The Ramcharitmanas 3
Page 15
The monkey hosts grew distraught,
Till arrived Hanuman
Like valour in the midst of pity.
(61)
Joyfully, Ram embraced Hanuman,
For the Lord is exceeding grateful and supremely wise.
The doctor then immediately applied the remedy,
And Lakshman cheerfully rose and sat up.
The Lord clasped his brother to his heart,
And all the bears and monkeys rejoiced.
Hanuman then took the physician back to Lanka
In the same way that he had brought him away.
Dashanan heard of this incident,
And beat his head again and again in great distress.
Deeply agitated, he went to his brother, Kumbhakaran,
And after much effort, succeeded in waking him.
The Rakshasa awoke and sat up, looking
As though death itself sat there in bodily form.
Kumbhakaran asked Ravan, ‘Tell me, brother,
Why do you look so downcast?’
The arrogant Ravan told him the whole tale
Of how he had carried away Sita.
‘Dear brother, the monkeys have killed all the demons,
And slain warrior after great warrior.
Durmukh, the man-devouring Narantak, and the enemy of the gods, Devantak,
The mighty warriors, Atikaya and Akampan,
And other champions like Mahodar,
Have all fallen upon the field of battle, all these steadfast heroes.’
Upon hearing Dashkandhar’s words,
Kumbhakaran was infuriated.
‘You carried off the mother of the universe,
And now, fool, you expect success!
(62)
You have not acted well, king of the demons!
Why come now to wake me?
Even now, dear brother, abandon pride
And adore Ram—and you will prosper.
Is Raghunayak a mortal man, ten-headed Ravan,
He who has servants like Hanuman?
Ah brother, you made a mistake
In not coming and telling me this before.
You have defied that Supreme Lord
Whom Shiv, Viranchi and the other gods serve.
The knowledge which Muni Narad once imparted to me,
I would have told you, but now the time has passed.
Now embrace me, brother, for the last time,
For I go to reward my eyes with the sight
Of the dark-hued Lord with the lotus eyes,
Who removes the three-fold anguish of the triple fires.’
Remembering Ram’s beauty and perfection,
He was immersed in love for a moment.
Meanwhile, Ravan called for ten million pots of wine
And a great number of buffaloes.
(63)
After eating the buffaloes and drinking the wine,
Kumbhakaran roared like the crash of a lightning bolt,
And drunk with wine and flushed with battle frenzy,
He set forth from the fort, unaccompanied by any troops.
Seeing him, Vibhishan stepped forward,
And falling at his feet, called out his own name.
Kumbhakaran raised up his younger brother and clasped him to his heart,
Pleased to learn that he was a devotee of Raghupati.
‘Dear brother, Ravan kicked me
When I gave him advice that was for his own best good.
In that resentment I came to Raghupati,
And seeing me in distress, the Lord took me in his heart.’
‘Listen, dear brother, Ravan is in the grip of doom
And will now not heed the best advice.
Blessed are you, blessed, Vibhishan,
You have become the ornament of the demon clan,
And made bright our whole lineage, brother,
By worshipping Ram, the ocean of beauty and bliss!
Giving up deceit in thought, word and deed,
Worship Ram, the resolute in battle.
Now go—for in the grip of death, brother,
I can no longer tell who is my own.’
(64)
At his brother’s words, Vibhishan left
And went to Ram, the ornament of the three worlds.
‘Lord, Kumbhakaran approaches, that warrior
Colossal as a mountain and steadfast in battle.’
The monkeys did not wait to hear more,
But rushed with cries of joy, those mighty warriors,
And uprooting trees and mountains,
Hurled them at him, gnashing their teeth in fury.
Tens of millions of mountain peaks, one after another,
Did the bears and monkeys hurl at him,
But neither did his spirit falter, nor did his body move from its position—
He was like an elephant being pelted with seeds.
Then the Wind’s son struck him with his fist,
So that he fell to the ground and beat his head in annoyance.
Rising again, he struck Hanumant,
Who spun round and fell to the ground.
He then hurled Nal and Nil to the ground,
And knocked down warriors on every side.
The monkey army began to flee and scatter,
So afraid and terrified that none dared face him.
Rendering Angad and the other monkeys,
Including Sugriv, unconscious,
He tucked the king of the monkeys under his arm
And went off, that culmination of unparalleled strength.
(65)
Uma, Raghupati enacts the part of a human being
In the same way that Garud might play with snakes.
He, by the mere raising of an eyebrow, can destroy Time itself—
So why then does he engage in such a war?
It is because the fame of it, when spread abroad, sanctifies the world,
And takes all men who sing of it across the ocean of this existence.
When the Wind’s son recovered from his swoon, he awoke,
And began at once to search for Sugriv.
Sugriv, too, awoke from his swoon,
And slipped out from under Kumbhakaran’s arm—who had believed him to be dead
And realized he had escaped only when he bit off his nose and ears—
And rose, roaring, into the sky.
Grabbing his foot, Kumbhakaran hurled him to the ground,
But swiftly Sugriv rose again and struck him,
And then returned to the Lord, that mighty hero,
Crying, ‘Victory, victory to the most merciful God.’
Realizing that his nose and ears had been bitten off,
Kumbhakaran turned back, furious and distressed.
Seeing him thus—inherently frightening, and now without ears and nose—
The monkey troops were terrified.
‘Victory, victory, victory to the jewel of the Raghu clan!’
Whooped the monkeys rushing forward,
And hurled at him all together
A hail of boulders and trees.
(66)
Kumbhakaran, steeped in the rage of battle,
Advanced upon them like furious death itself.
He caught and devoured millions upon millions of monkeys,
Like insects swallowed up by a mountain cave.
He caught and crushed tens of millions against his body,
And countless others he crushed between his palms and mixed with the dust on the ground,
While multitudes of the bears and monkeys he had swallowed
Poured out through his mouth and nose and ears and fled.
Drunk on the wine of war, the demon arrogantly
Devoured the whole world as though the Creator had offered it to him.
The monkey warriors all fled the battlefield and refused to return,
They could neither see with their eyes nor hear any call to rally.
When
they heard that Kumbhakaran had scattered the monkey army,
The demon hosts rushed forth.
Ram saw his own army was in trouble,
And that enemy troops of every description had arrived.
‘Listen, Sugriv, Vibhishan, Lakshman,
Rally your troops,
While I test the might of this wretch’s army,’
Said the lotus-eyed one.
(67)
With his bow, Sarang, in his hand, and a quiver at his waist,
Raghunath set forth to destroy the enemy host.
First the Lord twanged his bow,
And the enemy troops were deafened by the sound.
Then the steadfast one let loose a hundred thousand arrows,
Which flew like black-winged serpents.
As the dreadful iron bolts flew everywhere,
The mighty demon warriors began to fall.
Feet, torsos, heads and limbs were severed,
And innumerable warriors were cut into a hundred pieces.
The wounded spun round and round and fell to the ground,
But, valiant warriors, they rose and joined the fight again.
Struck by the arrows, they roared like storm clouds,
And many ran away merely at the sight of those cruel shafts.
Torsos without heads rushed furiously around,
To cries of ‘Seize! Seize! Kill! Kill!’
In an instant, the Lord’s arrows
Cut down the fearsome demons.
Then into Raghubir’s quiver,
All his arrows returned.
(68)
When Kumbhakaran saw for himself
That Ram had wiped out the demon army in an instant,
That mighty warrior grew exceedingly wrathful,
And let out a roar as deep and loud as a lion’s.
Furious, he tore out mountains by their roots,
And hurled them at the mighty monkey warriors.
The Lord, seeing the enormous rocks coming,
Shattered them with his arrows to dust.
Raghunayak, wrathful, drew his bow again,
And let fly a great number of his fierce arrows.
They went through Kumbhakaran’s body,
Like lightning through dense clouds.
The blood flowing from his black form shone like
Rivulets of ochre issuing forth from a black mountain.
Seeming him in distress, the bears and monkeys rushed forward—
But he laughed when they drew near.
With a tremendous roar
He caught millions upon millions of the monkeys
And, like an enormous elephant, dashed them to the ground,
Whilst invoking ten-headed Ravan.
(69)
Crowds of bears and monkeys fled
Like herds of sheep at the sight of a wolf.
And as the monkeys and bears, Bhavani, fled
Distraught with fear, they cried out in their distress.
‘This Rakshasa is like a famine
That wants to lay waste the land that is the monkey host!
O Ram! Kharari! Rain-bearing cloud of compassion!
Save us, protect us, you who relieve the sorrow of the suppliant!’
The instant he heard these piteous words, the divine Lord
Set forth, armed with his bow and arrows.
Pushing his army behind him,
The most mighty Ram marched forth full of anger.
Drawing his bow he fitted a hundred arrows to the string—
The shafts, loosed, disappeared into the demon’s body.
Struck by the arrows, he rushed forward, full of rage—
The mountains swayed and the earth shook as he ran.
He pulled up a mountain by the root—
The glory of the Raghu clan cut off that arm of his.
He rushed forward with the enormous rock in his left hand—
But the Lord cut off that arm too, and it fell to the ground.
With his arms cut off, the Rakshasa looked
Like Mount Mandar without its wings.
Fiercely he glared at the Lord,
As though ready to devour the three worlds.
Giving a most dreadful yell,
He rushed forward with his mouth wide open,
So that the Siddhas and gods in the sky
Cried out piteously in terror.
(70)
The abode of mercy, realizing that the gods were terrified,
Drew the string of his bow to his ear,
And filled the demon’s mouth with arrows.
Even then, that mighty Rakshasa did not fall to the ground,
But, with his mouth full of arrows, rushed forward
Like Death’s quiver endowed with life.
Then the Lord, full of anger, took a sharp arrow,
And separated his head from his body.
That head fell in front of the ten-headed one,
Who became as distraught as a cobra that has lost its jewel.
The earth sank beneath the weight of the terrible torso that still rushed about,
Till the Lord cut it in two.
The pieces fell upon the ground like two mountains from the sky,
Crushing beneath them monkeys, bears and demons.
His spirit entered the Lord’s mouth,
Which gods, munis and all regarded a marvel.
The gods beat their drums, rejoicing,
And singing the Lord’s praises, rained down flowers.
After paying him homage, the gods all departed,
And at that very moment, the divine rishi, Narad, arrived.
From high in the sky, he sang of Hari’s perfections,
And his bright song of valour delighted the Lord’s heart.
‘Now quickly destroy that scoundrel,’ said the muni and departed,
As Ram stood shining upon the field of battle.
Upon the battlefield shone Raghupati,
Of unequalled strength, the king of Koshal,
With beads of toil upon his face, his lotus eyes
Reddened, and body flecked with blood.
With both hands he toyed with his bow and arrows,
The bears and monkeys crowding all around him.
Even Shesh, who has countless tongues, cannot describe
His beauty—so says Tulsidas, his servant.
To that vile demon, accumulation of every impurity,
Did Ram give a place in his own abode.
Girija, dull-witted indeed are those men
Who do not worship the beautiful and gracious Ram.
(71)
At the end of the day the two armies turned back.
The day’s battle had deeply wearied the warriors,
But by Ram’s grace the strength of the monkey host was renewed
As a fire blazes up when fed with straw.
The demon numbers dwindled night and day,
Like the merit of one’s good deeds diminishes when related by one’s own lips.
Dashkandhar greatly lamented his brother’s death,
Clasping his head again and again to his heart.
Women wept and beat their breasts with their hands,
Praising his immense majesty and might.
At that moment, Meghnad came,
And consoled his father with many tales.
‘Watch my gallantry tomorrow—
How can I praise it just now?
I have received from Shiv, my chosen god, magical powers and a chariot,
Which, dear father, I have not yet shown you.’
While they bragged and blustered in this way, day broke,
And hordes of monkeys attacked the four gates.
On one side were the monkeys and bears, resolute as death,
On the other, the night-wandering demons, utterly steadfast in war.
The mighty heroes fought for victory, each for his own side—
The battle, O king of the birds, defies description.
Meghnad mounted his magic chariot
And rose up into the sky
With a thunderous laugh
That terrified the monkey host.
(72)
Spears, javelins, swords, knives,
Scimitars, battle-axes, hatchets, clubs, boulders—
He let fly weapons and missiles of every kind,
And then began to rain down arrows countless in number.
The sky was dark with arrows falling in every direction,
As though monsoon clouds in the month of Magh had brought incessant rain.
Cries of ‘Seize, seize, kill!’ filled every ear,
But no one could tell who it was that struck them!
Grabbing trees and mountains, the monkeys rushed up into the sky,
But they could not see him and fell back disappointed,
And Meghnad, with his magic powers, filled
Every crooked valley, path and mountain cave with arrows.
‘Where do we run?’ cried the monkeys in a panic,
All as helpless as Mount Mandar imprisoned by Indra.
Hanuman, Angad, Nil, Nal, and every mighty warrior,
Meghnad made uneasy with fear and dismay.
At Lakshman, Sugriv and Vibhishan,
He shot his arrows, piercing their bodies full of holes.
He then engaged with Raghupati himself,
And the arrows he loosed turned to snakes as they struck,
And he, the destroyer of Khar, eternal and immutable, and subject only to his own will,
Was overpowered by the serpents’ coils.
Like a conjuror, he performs many delusive acts,
He, the One, the Absolute, the ever self-willed God.
It was to enhance the battle’s glory that the Lord allowed himself to be bound
By the serpent snares, but the gods grew afraid.
By repeating whose name, Girija,
Munis sever the bonds of rebirth,
Can he ever be brought into bondage,
He, the all-pervading God, in whom dwells the Universe?
(73)
The deeds of the incarnate Ram, Bhavani,
Cannot be understood by strength of intellect or discussion.
Thus reflecting, those ascetics who perceive his true nature
Adore him completely, without argument or analysis.
Meghnad threw the monkey army into confusion,
And then revealed himself, hurling imprecations.
Jamvant cried, ‘Stay, you scoundrel!’