleful eye of Hanuman himself, the three vanars who had not long ago sought to take King Sugreeva’s life now came forward and prostrated themselves before him. ‘My lord,’ said the spokesman for the trio, a heavy-shouldered vanar with a dark blackish-brown pelt. ‘As instructed, we watched them through the night.’
Angad stepped forward incredulously, sniffing curiously at the captives. ‘You watched these spasas through the night of the killing stones?’
The leader nodded. ‘Such were Lord Rama’s instructions. No matter what happens, keep the spasas in our sight always.’
Lakshman nodded. ‘Rama told me to pass on those instructions last evening before we assembled for the war council.’
Hanuman spoke up. ‘And I was the one who flew and found our own Kiskindha spasas and passed on the instructions.’
King Sugreeva stroked his white beard bemusedly. ‘These three are familiar. Are they not … ?’
Rama nodded. ‘The same three men that Vali sent to assassinate you on Rishimukha, claw-tips stained with blackjuice poison.’
‘The vanars you pardoned,’ said the old vanar Plaksa, who was leaning on a hickory staff, his ancient face lined with age and pain, for he suffered greatly from the ailments of age—his companion, Sugreeva’s other adviser Prabhava, had perished in the night, crushed between two piles of fusing rock. ‘ “If an enemy respects you more than he respects his own cause or leader, make of him an ally, not an enemy.” Those were the words of the ancient vanar Manasi from the Satya Yuga. Today, Rama has proved them true.’ Despite his shaky voice and weak lungs, the old vanar’s words still carried a great reverence, as did his rheumy eyes which fixed adoringly upon Rama. Hanuman felt a surge of pride through his heart and veins. To hear Rama praised by Kiskindha’s greatest ancient tutor of artha and dharma was a great thing indeed!
Rama inclined his head, acknowledging the tribute. ‘Gurudev,’ he said, using the highest tribute a mortal Arya could address to a learned one, ‘you honour me by comparing my expedient battlefield decision to the wisdom of your ancient forebear.’ He performed a perfect namaskaram to the ancient vanar. ‘With your blessings, may the rest of my hastily devised plan prove as fruitful.’
Plaksa’s wizened features contorted. It took Hanuman a moment to understand that the ancient tutor and adviser was attempting a rare smile! ‘My lord Rama, even Skanda and Ganesa commanding the armies of the devas, with Indra riding Airavata in the first rank, would be hard-pressed to oppose you on this battlefield or any other. It is your karma to wage this battle of dharma.’
Rama did not question or spend more time on this cryptic response. Instead, he asked the leader of the Kiskindha spasas to continue his debriefing. He asked him to be quick and to the point for already the first rays of daylight were showing over the peaks of the rolling hill ranges of Lanka.
The heavy-shouldered vanar explained. ‘Our great brother Hanuman told us that Lord Rama had scented spasas in our midst, disguised as vanars. We were to scent them out and keep a close watch on them night and day, no matter what happened, until Rama called for us to apprehend them and bring them to him. We found them easily, for their scent was unusual, as if,’ he paused briefly to sniff loudly, as if seeking words to describe the scent in question, ‘they had been feeding on spoilt berries and grapes that even Dadimukha, master of the gardens of Vrindavan, would not have used to make his honey-wine.’
Vibhisena spoke up. ‘They are the result of an old breeding experiment by Ravana in the Bhayanak-van. A cross-breed between rakshasa and vanar that turned out to be more vanar than rakshasa. Even their brood-mother Tataka scorned them and they would have become food for their other hybrid siblings, as happened wi
th so many other unsuccessful cross-breeds. But Ravana found them “interesting” he said, and ordered them brought to Lanka. Even then he knew that some day he would find a use for them as spies, no doubt.’ Vibhisena shook his head in wonderment at his brother’s great strategic mind. ‘They are vanars in every outward sense, but their inner organs resemble those of rakshasas more, and so do their feeding and mating habits.’ He paused, sniffing disdainfully. ‘That is the reason for their off-putting scent.’ He added uncomfortably, ‘Ravana determined these things by dissecting several of them and studying them closely. These two must be among the last who remain of the original litter.’ He gestured to the vanar who had been speaking. ‘Pray, continue.’
The Kiskindha vanar went on with his tale. Rama’s three spies had watched the two Lankan spies closely. The Lankans had spied on the war council, noting every detail of strategy with avid hunger. Later, when the killing stones began their terrible slaughter, the Lankans had scampered in the direction of the capital city, and the Kiskindha vanars had followed. A pause and an inflection in the spy’s voice revealed his emotional reaction to the massacre of the night before, and Hanuman could imagine how hard it must have been for the trio to stick to their appointed task in the face of such unexpected horrors. The spy continued, explaining how the two Lankans had led them back to the city of Lanka and had been permitted to pass through. Determined to fulfil their orders to the letter, the three Kiskindhan vanars had managed to breach the Lankan defences and enter the city as well, though the vanar did not explain in detail how they accomplished this task. ‘The guards were overconfident, the walls were high,’ he said scornfully, ‘but the ground was soft and it was easy to dig beneath the walls.’
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 63