The Ramayana (3 page)

The Tamasa turned dark with dusk, but the disciples sat entranced. Never before had they heard such a story. Twilight turned to night; the moon rose over the river. Narada's legend was of a living man. But he did not speak about Ramarajya, when a perfect kshatriya ruled Ayodhya as the world's very heart, but of a time before Rama became king, the bitter time of his exile. It was those years in the wilderness that left such an indelible impression upon the memory of the race of men.

Moonlight turned to darkness, and darkness to scarlet dawn on the susurrant eddies of the Tamasa, when Narada finished his epic of Rama. There was not a dry eye among his listeners at what finally befell the exquisite Sita. Valmiki's disciples saw even their master wept.

Narada broke his trance; he stretched his ageless body and rose. With an airy wave, he was off again, plucking on his vina. Yawning, the disciples set about their daily tasks: fetching water and kindling the morning fires. But Valmiki stood a long time staring after Narada.

 

2. A curse

Long after Narada's visit to his asrama, the story of Rama haunted Valmiki. Months after he heard the legend he saw images of Rama's life before his eyes, whenever he shut them to meditate.

One morning, Valmiki walked along the banks of the Tamasa with his youngest disciple. Spring was in the air, abundant and heady. The sage saw the river was sparklingly clear, and decided to bathe in it. He sat dipping his feet in the jeweled flow and a fine languor stole over him. He said to his boy of sixteen summers, “Look, child, the water is like the heart of a rishi.”

The serene youth handed his master the valkala, the tree bark with which to scrub himself. Above them, a kadamba spread its awning, and in the living branches they heard the sweetest song: two krauncha birds were mating there, abandoned to spring's fever. The male danced around his mate, fluttering his wings dizzily when he hopped onto her back. A smile on his lips, Valmiki leaned back to watch the ritual of love. On and off his mate the male krauncha danced, his joyful song setting the leaves alight; and she sang her ecstasy.

Suddenly, the air was riven by a vicious whistling. An arrow flew savagely to its mark. With a scream, the male krauncha fell off his mate's back and down to the ground below. His breast was a mess of blood and broken feathers; the arrow still stuck in him like a monstrous curse. For a few moments his little body heaved in agony; then he was gone. The shocked silence of the woodland was broken by the screams of the she bird.

Valmiki sprang to his feet, trembling. He saw a pale-eyed hunter stalk into the clearing. The she bird screamed her grief at him. The jungle man squinted up at her and grinned at Valmiki, showing stained teeth like fangs. A curse erupted from the rishi:

Ma Nisada pratishtam tvamagamah shasvatih samah,

Yatkrauncha mithunade kamavadhih kamamohitam!

Glaring the shifty fellow down, Valmiki strode from that glade. Part of him wondered at the strange expression of his anger; it had such a lilt to it, though the doom it pronounced on the hunter was final: because he had killed the bird at love, he would not live the full span of his life.

All day, those words returned to the sage's mind and echoed there in cadence. Valmiki thought: Because I spoke in such a rage of sorrow my curse welled from me in rhythm and meter. Later, as night fell, his disciples sat around their meditating guru. Under rushlights hung on the mud walls of the hermitage, they studied sacred scriptures inscribed on palm leaves.

Valmiki himself could not forget the morning. Again and again he heard the rapturous song of the birds; the evil hum of the arrow; the cry of the male krauncha and the soft sound of his small body striking the ground. And then the she bird's frantic screams. He saw the hunter's pale eyes, slanted like a cat's in his face, and he heard his own voice pronouncing judgment on the man in perfect meter.

Valmiki heard a gasp from his disciples. He opened his eyes, and it seemed as if a piece of the sun had fallen among them: Brahma had come to the asrama, dazzling the night.

Valmiki prostrated himself before the Creator. The padadhuli, the spirit dust from the God's holy feet, washed into him in golden waves. Brahma blessed the rishi and his sishyas, enfolding them in his pulsing aura, which surely removed their sins of a hundred lives. They stood before him with their eyes cast down because they could not look directly at his splendor.

In his voice of ages, Brahma said, “Valmiki, I put the sloka on your tongue with which you cursed the hunter. I sent Narada to you, so you could hear the legend of the perfect man from him. I want you to compose the life of Rama in the meter of the curse. You will see clearly not only into the prince's life, but into his heart; and Lakshmana's, Sita's, and Ravana's. No secret will be kept from you and not a false word will enter your epic. It shall be known as the Adi Kavya, the first poem of the earth. As long as Rama is remembered in the world of men, so shall you be. The epic you are going to compose will make you immortal.”

His hand raised in a blessing, Brahma faded from their midst. The dazed Valmiki found himself helplessly murmuring his curse again,
“Ma Nisada pratishtam tvamagamah,”
in the meter called anushtup.

 

3. The Ramayana

On the banks of the Tamasa, Valmiki composed the epic of Rama. He sat facing east on a seat of darbha grass. His mind was as still as the Manasa lake upon the northern mountain, so the images of Narada's inspiration played on it like sunbeams. Noble words sprang in a crystal stream from his heart, as his disciples sat around him, listening breathlessly.

In a week, Valmiki composed twenty-four thousand verses. The legend came to him as if he was just an instrument and the real poet was another, far greater than himself. He divided the vast poem into six books
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and five hundred cantos. When he had completed his work of genius, he called it the Ramayana.

When Valmiki had finished the Ramayana, two young men appeared in his asrama. They were as handsome and alike as the Aswini twins of heaven, and had voices like gandharva minstrels. The rishi knew they had been sent by providence. He taught them his poem. Lava and Kusa learned the Ramayana even as they heard it from the poet's lips, and they sang it as Valmiki himself could not. Valmiki knew Brahma had chosen them to take his Adi Kavya through the sacred land.

When they had Valmiki's epic by heart, Lava and Kusa prostrated themselves before him. With his blessing, they went from asrama to asrama in those holy times. Clad in tree bark and deerskin, Lava and Kusa came with their lambent song. Their voices matched as one, the Ramayana flowed from them like another Ganga, Rishis who heard them were enchanted and blessed the beautiful youths.

One day, Lava and Kusa came to a military camp on the edge of a great forest. There a king of the earth had undertaken an aswamedha yagna, a horse sacrifice. The twins went into his presence and, in an assembly of the greatest rishis, sang the Ramayana. The king climbed down from his throne and came to sit on the ground among the common people. He sat spellbound, and tears ran down his dark and sealike face. But Lava and Kusa did not know the epic they sang was about this very man, to whom inscrutable destiny had brought them.

He was Rama himself and he was their father.

 

4. Ayodhya

This is a story, sang the twins, to the rhythmical plucking of their vinas, of the ancient line of kshatriyas descended from Manu, made immortal by his son Ikshvaku, and later by Sagara and his sons. It is the tale of a perfect man, the greatest in his noble line.

The kingdom of Kosala was cradled by the river Sarayu. Kosala was ruled by kings of the race of Brahma's son Manu, descended from Surya, the Sun God. Down the deep streams of time, the House of Ikshvaku was renowned for the justice and valor of its kings. Kosala was a blessed country, verdant and fertile; ages ago at its heart, Manu the lawmaker created a city to be his capital and called it Ayodhya.

The turrets of Ayodhya reached for the stars and her fame as a focus of dharma on earth was known in Devaloka, the realm of the Gods. As glorious as Indra's Amravati above was Ayodhya in the world. Ancient trees lined her wide streets, washed with scented water at dawn and dusk so the city of truth was always swathed in fragrance.

Great Dasaratha ruled Ayodhya with bhakti as his scepter. His people were free from green envy, that insidious corrupter of nations: their king's virtue flowed among them like a river of fortune, and their hearts were wise and serene. The mean and ugly of spirit were never born in Ayodhya; why, it seemed a race of Gods had been incarnated in the mortal world to people this greatest of cities.

King Dasaratha had eight ministers, brilliant and dedicated men: Jayanta, Sumantra, Dhriti, Vijaya, Siddharta, Arthasadaka, Mantrapala, and Asoka. Then there were the rishis who advised him, among them his kulaguru, his family preceptor: the immortal Vasishta. The lamps to the Gods in the temples of Ayodhya never burned low, nor did the faith in the hearts of Dasaratha's subjects. With heaven's grace, the king's granary and his treasury were always full; quiet and measureless goodness was upon his kingdom.

But even such a rajarishi, a royal sage, was not perfectly happy. Dasaratha had no heir, no son to light up the autumn of his life and succeed him when he died. As the king grew older, his despair grew with him and it began to feed on his spirit. Not a day passed without Dasaratha's priests offering a prayer to the Gods to bless him with a son. But it seemed they fell on deaf ears in heaven.

One day, the king thought he should perform an aswamedha yagna. He called Vasishta, Vamadeva, and his ministers, and asked for their counsel.

His charioteer, Sumantra, said, “My lord, have you heard of Rishyashringa?
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He is a simpleton in the world, but a prodigy of the spirit. Once the Devas cursed the kingdom of Anga and a famine fell on it. Your friend King Romapada sought Rishyashringa's intervention. No sooner did Romapada lure the muni into his kingdom, by giving him his daughter's hand, than it began to rain and the famine ended. Sire, I have heard Sanatkumara has foretold that four sons shall be born to you, when you perform an aswamedha yagna with Rishyashringa as your priest.”

Dasaratha went to Anga and persuaded Romapada to send his flamelike son-in-law to conduct the aswamedha in Ayodhya. Messengers rode home before Dasaratha and his guest, and the city was decked out in arches, flowers, and banners to welcome the rishi.

As soon as Rishyashringa arrived, a horse of the noblest bloodline was chosen for the sacrifice, and he blessed it.

The prayers continued for weeks, and then a magic spring came to Kosala. The trees were full of soft new leaves, the Sarayu with sweet water, and Dasaratha went to the innocent sage and said, “Muni, the time has come.”

Rishyashringa replied, “Send your horse across the plains of Bharatavarsha. Let the yagna begin.”

After a year, the kshatriyas of all the kingdoms through which Dasaratha's white horse had flown like a storm came to Kosala. They came to the yagnashala on the northern bank of the Sarayu, under the sun and the stars. The horse came home unchecked and it was spring again, with the flowering trees all in bud.

 

5. The need for an Avatara

Toward the end of the aswamedha, Dasaratha fell at Rishyashringa's feet and cried, “Rishi, make my yagna fruitful.”

Rishyashringa began to perform the intricate putrakama ritual at the holy fire, exactly as it is prescribed in the secret passages of the Atharva Veda. The Devas gathered above that fire for their share of the havis: these offerings are ambrosial to them, like sipping the sweetest currents of the human heart.

What the sacrificers of Kosala and their priest did not know was that the Devas came straight from a transcendent mandala, where they had taken a petition to Brahma.

Indra, the king of the Devas, knelt before Brahma and cried, “Father, we cannot bear Ravana's tyranny any more. His evil pervades the earth and men's hearts are corrupted from afar. They deny their Gods, and lie more easily than speak the truth. They are full of violence and seduce their brothers' wives. Ravana's demons swarm in the jungles of the earth; they desecrate the rishis' sacrifices and devour the holy ones.

“The Sun and the Moon go in fear of Ravana. The planets spin into sinister orbits at his will, and all the world has become a dangerous place. The yakshas and gandharvas live in terror. No sage dares pronounce a curse on the Lord of Lanka, because he is such an awesome sorcerer himself. Vayu the Wind blows softly, lest he ruffle Ravana's hair. Surya the Sun doesn't change his place over Lanka, be it summer or winter, lest he annoy Ravana and the Demon pluck him from the sky and extinguish him. And now Ravana threatens to invade Amravati if I am not servile to him. I cannot stand it, Pitama! My throne in heaven is worthless, as long as Ravana lives. And because of your boon to him, none of us can kill the Rakshasa.”

Brahma said, “Ravana does have a boon from me that no immortal can kill him. But in his arrogance, he did not ask for a boon to protect him against the mortal race of men. He shall die by a man's hand. Be comforted: it is not long to the birth of that man into the world.”

As Brahma spoke, a blinding splendor shone on them from the sky. They saw Mahavishnu, the Savior, mounted on his golden eagle. He wore robes glowing like the sun against his sea-blue skin. He carried the Sudarshana chakra, the Panchajanya, and the Kaumodaki. Brahma and the Devas worshipped him with folded hands.

Across winds of light that Garuda's wings stirred, Brahma cried to Vishnu, “Lord, be born as a man to rid the earth of Ravana of Lanka. Or the Rakshasa will plunge the world into hell, long before the kali yuga begins. Only you can kill him; for evil though he is, he is greater than any creature in heaven or earth.”

Vishnu spoke to Brahma and the Devas in his voice as deep as time: “I will be born as Dasaratha of Ayodhya's son, and I will kill Ravana. I will rule the earth for eleven thousand years, before I return to Vaikunta.”