She rubbed her twisted hands together, her arthritic nerves screaming in pain. She grimaced, displaying yellowed and blackened teeth. Soon, she promised herself. Soon she would be rid of this wretched cage of flesh and bone.
‘Ayodhya the Unconquerable?’ she snarled to herself. Soon enough that would change. It would become instead Ayodhya Destroyed.
THIRTEEN
Brahmarishi Vishwamitra was in a fine mood this morning. Outwardly, he was the image of stoic concentration, seemingly intent only on maintaining the stiff pace he had set the procession. As his powerful long strides covered the dirt track, even the Brahmins in their carts had to click tongues and coax lazy bullocks and oxen to keep up with the brahmarishi’s rapid progress.
Ahead, the Vajra elephants also had to keep up the pace to avoid being overtaken by the seer-mage and his entourage. The mahouts urged their bigfoot on with words of praise and shouts of encouragement. The bigfoot, happy to be mobile after eight days of inactivity, complied enthusiastically, putting their enormous wrinkled heads down and traipsing as smartly as horses on a marching field. Only occasionally did one of them emit a brief bleating call and was allowed by his mahout to swerve off-track for a moment, where he relieved himself quickly and copiously before hurrying to regain his place in the rank.
As the sun god Surya climbed the eastern sky in his burnished chariot of gold, the procession wound its way northwards, making excellent time. The brahmarishi had warned them all that he intended to reach Mithila by the next evening, covering the three-day journey in two days.
But it was only after a few hours of the rapid pace that everyone realised just how much effort that entailed. They would not stop for the noon meal, instead taking minimal nourishment while on the move, nor would the Brahmins be able to take their habitual two hours of afternoon aaram. There would be no napping or resting on this trip.
Still, such was the general air of excitement and anticipation that not a single member of the entourage voiced a word of complaint or protest. Even the young acolytes, some barely seven years of age and not yet sprouting all their permanent teeth, marched along cheerfully, chanting rhymes they had learned at the gurukul, reciting the Sanskrit and Prakrit alphabets, then the ten Vedic numerals, ending with the venerated and mystical Shunya, or zero - that masterful invention of the Vedic mathematician Aryabhatta, who had devised the decimal system of counting now followed universally throughout the Arya nations. The younger ones counted on their fingers as they recited, sticking their thumbs up into the air triumphantly when they yelled out the final ‘Shunya!’
Their gurus smiled proudly at the lisping eagerness of the little shishyas, while chatting quietly about the seminars and debates they would participate in at the annual philosophical convocation in Mithila. A general mood of cheerful anticipation filled the travellers with all the energy they needed to maintain the seer’s yojana-an-hour pace without a grimace of complaint.
But the brahmarishi paid little heed to these things. His mind was preoccupied with other matters. Foremost on his mind was the outcome of the mission he had begun that fateful Holi day when he had entered the city of Ayodhya and demanded Rajkumar Rama as his guru-dakshina. The consequences of that event were yet to be fully realised, and even his supremely transcendent buddhi was not complacent enough to take those consequences for granted. He briefly weighed what had been accomplished in these past nine days. It was not inconsiderable.
The demoness Tataka, a plague on the mortal realm of Prithvi for millennia, had been destroyed at last, and with her had vanished the canker that had been breeding in the Southwoods. All her monstrous miscreations, those wretched genetically engineered hybrids, were destroyed as well. The Bhayanak-van, that section of the Southwoods that had come to be known as the Forest of Fear, had been cleansed by the purifying breath of Agni, the lord of fire.
Even now, the wind occasionally brought the scent of scorched woods and a few flakes of crumbly grey ash. The Southwood fires had ceased burning only yesterday, coinciding with the end of Vishwamitra’s seven-day yagna, another auspicious omen. In a few seasons, the scorched earth of the Forest of Fear would be ready once more to bring forth new life. When the time was right, he would set his brahmacharyas to planting good fresh stock: oaks, pines, ashwood, banyan, peepal, acacia, neem, palas, teak. And plenty of fruit and flower groves. A new forest would rise in the place of that long-dreaded maze of terror, a forest of hope and new beginnings. The cleansing of Bhayanak-van had been accomplished in the week of Holi, the festival of spring and fertility. The seeding of Ashavan, the Forest of Hope, would be done in Holi too, a full year hence. A generation from today, children would play fearlessly in the groves, travellers rove freely through the woods, and sadhus and rishis would build ashrams and gurukuls in the Asha-van.
Even before that, the very absence of the Bhayanak-van would open up a whole new world of possibilities for the Arya nations.
For millennia the Bhayanak-van had impeded the southward progress of the early Arya clans, until its mythic stature had thwarted even the now-mighty Arya nations. Now, that dark wall had been kicked down and ground into ash. Henceforth, the route down the subcontinent would be unbarred. The Aryas would be free to journey to the rich fertile plains of the Deccan, explore the lush vales and pleasing hill ranges of the south, and travel all the way to the tapering point of land where the two great oceans met.
Vishwamitra’s craggy face darkened momentarily as he thought of that southernmost tip of the subcontinent. It was off that wild and wanton shore where the oceans clashed angrily that the island of Lanka was situated. The very thought of Lanka set his teeth on edge.
That little island-nation represented a threat far greater than a hundred Bhayanak-vans. Its lord and master, Ravana, king of the asura races, was a thousandfold as dangerous as Tataka. And yet, until Lanka was cleared of its demon hordes, the subcontinent might as well be one enormous Bhayanak-van. A wall had been breached, but the fortress remained, as unassailable and formidable as ever. If Ayodhya was unconquerable - literally, a-yodha, or the city that was beyond war - then Lanka was its twin in that respect. Even the devas had not dared to invade Lanka.
Ravana himself had won that fabled island-fortress through treachery and deceit, by attacking his own brother Kubera, lord of wealth, in his peaceful Himalayan retreat, overrunning Kubera’s pacifist yaksi city with brutal violence, and had spared the demi-god’s life only on pain of ransom. The ransom being dominion of Lanka as well as numerous other precious possessions of Kubera - the airship Pushpak, Kubera’s harem of ten thousand wives, and much else. A direct assault on Lanka was beyond the contemplation of any mortal army. And yet, as long as Lanka remained in the grasp of the demon lord, the Arya nations could not hope to explore and settle the subcontinent safely. It was a dilemma that had vexed Vishwamitra for a long time and still he could find no solution.
Just then a cloud passed across the sun, darkening the day. Vishwamitra sensed the rajkumars glancing up, shielding their eyes against the brightness of the sky. Conversation petered out momentarily in the procession as the brahmacharyas and rishis looked up too, some wondering aloud if there was a possibility of rain. Then the cloud passed by, the warm, nourishing rays of Surya shone down again, and all was as before.
Lanka was like that cloud, Vishwamitra thought. Lurking off the southernmost tip of the Asian continent like a brooding monsoon cloud in an otherwise clear sky, capable at any moment of occluding the life-giving sun, casting a dark pall across the entire earth. Ravana had dared to invade Swarga-lok a millennium and a half ago, and the devas still hung their heads in bitter shame at the demon lord’s triumph at that encounter. When even the gods feared to confront him, how could mere mortals hope to defeat him?
And yet, it was these mere mortals who must defeat him. For Vishwamitra knew what he had chosen not to say to the people of Ayodhya, nor to their maharaja. In exchange for quitting the realm of the devas, Ravana had demanded that henceforth none of their number would ever challenge him again. Indra’s eyes had flashed like hot coals at that insolent demand. The king of the gods was not accustomed to defeat, let alone terms and conditions. Yet he had no choice. To refuse Ravana at that moment was to allow the demon lord the run of the upper realm. By swallowing that ego-choking condition, the king of heaven had bound every single deva and devi in the universe. No god or goddess could ever challenge Ravana directly or cause him harm in any fashion. Centuries later, the humiliation of that acquiescence still made Indra gnash his teeth in impotent rage. Yet, as gods, he and his fellows had no choice but to honour their agreement eternally.
And so it was that the seven seers, governed by their most senior member, Narada the Wise, had perceived that the only opposition to Ravana could come from mortals now. Impossible as it seemed, it was from this middle realm, Martya, and more specifically the planet of earth on this realm, that the only opposition to the demon lord could now arise.
We must confront him, the brahmarishi thought fiercely, we must stand and repel his asura hordes, must fight to the bitter end for the continued safety of humankind and for the sake of Prithvi herself. If Ravana was allowed to extend his rule over Prithvi too, all existence would be darkened by the shadow of his reign. Like a giant rock hurtling through space could with a single glancing blow plunge an entire planet into years of darkness and death, Ravana’s rising shadow would blacken all of Prithvi for an immeasurable period.
That must not come to pass.
Vishwamitra clenched his wildwood staff tighter, the intensity of his grip grinding the knob of holy thread wound around the top of the staff. His face hardened, resembling that of a warrior-king striding into battle rather than a seer leading his Brahmins to a spiritual conference. His step quickened, increasing to a speed that soon had the whole entourage struggling to keep up. Conversation died out, the acolytes ceased chanting, and even the elephants shook their heads in protest as they struggled to maintain the rigorous new pace.
Even the senior rishis paused in the ritual recitation of their mantras and stuck their bald pates out of the shade of their bullock-carts, wondering what fierce contemplation had overtaken the brahmarishi. After all, this was a man who could endure a bhor tapasya of centuries without needing food or water to sustain himself, taking his nourishment from the very flow of Brahman itself. If he was entering yoganidra, a trance-like state of intense transcendental meditation, they would all fall by the wayside long before he even grew aware of their discomfort.
Already, the sage was striding at the amazing speed of almost two yojanas an hour, brisk enough to have even the bullocks lowing in complaint. Yet nobody dared invoke the wrath of the brahmarishi by interrupting his deep concentration. In times past, acolytes had been reduced to piles of smouldering ashes for merely speaking when a sage was engaged in such contemplation.
Yet if they didn’t act quickly, their hearts would burst with the effort of keeping pace with him.
FOURTEEN
It was Rama who took the initiative.
Sizing up the problem, the young prince consulted with his brother silently through an exchange of looks and gestures, then reached a decision. He quickened his pace to bring himself almost level with the brahmarishi. Almost, but not quite: it was not acceptable for a shishya to walk abreast of his guru.
Joining his hands together and keeping his head lowered, he spoke reverentially.
‘Guru-dev, I humbly request permission to address you.’
Vishwamitra blinked once, his flaring nostrils inhaling his first breath in many minutes. His mastery of yoga enabled him to accomplish physical feats that other humans would find impossible; he had been so absorbed in his contemplation that he had neglected to breathe for close to half an hour. He inclined his head very slightly to address Rama without slowing his pace.
‘Permission granted, rajkumar.’
‘Guru-dev, my brother and I are fortified by the power of the maha-mantras Bala and Atibala. We could maintain this pace for a week without tiring. But I fear that our companions will not be able to do so as well. Already the younger shishyas are in danger of falling and being trodden under the hoofs of bullocks and the wheels of carts.’
Vishwamitra blinked again, only now becoming aware of the speed at which he was walking. He had unwittingly continued to step even faster while Rama spoke. At the rate he was accelerating, he would soon be covering ground at much more than two yojanas an hour!
The brahmarishi exhaled slowly, wondering at his own folly. It took only a tiny exertion of his will to slow his yard-long strides, reducing his speed gradually lest he cause an accident in the procession behind. The Brahmins of Siddh-ashrama released a unanimous sigh of relief as the brahmarishi slowed to the previous pace of a yojana an hour. They wiped their bald pates, shiny with sweat from the unexpected race to keep up with their guru.
One of the smaller acolytes issued a great sigh of relief and exclaimed loudly, ‘Om Hari Swaha!’
It was the typical invocation that was a Brahmin’s instinctive response to almost anything, but the gawky seven-year-old had a strong lisp due to most of his milk teeth having fallen out and tended to run his words together, so it came out sounding more like a meaningless ‘Omharithwaaa!’