The Ramayana Read online

  10. The legend of Vamana

  After they had walked for a day and some hours, Rama pointed ahead. “I see a green wood under the mountain. Deer herds, dark as clouds, move across the foothills and songs brim from thousands of birds. What forest are we approaching, Muni? My heart grows so glad at its very sight.”

  Viswamitra smiled to himself and said, “Once Lord Vishnu came as a Dwarf to quell the Asura Mahabali. He did tapasya in this place, before he asked Bali for three paces of land.”

  Rama’s eyes misted over, as if mention of that legend stirred some deep memory in him. “Tell us about Vamana and Mahabali, Swami.”

  Viswamitra said, “Mahabali was the greatest king the world ever knew. He was an Asura; but his bhakti and his dharma were immaculate. He vanquished all the other Danava monarchs of the earth and the sky. He conquered the Maruts and Indra himself, and announced that he would hold a yagna to have himself crowned emperor of Swarga, Bhumi, and Patala.

  “Led by Agni, the Fire God, the Devas came abjectly to Vishnu. He sat in tapasya in the asrama you see before you. Agni cried to Mahavishnu, ‘You must stop Bali before he becomes emperor. Indra is in exile and all his Devas with him. In their places, Bali has made his demons lords of the elements, the luminaries, and the planets. They rule time now.’

  “The Rishi Kashyapa said to Vishnu, ‘Lord, my wife Aditi grieves for her sons, whom the Asura has cast out from Devaloka. Wipe her tears, Narayana: be born as our child to end the sorrow of your people. Be born in this very place, and let it be known as Siddhasrama.’

  “Vishnu has always favored the Devas, in their endless wars against the Asuras. He said, ‘So be it.’

  “He was born from the mother of the Devas, Aditi, and Brahma’s saintly son, Kashyapa Prajapati, in Siddhasrama. The Lord was a brahmana, perfect in every limb and feature. But he was small, as if he belonged to another, finer race: a mankind in miniature. In that first human incarnation, he was called Vamana or Upendra. Straightaway, shining like gold, he went to Mahabali’s yagna.

  “Seeing the exquisite young brahmana, Mahabali rose. He was as much a king of the spirit as of the world. The Asura gazed in joy at the illustrious Dwarf, and said, ‘Welcome, young one; I am honored you have come to my sacrifice. You are as bright as a God and my heart insists that, though you have a human form, you are not of this earth. Ask me for anything and I will give it to you. For my very soul is anxious to please you!’

  “The Dwarf smiled so brilliantly at Virochana’s son that already Bali’s life went out to the Vamana. The diminutive brahmana said in a ringing voice, ‘Noble Mahabali, I would expect no less of you. These past months, the world speaks of nothing but your yagna. So I thought I would come and ask if I could have a small gift from you.’

  “‘Anything, wonderful one.’

  “But the Vamana held up a hand in caution, ‘I will ask for but little, Bali. But be sure you give me what I ask.’

  “The king smiled indulgently at the boy he thought was just a fabulous child. ‘It is my great fortune that you have come to ask me for a gift. Whoever you are, I feel my life is complete only now that I have seen you. Ask me for anything. Be it my treasury or granary, my army or my very kingdom: just ask and it shall be yours.’

  “The dazzling smile played on the boy’s lips again. He said sweetly, ‘I have no use for your treasury or your granary, your army or your kingdom, for mine is a life of tapasya. My only need is for a piece of earth to sit upon in prayer. Give me three strides of land, Bali, that I can cover with these legs of mine.’

  “Mahabali was amused. He said in kindly patronage, ‘Of course. You shall have them now.’

  “Bali reached for the sacred water that sanctifies the gift, the giver, and the receiver. But Sukracharya, his guru, said, ‘Bali, this is no child. He is the Truth that not even Brahma, the Devas, or the yogis can fathom. This is Narayana who has come to your yagna. If you give him what he asks, you will die.’

  “But Bali would not listen, for Vamana had come to deliver him to a far greater kingdom than any in the world. An unearthly light shone upon the Asura’s face also, and he said to Sukra, ‘If he is Narayana, my yagna will succeed beyond my dreams’

  “Bali’s queen poured the water into his palms, and he solemnly gave away the three paces of land the Dwarf had asked for. But the instant the holy water touched Vamana’s hands, the tiny brahmana began to grow. He grew into his Viswarupa, his cosmic form. With his first stride, Rama, he crossed the earth; with his next, he covered the heavens. Then he stood refulgent before Mahabali and said, ‘Where shall I set my third stride, Bali? My foot is raised.’

  “The Asura was a great bhakta. Tears streaming down his face, Mahabali bent his head and cried to the Vamana, ‘Set your third stride upon my head, Lord.’

  “The Vamana set his foot on Mahabali’s head. With the ecstasy of redemption, he thrust the Asura, who would have been emperor of the worlds, down into Patala; down to eternal kingdom and peace.”

  Viswamitra paused for a moment. They had drawn near the asrama. He pointed. “In that tapovana to which your hearts thrill, Vishnu set Mahabali free. And there is my asrama. It is this immortal place the rakshasas desecrate with their filth.”

  With the princes at his side, Viswamitra strode into the asrama of vibrant peace. They were like the moon flanked by the Punarvasu stars, risen into a clear night. The other rishis of the hermitage gathered around their master and the saviors he had brought to deliver them from Maricha and Subahu.

  The princes of Ayodhya rested only briefly after their long journey. Then they came to Viswamitra, and Rama said quietly, “Resume your yagna, Muni; you will not be interrupted.”

  The same night, Viswamitra took diksha again. Rama and Lakshmana slept peacefully through that first night. The next morning, they rose before the sun, as dawn clutched at the horizon for a fingerhold. They bathed and came before the brahmarishi. He sat quiescent on a seat of darbha grass, after he had worshipped Agni Deva, who conveys burnt offerings to all the other Gods.

  11. A yagna completed

  Viswamitra had taken mowna, a vow of silence, for six days. Rama and Lakshmana stood watch over Siddhasrama. After their encounter with Tataka, they were eager for the rakshasas to appear. Day and night they stood in vigil, their bows in their hands, fitted loosely with arrows so the demons would not take them unawares. They guarded the asrama as eyelids do the eyes.

  Five days went by, and Viswamitra’s rishis said to the kshatriyas, “Today they will come. It is the last day and these rakshasas know the yagna well.”

  The fire in the yagnashala burned high. As he sat before the flames, Viswamitra’s chiseled face seemed to be made of stone. The other rishis sat around Viswamitra. The chanting of the Vedas rose like smoke from the fire. August and sonorous, it spread through the world on subtle frequencies. Those timeless mantras brought a powerful healing upon the earth.

  It was almost evening of the last day of the yagna. Suddenly, a lewd clap of sound shattered the sacral silence. A pungent darkness fell on the yagnashala, an unclean night of the elements and the spirit. Chilling shrieks and wild laughter rent the air. The two rakshasas had arrived with their bizarre clan. Maricha and Subahu were used to meeting no opposition when they came to Siddhasrama, and they had not bothered to make themselves invisible. They came as they were: devils of the forest, ugly as sin. They came in a swath of putrescence and a rain of excrement, rotting meat, and stinking blood. They came, the flesh of some of them obscenely bared, to violate the soul of the sacrifice.

  Rama and Lakshmana had waited five days. Rama invoked the manavastra he had recently acquired, and shot an arrow into Maricha’s chest, crying, “Let me never see you again or you die!” The arrow lifted the shocked rakshasa off his feet. It carried him through the air, aflame, screaming. It carried him past the wind for a hundred yojanas and doused him in the distant sea. But it did not kill him.

  In the silence that followed you could hear, again, just the deep chan
ting of the Veda. Maricha’s rakshasas and lean, tree-tall Subahu stood open-mouthed, their long fangs plain. The heathen screams had died in their throats; their rain of filth had ceased around them. But the prince of Ayodhya, the guardian of Viswamitra’s yagna, did not wait for the stunned demons to recover. Like blue lightning, Rama invoked an agneyastra and, in a wink, made a heap of ashes of lanky Subahu. Quicker than thinking, he undid the mortal elements of the rest of the horde with a vayavyastra of Vayu, the Wind God. The weapon blew them apart as a gale would a dust heap in its path.

  Shouldering his bow, Rama said, “Did you see, Lakshmana, the first astra was a compassionate one. The manavastra did not kill Maricha; it only punished him with fire and water. It has purified him.”

  Lakshmana wondered that his brother saw to the very sea just briefly, for no miracle was beyond his Rama. The sacrifice at Siddhasrama was completed. In joy, Viswamitra called Rama.

  Embracing him, the rishi cried, “Rama of Ayodhya, your name shall be immortal! Men will remember you as long as the world exists. From yuga to yuga, your fame will be sung. The yagna you have helped me complete, in the teeth of evil, will bless the earth long ages after you and I are no more in it. Prince of light, today you have won a greater battle than you yourself yet know.”

  Viswamitra saw into the past and the future, as if they were plain before his eyes. The brahmarishi thought, “Not even Ravana of Lanka, who is evil incarnate, shall prevail against you, Rama. But I fear your way is long and fraught with sorrow, before you rid the earth of that rakshasa.”

  Viswamitra said nothing of these thoughts to the happy prince. He only joined the other rishis in crying, “Jaya vijayi bhava!” May you always be victorious.

  At the end of the day, Viswamitra said to Rama and Lakshmana, “In the city of Mithila, King Janaka is performing another kind of yagna. We are going to Janaka’s sacrifice and I want you to come with us. There is something there that should interest young warriors like yourselves. The bow of Siva lies in Mithila, like an arc of the sun. It lies in Janaka’s palace, worshipped with flowers, incense, and prayers.” He paused, then mused, “You know, no Deva or gandharva, no Asura or the mightiest kshatriya could ever lift Siva’s bow. Many tried, from heaven and earth; none of them moved that weapon by a hair’s width. Rama, you must see Siva’s bow in Mithila, it is a wonder upon the earth. We will set out tomorrow; Janaka’s yagna has already begun.”

  12. By the golden Sona

  The next day, there was an unusual leave-taking at Siddhasrama. Before they left the asrama, blessed forever by Viswamitra’s sacrifice, some extraordinary beings gathered in it to see them off. Many of them appeared out of thin air: colorful woodland spirits, lovely dryads and forest gods, vana devatas who were the guardians of the tapovana. Their bodies seemed to be made of leaves, bark, and green shoots, the glimmer of forest streams at twilight and living flesh of brown earth.

  They wore shining feathers or coats of butterfly wings and wildflowers, which grew from them as if from tree or ground; and some were clad just in the breeze. They had forms of light, shifting sky-dreams and shards of rainbows, and they came in a motley throng, singing old songs, dancing to rhythms as old as the forest. They came with their untamed hearts full of blessings for the princes who had released them from the tyranny of the rakshasas. That terror had taken root in their bright limbs, enslaving these delicate ones in torment, making all the forest an evil place. Now they were free once more, and they came singing and dancing, and some even crying for joy.

  The animals of the jungle had also gathered to see the travelers off. Tigers came with herds of wide-eyed deer; in this charmed place they lived in peace, beyond the hunt. And other beasts came as well, small and great: elephants wise as mountains, vivid swarms of songbirds full of mellifluous delight, and swans and friendly geese from the jungle rivers and lakes. Some of the more frequent visitors to the asrama, who were like the rishis’ friends, had to be cajoled with many a promise that the munis would return soon. For they would set out, those innocent, wild creatures, as if they also meant to go with the journeying party. Even when the hermits and princes were well on their way, high above them they saw flights of familiar thrushes and swallows who would not be left behind. The paths of the air are freer than those of the earth!

  Viswamitra walked around the asrama thrice in pradakshina. Then he strode off into the brilliant day with long strides, while the others followed, smiling among themselves at the pace he set. Of course, nobody ever grew tired: the brahmarishi had long since taught them the bala and the atibala mantras. When the sun was low in the western sky, they came to the banks of the golden Sona, and Viswamitra called a halt for the night.

  The rishis bathed in the river, shot with saffron shafts of the setting sun. Standing in velvet water, they said their sandhya prayers. Then they gathered ripe fruit, mainly mangoes sweet as amrita, and lay on the green riverbank, chatting. They were full of quiet satisfaction that the sacrifice had been completed. It was a more profound achievement than any but the initiate could know. The munis were grateful the Lord of evil on earth had sent no fiercer force to disrupt such a powerful yagna as Viswamitra had undertaken. What few of his rishis knew was that Viswamitra had brought Rama and Lakshmana to his yagna not only to quell Maricha and Subahu, but to bless those princes themselves: so one day they would rid the earth of the Master of darkness himself, Ravana on his sinister throne.

  By now Rama and Lakshmana had grown so attached to Viswamitra they were never far from his side. Beside the river, Rama said quietly to the brahmarishi, “This is a rich country, Muni. Wherever they turn, my eyes see every shade of green. Tell me, whose kingdom is this?”

  With a glint in his eye, Viswamitra turned to face the prince. “Brahma had a son called Kusa, who was a rishi born from the Creator’s thought. He was a yogin, and he married a mortal king’s daughter, the princess of Videha, to ennoble the races of the earth. Four sons were born to them: Kusamba, Kusanabha, Adhurtarajas, and Vasu. Kusa told his sons to be kshatriyas on earth, and to rule.

  “Those half-human and half-divine sovereigns founded separate cities, and they had great lands around them they ruled over. This green country, Rama, is called Vasumati. Kusa’s youngest son, Vasu, ruled over this land and Girivraja was his capital.”

  The river whispered along beside them, as if it heard every word. The moon was rising in the east, and already his slanted rays set her currents alight. Viswamitra went on slowly while his rishis and the princes listened absorbed; he spoke with such quiet passion.

  “Five mountains grace the kingdom of Vasumati, and the river that springs in Magadha flows between them like a garland of pearls flung across the earth. Kusa’s eldest son, Kusanabha, had a hundred daughters by his seed, which was in part the seed of Brahma. He gave his daughters to the Rishi Brahmadatta to be his wives. Then he wanted a son, so he performed a yagna. During that ritual his father Kusa appeared before him and said, ‘You will have a son, and his fame will resound through the world!’

  “Kusanabha’s son, who became the mightiest of the olden kings of the earth, was Gadhi, the great.”

  Now Viswamitra spoke as softly as the silver river flowed. When Rama and Lakshmana looked into his face in the moonlight, they saw his eyes had brimmed over. He wiped them briefly with the back of his hand. He said with a wistful smile, “Rama, Gadhi was my father.” He paused, then continued, “I had an older sister called Satyavati. I loved her more than anyone in the world. She was my first friend, and my first guru. From her earliest years, she was wiser than any other child. She gave me something of her soul, which was my first instruction of heaven.

  “My father gave her to be the rishi Richaka’s wife. But she was so pure, and always with the Lord’s name on her lips and his love in her heart, that she was not meant to live in this world for long. She gained Swarga in her human body. And from her love, she flowed upon the earth as a river: the Kaushiki of the Himalaya. It is on the banks of the Kaushiki that I sit in tapa
sya. Rama, how can I describe the peace that comes to me when I am there? It is as if my sister held me in her arms, as she used to when I was a child.

  “But then, I was called south from my home beside the river in the mountains. I was to perform a sacrifice to stem a tide of evil risen in the world. I came down to Siddhasrama, as my masters of the spirit told me to. And you came to help me; otherwise I could never have completed my yagna.

  “You asked whose kingdom this is. It was mine once, Rama, when I was a king as you shall be one day. But all that is past now.

  “Look how high the moon has risen; half the night is over. The river and the trees, the birds in the branches and the beasts of the woods are all asleep, wrapped in covers of darkness. Only bhutas, pretas, and pisachas, for whom night is day and moonlight their sunshine, are abroad under the sky of a thousand eyes. Sleep now, my friends, and you also, children of Ayodhya. Sleep securely, for we are protected, and we must be on our way at crack of dawn.”

  He stretched his long limbs by the river, which scarcely gave a murmur now, and, turning on his side, fell quickly asleep. Yawning, Lakshmana and the other rishis lay down as well. They found they were exhausted after the day’s long march and only the fascination of Viswamitra’s story had kept them awake.

  Rama sat alone for another hour, gazing at the moon reflected clear in the river, which was still as a lake now. He sat pondering the strange fates of men and his own long way ahead of him. It was opaque, yet mysteriously attractive; quite like a river, on which the days and years were slow ripples, gliding endlessly, with the moon splayed across them. But there are treacherous whirlpools along every river’s course, and Rama wondered idly when they would spin into his life.

  Soon, he also lay down beside his brother and slumber stole over him.

  13. Ganga

  The birds of day were full of song, a hundred wild symphonies in the branches, and the river was awake under the risen sun, when Viswamitra shook the sleeping princes awake. “Come, we have a long way to go.”