The Ramcharitmanas 3

by Tulsidas

  Harishchandra: Son of Trishanku and king of Ayodhya, the twenty-eighth in descent from Ishkvaku, founder of the solar dynasty. He was a just and virtuous king, and famed for his generosity. There are several legends about him. The Mahabharata says that he was raised to Indra’s heaven for his performance of the Rajasuya sacrifice (a fire-sacrifice that may be performed only by the greatest of kings) and his immense generosity. The Markandeya Purana gives a fuller version of the story: One day, while Harishchandra was out hunting, he heard the cries of several women in distress. The king rushed to help, but the cries were an illusion created by Vighnaraj, the god of obstacles. At that time, the sage Vishvamitra was observing strict penance in the forest. Vighnaraj, to test Harishchandra’s goodness, entered his body, and the moment he did so, the king lost his temper and began to loudly curse and hurl abuse at Vishvamitra. This angered the sage, who, because of his anger lost all the power he had acquired through years of penance. Vishvamitra was now furious with Harishchandra, and the king, seeing his wrath, begged for forgiveness. In return, the sage demanded the sacrificial gift that would be due to him as a Brahman for the performance of a Rajasuya sacrifice. The king agreed, and promised to give him whatever he would choose to ask. Vishvamitra demanded that the king give him everything he possessed. The king agreed and handed over all his material possessions to the sage, including his kingdom and the clothes he wore, so that he had remaining only his own body, a garment of bark, his wife, Shaivya, and his son, Rohit. The king, now destitute, left for the city of Banaras. But the sage was waiting for him there, and demanded that the gift be completed. In despair, Harishchandra sold his wife and his son, and handed over the proceeds to Vishvamitra. Now there remained only himself. Just then, Dharma, the god of justice, appeared in the form of a low-caste Chandal, and offered to buy him. When Vishvamitra still insisted upon the completion of his gift, the king sold himself to the Chandal and gave the money to the sage. His new master put Harishchandra in charge of a cremation ground, with strict instructions to be always present there and to allow cremation only after the payment of a toll. The honest king did exactly as his master commanded. As the months passed, his appearance grew dishevelled, and he lost all hope of ever seeing his wife and son again. One day, Rohit was bitten by a snake and died. His grieving mother carried his body to the cremation ground. The king and the queen recognized each other, and exchanging stories, were overcome with grief. They decided to immolate themselves upon the funeral pyre of their son. Harishchandra made ready a great pyre upon which he placed Rohit’s body, and once all was done, he lost himself in contemplation of Vishnu. At this, the gods all appeared and asked him to stop, and bringing Rohit back to life, told him that he, his wife and his son had all won a place in heaven because of his steadfastness in fulfilling his promise to Vishvamitra. But Harishchandra was hesitant. He could not go to heaven without his master, the Chandal’s permission. At this, the Chandal appeared and revealed himself to be Dharma. Harishchandra still refused, saying he could not leave behind his faithful subjects, in turmoil without a king. So Indra, Dharma and Vishvamitra took the king, his wife and his son to Ayodhya. There, Vishvamitra crowned Rohit king of Koshal, after which Harishchandra and his wife Shaivya were taken to heaven.

  Hataklochan: ‘The golden-eyed’, a powerful Daitya chief, son of Diti by the sage Kashyap, and twin brother of Kanakakasipu; he was killed by Vishnu in his third, Boar, incarnation. Hataklochan had dragged the earth to the bottom of the sea. In order to recover the earth, Vishnu took the form of a boar, and after a battle that lasted a thousand years, he killed Hataklochan and carried the earth back to the surface on his tusks. He is also known as Hiranyaksh and Kanakalochan.

  Himvat; Himvant; Himalaya: ‘Snow-clad’; the personification of the Himalaya mountains, husband of Maina, and father of Ganga and Uma (Parvati). He is also called Himachal, Himbhudar, Himgiri, Tuhinachal, Tuhingiri, ‘snowy mountain’; Girish, ‘mountain king’ or ‘king of the mountain’, a title he sometimes shares with Shiv.

  humours of the body: In the Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine, the body is regarded as having three humours (or bodily fluids) in addition to blood. The three humours are vat or (wind), pitt (bile) and kaph (phlegm). All organic disorders of the body arise from an imbalance in these humours.

  Ikshvaku: Founder of the solar dynasty, and king of Ayodhya at the beginning of the Tretayug or second age of the world. He had a hundred sons, of whom one was Nimi, who founded the Mithila dynasty.

  Indra: God of the firmament, personification of the atmosphere; king of the gods. His consort is Indrani (also known as Shachi); he has a son by her, called Jayant. His heaven is Swarga; his capital is Amaravati; his elephant is Airavat; and his horse is Uchchaihsravas. His charioteer is Matali. In the Vedas, he is one of the most important of the gods, though he is not unbegotten/uncreated but has a father and a mother. He is described in the Vedas as a being of golden colour, with arms of enormous length. His forms are infinite and he can take any shape at will. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by two ruddy horses with flowing tails and manes. His weapon is the thunderbolt, which he carries in his right hand; he also uses arrows, a hook and a net in which he entangles his enemies. His chief delight is soma ras, the extremely potent juice of the soma plant, which he drinks in enormous quantities. He controls the weather, dispenses rain, and sends down lightning and thunder. He is constantly at war with Vritra, the demon of drought and bad weather, whom he ultimately overcomes with his thunderbolts. In the later centuries, Indra’s importance decreased. He became less than the triad of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiv, but remained chief of all the other gods. According to the Mahabharata, he is the son of Aditi by Kashyap, and the foremost of the Adityas. He is the regent of the atmosphere and the guardian of the east quarter of the compass. He sends the lightning and hurls the thunderbolt, and the rainbow is his bow. He is represented as a fair-skinned man, riding a white horse or an elephant, and holding the thunderbolt in his hand. He is constantly at war with the Asurs, and is often defeated by them. He killed Vritra, but because Vritra was a Brahman, Indra had to go into hiding and perform penance till his guilt was purged away. There are many stories of his lack of self-restraint. He became infatuated with Ahalya, the beautiful and virtuous wife of the sage Gautam, and in his arrogance, decided to seduce her. He tricked the sage to leave the hermitage, and then taking on his form, seduced the unsuspecting Ahalya. The sage returned to see him leaving his house, and in fury cursed him so that he would be covered with the marks of a thousand yonis (the female organs of reproduction). Thus he was called Sa-yoni. But these marks were later changed to eyes, because of which he is also called Netra-yoni or Sahasraksha ‘the thousand-eyed’. He was defeated and carried off to Lanka by Ravan’s son, Meghnad (who thus received the title of Indrajit, ‘vanquisher of Indra’). Brahma and the other gods had to beg Meghnad to release him, which Meghnad did, in return for the boon of immortality. Brahma then tells Indra that his defeat was his punishment for seducing Ahalya. He is also known as Sakr, ‘the powerful’; Purandar, ‘destroyer of cities’; Pakripu, ‘destroyer of the demon Pak’; Maghva or Maghvan, ‘endowed with riches, wealthy’; Basav or Vasava, ‘lord of the Vasus’.

  Jabali: A Brahman, and a priest of King Dasharath. He is also called Javall.

  Jadu: One of the sons of King Yayati, from his wife Devyani. Jadu (or Yadu) refused to relieve his father of the curse of old age passed on to him by the Rishi Sukra, and was therefore cursed in turn by Yayati that his children will not have a kingdom to rule. He was the founder of the line of Jadavas (or Yadavas), in which Krishna was born. He did ultimately receive the southern part of his father’s kingdom, which the Jadavas went on to successfully rule.

  Jagbalik: A celebrated sage. To him is attributed the code of law called Yajnavalkyasmriti (from ‘Yajnavalkya’, the Sanskrit rendering of his name). He is believed to have flourished at the court of Janak, king of Videha and Sita’s father.

  Jam, Jamraj; Yam, Yamraj: The god
of death. He is the son of the sun god Surya and his wife Saranyu, and twin brother of the river Jamuna. He is represented as a man green in colour and clothed in red; he is armed with a huge mace and a noose. He rides upon a buffalo, because of which he is also called as Mahishesh, ‘the god whose steed is a mahish, or buffalo’. He is sometimes also called Shaman, ‘the destroyer’.

  jamana: From the Sanskrit yavana; originally denoted a Greek, an Ionian, and then came to mean any barbaric foreigner from the West.

  jambu: The rose-apple tree, also called jamun in Hindi.

  Jamuna; Yamuna: The river Jamuna (or Yamuna) is the daughter of the sun god Surya and his wife Saranyu, and the twin sister of Jam (or Yama), the god of death. While Jamraj is death, Jamuna is life and bathing in her waters absolves one of sin.

  Jamvant: King of the bears. With his army of bears, he helped Ram in his war against Ravan and was always ready with sage advice and good counsel. He is also called Jambavat.

  Janak: A prince of the solar dynasty, king of Mithila/Videha, and the father of Sita. Amongst his ancestors are the kings Ishkvaku and Nimi. Janak was known for his great knowledge and good works. It is said that Janak refused to submit to the hierarchical superiority of the Brahmans and insisted upon his right to perform fire-sacrifices without their intervention. He is also called Siradhwaja, ‘he whose banner is the plough’, because his daughter Sita appeared as a baby in the furrow he was ploughing in preparation for a fire-sacrifice to obtain children. He is also known as Videh, the title used for the kings of Videha. ‘Janak’ is also the name of a royal dynasty of Mithila to which he belonged. He is therefore also called Janakpati, or ‘lord of the Janak dynasty’.

  Jatayu: King of the vultures, and son of Garud, Vishnu’s steed. He is a friend of King Dasharath, and became an ally of Ram. He saw Ravan carrying away Sita and tried to stop him. In the ensuing battle, he was mortally wounded. Ram found him in time to hear his dying words and learn what had happened to Sita. Ram and Lakshman performed his last rites, and he ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.

  javas: The camel thorn. A small and prickly plant, it grows to about four feet in height. It has long spines along its branches and bright pink or reddish flowers. It is said to wilt at the coming of the rains and flourish only in dry soil.

  Jayant: Son of Indra, also called Jaya.

  jiva: The individual soul.

  jubaraj: Literally ‘young king’; an heir-apparent associated with the reigning sovereign, who assumes kingly duties while the king is still living.

  Kabandh: A hideous Rakshasa killed by Ram. He was originally a Gandharva, the son of the goddess Lakshmi. He is described as being covered with hair, as huge as a mountain, without head or neck, a mouth full of immense teeth in the middle of his belly and a single eye in his breast. According to some accounts, he was turned into this hideous monster as the result of a quarrel with Indra, who struck him with his thunderbolt and drove his head and thighs into his body. Another account says that he was cursed by the sage Durvasa. When mortally wounded, he asked Ram to burn him, and from that fire he came out in his original form as a Gandharva. He is also called Danu.

  kadamb: A tall, evergreen tree, with fragrant, globe-shaped orange flowers which are used in the preparation of perfumes; the tree also has great mythological and religious significance in India.

  Kadru: A daughter of Daksh, and one of the thirteen wives of the sage Kashyap. She is the mother of the serpents, including Sheshnag. Her offspring bear the metronymic Kadraveya.

  Kaikeya: A kingdom in the west, beyond the rivers Saraswati and Beas, and from which came Dasharath’s queen, Kaikeyi.

  Kaikeyi: A princess of Kaikeya, King Dasharath’s favourite queen, and the mother of Bharat, his second son.

  Kailash: A mountain in the Himalayas, north of the Mansarovar; it is the abode of Shiv, and also of Kuber, the god of wealth.

  Kalnemi: A Rakshasa, and Ravan’s uncle. At Ravan’s behest, he attempts to kill Hanuman.

  kalpa: A period of 4,320,000,000 years, equal to a day for Brahma. This is one cosmic cycle of creation, and is made up of a thousand cycles of the four ages, or yugas. (See also ‘ages of the world’.) According to the Puranas, there are innumerable such cycles of creation, and within them, in each cycle of the four yugas, there occurs one incarnation of Ram.

  Kalpataru: A tree in Indra’s paradise that grants all desires. It is also called Kamtaru, ‘tree of desire’.

  Kam: Literally, wish, desire, longing; affection, love, passion; sexual passion; lust; love of pleasure; and personified, the god of love, Kamdev. He is the son of Vishnu by Rukmini, and the husband of Rati, the goddess of desire. He is lord of the celestial nymphs, the apsaras. He is armed with a bow and five arrows: the bow is of sugarcane, the bowstring a line of bees, and each of his five arrows is tipped with a particular flower (the white lotus, the ashok flower, the mango blossom, the jasmine and the blue lotus), which pierce the heart through the five senses; his favourite arrow is the one tipped with the mango blossom. His helpers are Vasant or Spring, and Malayanil, the southern winds or the cool and fragrant winds that blow from the Malay mountain. He is usually represented as a handsome young man riding on a parrot, and attended by apsaras; one of the apsaras bears his banner, which displays the Makar (a fabulous sea creature that represents Capricorn in the Hindu zodiac, and is depicted with the head and forelegs of an antelope and the body and tail of a fish), or a fish on a red background. He is therefore also called Jhashketu, ‘one with a fish on his banner’. Once, as Shiv sat in meditation, Kamdev inspired him with thoughts of Parvati; Shiv, greatly angered by this impertinence, opened his third eye and reduced Kamdev to ashes. Later, Shiv relented and allowed him to be reborn as feelings. Kamdev therefore does not have a substantial form or body. He is thus called Anang and Atanu, or ‘bodiless’. He is also known as Hridayniket, ‘one whose abode is the heart’; Mayan or Madan, ‘passion, lust or love (or the act of intoxicating or exhilarating, or gladdening)’; Manmath, ‘he who churns the heart’; Manobhav, ‘mind-born’; Manoj, ‘born of the mind’; Mansij, ‘born or generated in the mind, mind-born, heart-born’; Mar, the passion of love, personified. As husband to Rati, he is known as Ratinath, ‘Rati’s lord’. He is also called Kandarp.

  Kamadgiri: Literally, ‘the mountain that fulfils all desires’; the hill in Chitrakut upon which Ram stayed.

  Kamdhenu: ‘The cow that grants all desires’; she belongs to the sage Vasishtha and was one of the fourteen precious objects recovered at the churning of the ocean.

  Kanakakasipu: ‘Golden-robed’; a powerful Daitya chief, son of the sage Kashyap and his wife Diti, and twin brother to Hataklochan. As the result of practising severe austerities, he obtained from Shiv sovereignty over the three worlds for a million years, as well as immunity from death by man and beast. He grew so arrogant in his power that he declared that no one may worship any god but him. When his son, Prahlad, remained steadfastly devoted to Vishnu, he punished him and tried to kill him several times, but in vain. He was finally killed by Vishnu in his fourth avatar as Narsingh or Narkeshari, who was half-man, half-lion, and thus neither man nor beast. He is also called Hiranyakashipu.

  kanji: A sour drink made by steeping mustard seeds in water and letting it ferment.

  Kapil: A celebrated sage, the founder of the Sankhya philosophy. He reduced the sixty-thousand sons of King Sagar to ashes with a single glance.

  kapila cow: A brown or reddish-coloured cow, considered in Hinduism to be the most sacred of all cows. A number of Hindu pilgrimage sites are linked to cows, some specifically to the brown cow. Several of these sites are mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. According to the Puranas, the gift of a kapila cow is equal to the giving away of a whole world in charity and confers upon the giver an assured place in Vishnu’s heaven for as many thousand years as there are hairs upon the body of that cow and her calf, and after that time is over, it guarantees rebirth into a rich and wealthy family. Gifts of land, horses, gold, etc.,
do not equal in virtue even a sixteenth of the gift of a kapila cow.

  Karamnasa: A river that flows through the holy city of Kashi; bathing in its waters destroys all merit (as opposed to bathing in the waters of the Ganga, which destroys all sin).

  karila: A thorny, leafless shrub that grows in arid regions.

  karma: Fate, or the certain consequence of previous acts; destiny.

  Kashi: The city of Varanasi. It is sacred to Shiv, and one of the most holy of all pilgrimage places for Hindus. It is believed that those who die in Kashi immediately attain liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth.

  Kashyap: A Vedic sage, to whom are attributed some of the Vedic hymns. According to the Atharva Veda, he was ‘self-born’ and sprang into existence from Time. According to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, he was descended from Brahma. All authorities agree that he played a significant role in creation. The Mahabharata and later sources say that he married Aditi, and twelve other daughters of Daksh. From Aditi were born the celestial Adityas, headed by Indra, and also Visaswat, from whom was born Manu, the progenitor of all mankind. The Ramayana and Vishnu Purana state that Vishnu in his dwarf incarnation was the son of Aditi and Kashyap. From Kashyap’s twelve other wives were born demons, serpents, reptiles, birds and all living things. He is also one of the Saptarishi, the seven great sages.