The Ramayana (75 page)

The earth shuddered as if with a tremor of fear and ill omen. Strange birds had gathered in the trees, birds of night at midday. They gave rasping throat to some great evil, an imminent calamity they saw plainly with vision that pierced the veil of time. Eerie clouds scudded across the face of the sun and rained down glutinous drops on the Lord of Lanka and his army, a drizzle of blood. An eagle, of a species never seen on the island, flashed down like an astra and perched on Ravana's black banner, obscuring the golden vina he flew there.

Jackals howled in dismal chorus as if this were not day but the deepest night. Ravana's left eye and that arm throbbed; they twitched in febrile spasms. But if Ravana read these omens, and he was a knowing master of their lore, he did not acknowledge them. Or he was past caring. He rode on, roaring revenge in the names of all his slain.

Truly as death incarnate came Ravana among the vanaras, and none of their paltry rocks and trees was of any avail against his fury. The Demon's astras were twice as fierce as anything they had yet seen. They blazed from his bow; they blinded the monkeys and consumed them so not even ashes were left of the dead. Like an evil star loosed upon the earth, Ravana came hunting the vanaras and they could not stand before him. They fled as beasts of a jungle do, when the jungle burns.

But flying high into the air, Sugriva leaped cunningly into battle behind Ravana. He flew out of the sky at Virupaksha and that rakshasa was taken unawares. With one blow of his open palm, a blow like fate, Sugriva broke Virupaksha's neck, so his head lolled loose and he fell out of his chariot. Ravana shouted to Mahodara to take Virupaksha's place near him; his back was unprotected.

Though at first the monkeys fled from the Rakshasa, they soon collected themselves. Nimbly skirting his chariot, they went behind Ravana's back to fight the army of Lanka. But Mahodara, who was also a master of astras, attacked the monkeys who dodged his king. He attacked them with eerie fireballs that flew out of his hands, and with jagged streaks of lightning. He burned a thousand vanaras in moments. But then Sugriva, king of the jungle, saw him. He leaped at Mahodara, snatched the sword from his hand, and, using a blade for the first time in his life, struck off the rakshasa's head with his own weapon. Its scream cut off, Mahodara's head flew from its trunk and fell among his terrified horses. They bolted from the field, bearing their master's body away in his crimson chariot.

Sugriva's jungle roar echoed above all the other roars and screams of battle, and brought a smile to Rama's lips. Then Mahaparshva was at the vanaras, his chariot everywhere, dealing death as if the monkeys' lives counted for less than nothing. Angada came through his legions, parting them like a sea, to face the rakshasa. Long the two fought, with arrows against rocks and trees, and both of them streamed blood from all their limbs. Finally, with an impatient cry, Angada grew tall as a tree himself and struck Mahaparshva a blow on his chest that broke his ribs. One rib pierced his heart and he died, his eyes rolling up white on his bloody face.

The vanaras cheered deafeningly. They yelled their king's name and their prince's, and the battleground echoed with their cries of joy. Ravana screeched at his sarathy, “Fly at Rama! He must die today, even if the war is lost.”

Like a nightmare that haunts waking, realer than daylight, the memory of how Rama humiliated him rose in Ravana's fragmenting mind. He screamed at the memory, as if to erase it from time. To rid himself of its burning shame, he invoked an astra called tamasa. It had been given him by Brahma, and he loosed it at the vanaras: a shaft of black flames. It came among them like a forest fire among the dry trees of summer, and their piteous screams rang across the field. The smell of charred monkey flesh filled the air.

At last, Rama stood forth against Ravana. Blue and serene, the prince of light faced the king of darkness. Rama of Ayodhya stood forth, bright and fearsome on that fateful day. The Kodanda was in his hand, a faint smile was on his lips. Lakshmana was at his side, and they were like Mahavishnu with his brother Indra beside him.

For a moment their gazes locked, Rama's fine, clear eyes and the Rakshasa's sallow ones. A chasmal hush fell on Lanka. Like twin moments of time being born from Brahma, the human and the Demon raised their bows at once and the duel began.

When Rama and Ravana fought, even Lakshmana became just an onlooker. The bowstrings resounded across the field like cracks of doom. The sky was lit up by a hundred comets, which met in pairs, unerringly, and exploded. Those shafts that were not intercepted flashed down, blazing, at the enemy.

But both warriors were great tapasvins: not even the devastras could burn them, with light or fire, darkness or sorcery. Rama shot a raudrastra at Ravana; but the flaming thing was extinguished against the Rakshasa's kavacha, his silver mail. Ravana had a macabre asurastra for Rama, one the prince had never seen before. It flared at him, then turned into savage prides of lions and tigers; they came bounding at him out of the sky in a bloodthirsty hunt. Rama remembered how frightened the beasts of the jungle are of fire. He loosed an agneyastra at them, and those creatures of maya were consumed.

On they fought, untiringly, on the threshold of death where this world and the next seem like one realm; where darkness and light, time and timelessness are the same. They fought with orbs of flames and night, each a little sun, each a void. Some were calorific, some freezing; some were arrows straight as time; some were little globes, worlds in miniature, enchanted and uncanny. Both their armies stood awestruck when Ravana and Rama dueled. Some missiles brought dreams, or visions in the sky, meant to lull the enemy. Others brought soft songs, but quietly maddening, so one could lose one's mind hearing them.

But for every astra there was another that made it harmless, no more than a spectacle in the sky. They fought on as if they made unknown music together, those mortal enemies. They fought as if they were both made of the same cosmic breath, two halves of a single genius. But suddenly, another archer, impatient to be part of that battle, stormed into the fray. Lakshmana was not willing to be left out. He must join in what seemed almost like a celebration, a festival of arms; though, of course, it was a duel to the death. Lakshmana cut down the banner on Ravana's chariot with two lightlike arrows.

Spitting flames, the Demon turned on Rama's brother. But Lakshmana split the Rakshasa's bow in his hands and shot his sarathy dead with an arrow through his temple. Now Vibheeshana was among them, roaring. He sprang at his brother's unworldly steeds, and killed them. When he saw Vibheeshana, Ravana's rage blazed up.

The Lord of Lanka leaped lithely down from his shattered chariot. In his arms there shone a bizarre shakti. Ravana spread his arms wide, wide, and the shakti yawned in the space between his hands, an emerald darkness. It spun humming there: a thing of perfect evil. Crying a ringing devil's cry, in an old and harsh tongue that only Vibheeshana knew, Ravana cast that weapon at his brother. But in a wink, two arrows of light flashed from Lakshmana's bow and the shakti was blasted into dust.

Ravana roared more horribly, a Beast cornered. Another shakti blazed in his arms, and it was brighter than the other. Abruptly, it vanished and his hands seemed empty. Yet Ravana whirled them round and round, for the weapon was still there. It was a shakti of maya that Ravana now spun, a feminine ayudha of untold power. He glowered at Vibheeshana again with fulminant hatred. But the moment Ravana cast the shakti at his brother, Lakshmana leaped between Vibheeshana and the invisible weapon. Rama cried out a warning; but the infernal thing flashed into Lakshmana's chest and he fell as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt, blood spouting from him.

Roaring exultantly, Ravana seized another bow from the remains of his chariot and strung it to finish Lakshmana. Rama gave a strangled cry, as if he had been felled, not his brother. He sprang between the Rakshasa and Lakshmana, who lay pinned to the earth by the shakti. Rama's eyes glittered, so even the vanaras slunk away from him. His body was livid and his arrows were molten.

In a voice the monkeys had never heard before, the plumbless voice of an angry God, Rama said, “Not both of us shall remain alive, Evil One. It was to kill you that I was banished when I was still a boy; to kill you I wandered the jungle for thirteen years. It was for your death that you took my Sita from me. All my life has been a preparation to rid the earth of you. Die now, Rakshasa, there is not room enough in the world for us both.”

Rama's golden arrows were made from flames of the apocalypse. They flared in tide at the Demon of Lanka. Ravana was tired. He had no answer to Rama's archery; it was a profound thing of the prince's sacred heart. The Rakshasa climbed into one of his warriors' chariots and rode back into his city. The lofty gates rang shut behind him. The triumphant shouts of the vanaras echoed through the battlefield, and the rest of the rakshasas fled.

With a sob, Rama sank to his knees beside the fallen Lakshmana. The color had ebbed out of the younger prince's face. The shakti still writhed in his chest, a fire serpent swallowing its tail, and his blood gushed thickly from the wound. Carefully, because it was a thing of dire evil, Rama reached for the shakti. The moment he touched it, it burst apart in his hands and vanished. Lakshmana groaned. But he did not open his eyes and the blood still poured from the wound that yawned right through his body. Rama took his brother onto his lap. A score of Ravana's arrows stuck in Rama's own arms and chest, but he seemed unaware of them or their pain.

In a moment, Sushena, the vanara physician, was at Rama's side. Frowning, Sushena explored Lakshmana's wound with knowing fingers. Rama whispered to him, “Sushena, I have no will left to fight. If Ravana had not fled just now, he would have found me easy prey. My heart is weak; my body seems not to belong to me any more. The bow is heavy in my hands and I can hardly lift it to fight on. Noble vanara, Lakshmana is dead and I mean to take my own life.”

Sushena signaled to some monkeys. They ran forward to help carry Lakshmana to a safer place, farther from the field where a hundred thousand lay dead, their blood congealing upon the earth.

 

37. Sanjivini

Rama sat sighing helplessly beside his unconscious brother. He sobbed Lakshmana's name, crying where would he find another brother like him. It seemed Ravana had won his war when his shakti struck Lakshmana down.

But Sushena said, “Lakshmana is not dead. Here, feel his hands, Rama; there is life in them, buried in a deep slumber. Besides, his is not the face of one who has a short life on earth. Lakshmana has the face of a long-lived man. He is still alive, as surely as you and I are.”

Sushena looked up. Among the vanara chieftains thronging around them stood Hanuman. He was calm, ready to be of service. Sushena said to him, “Only the vishalyakarani can heal this wound and bring Lakshmana back to us. Hurry, Hanuman, bring the oshadhi, or bring the mountain again.”

The son of the wind grew vast once more. He flew up into the sky. Across holy ocean and sacred continent, the vanara flew like Rama's arrow. Like a vimana he sailed, and landed for the second time upon the little mountain, also called Sanjivini. It was daylight now and he could see the plants of healing, some shaped like tiny men, others like little stars. He breathed their scents and felt his own body begin to glow with new strength and hope like magic in his blood. But by daylight Hanuman could not be sure which of the glowing plants was the vishalyakarani.

Once more, bracing himself and growing big as half the sky, Hanuman plucked up the mountain by its roots and flew through the air with it. Some say the Sanjivini mountain allowed him to pick it up so easily because in its primeval heart it remembered the younger days of the earth, when all mountains had wings and flew through the air, the days before Indra severed their wings with his vajra of a thousand joints.

Hanuman flew back to Lanka with the mountain in his hands. Lanka rocked when he set the Sanjivini down on her shores. Sushena ran up those cold slopes with Hanuman, and his knowing eye soon picked out the vishalyakarani. Sushena crushed the man-shaped herbs between his fingers and held them under Lakshmana's nose, where breath still came and went faintly. The monkeys saw the yawning wound in Lakshmana's chest close like a flower at dusk. They saw its every trace vanish from his skin.

Lakshmana stirred; his eyes flew open. He jumped to his feet and reached for his bow as if he were still in the thick of battle.

With a cry, Rama hugged his brother. “I thought you were gone! What would I have done? Not kingdom or victory, not even having Sita back, would have meant anything to me. I would have killed myself if you had died.”

Lakshmana frowned to hear him. He said, “You should not yield to grief like an ordinary man. Your mission in this world is not an ordinary man's.”

As long as his brother lived, Rama was prepared to listen to anything from him. He hugged Lakshmana again, laughing in great joy, humoring him as one does a sweet and solemn child. But Lakshmana said gravely, “Listen, Rama. In my swoon, I saw many wonderful dreams and omens. Challenge Ravana today; you must kill him before the day is over. Tomorrow is amavasya, when the moon's face is hidden by the shadow of the earth. Tomorrow is the day of the Rakshasa's greatest strength.”

Meanwhile, Hanuman lifted the mountain out of the sea again and flew with it to the Himalaya. But before he went, ten thousand monkeys, killed in battle today, rose from the dead and were ready again for the dharma yuddha, the war of truth. Their shouts of
“Rama! Sugriva! Jaya! Jaya!”
filled the air.

A great ocean conch booming drowned the monkeys' shouting. The gates of Lanka flew open. Clad in dark blue silk, with a new sarathy holding his horses' reins, Ravana rode into battle again, as if in response to Lakshmana's wish.