The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  He who reads the Ramayana regularly never becomes disheartened, but is always serene and cheerful. It must not be forgotten that Brahma inspired the Rishi Valmiki to compose the Ramayana. He who hears this sacred epic, with bhakti, receives the punya of one who performs a thousand aswamedhas and ten thousand vajapeyas. He who has heard the Ramayana has bathed at all the holy tirthas. He has purified himself in the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the other great rivers. He has worshipped at Prayaga and the Naimisaranya. He has offered two thousand palas of gold at Kurukshetra during the eclipse of the sun.

  Surely, he who listens to the Ramayana has all his sins exorcised and attains Vishnuloka. This is the first and the greatest epic of all: the Adi Kavya, composed by the great Valmiki. He who listens to it every day attains the very form of Vishnu and prospers beyond all belief, in this world and in the world of the spirit. The Ramayana is the Gayatri; it heals the body and the soul.

  Even the ancestors of a man who reads the Ramayana every day attain Vishnuloka, when that man leaves his body. The life of Rama bestows artha, kama, dharma, and moksha; let there never be any doubt about this. So read or listen to the Ramayana with a pure heart, with no mockery, as if your very life depended on it. Even Brahma reveres the man who knows this pristine legend.

  For the sleeper on Ananta, who rests upon the sea of eternity, Blue Mahavishnu, pervades this ancestral poem of the earth, this epic of the perfect man.

  AUM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI

  AUM SHANTIHI AUM.

  NOTES

  Book One

  1. The seventh book, the Uttara Kanda, and also large portions of the Bala Kanda are not usually ascribed to Valmiki, but are said to be later interpolations.

  2. Old temple murals always show this sage as having antlers growing on his head; most often, his face is also that of a deer, though he has a man’s body.

  3. See “The Story of Viswamitra” in the Appendix.

  Book Two

  1. Indeed, she loved him so much that the Devas asked the Goddess of speech, Saraswathi, to sit on Manthara’s tongue that day, so Kaikeyi’s mind would be poisoned and destiny could take its course.

  Book Seven

  1. Another version of this story, in folklore, has it that Rama orders Lakshmana not merely to abandon Sita in the wilderness, but to kill her and bring back proof that he has. Lakshmana cannot bear to do this and leaves her in the forest instead. He brings back the blood-soaked ear of a deer, folded in a leaf, to a heartbroken Rama, and says it was Sita’s. Rama does not look inside the leaf and never knows until his final meeting with Sita that she is alive and has borne him twin sons.

  Appendix

  1. Another version of this story in Tamil folklore is that Sita is Vedavali’s daughter by Ravana, born after he ravishes Vedavati.

  APPENDIX

  RAVANA’S DAUGHTER: A SOUTHERN TALE

  The Ramayana is the Adi Kavya, the first epic poem of the world, and it is sacred. It was after I had written my version of the Ramayana that I heard the following story in Kerala, where it is quite common. It is never told in the northern versions of the Ramayana, and may well be considered profane. Because of the antiquity of the Ramayana, it is hard to say if this tale was in fact part of the original epic and later suppressed.

  She was a great queen and the most beautiful woman in the world. Her father was once the Lord of all the Asuras, until Siva torched his triune sky-cities out of the air. Now Mayaa’s daughter, Mandodari, was Ravana’s queen. Her husband held the three realms, Swarga, Bhumi, and Patala, in the palm of his hand. He was a king of kings, Emperor of Lanka and of all the rakshasas, invincible, apparently immortal. Mandodari’s son Indrajit had tamed the king of the Devas himself, and brought him bound in coils of fire to Lanka. Indrajit was Lanka’s yuvaraja, Ravana’s firstborn son and his heir.

  What more could any woman want?

  But Mandodari was the unhappiest woman in the world. Night after night, she lay in her bed alone, yearning for her husband. She thirsted for his lean, battle-scarred body, his searing kisses, and his awesome virility. When she thought of him with the silver moon flowing in through the window over her naked body, she could hardly bear the pang she felt. She lay all night listening to the waves far below, and sobbing, sobbing.

  It was three months since he had come to her apartment. It was yet another rakshasi he had brought home from his most recent war who kept him away. Her name was Dhanyamalini. Mandodari had lost count of the women he kept. She had long ago learned to accept that he was insatiable. She had known him to come raging into her room an hour before dawn, after he had been with three or four other women through the night. She could smell them on his dark skin; sometimes he was still damp with their fluids. And he would still make her cries echo against the rising sun, before falling asleep in her arms.

  She herself had shared other women, of every race, with him, and felt nothing but pleasure. Now she hated him. She did not know why this had happened, suddenly. More than anything, she wanted revenge. She wanted to inflict a torment on him that he would die from. And now she knew she had the means to do just that.

  Ravana had a hundred sons, powerful princes. But he did not have a daughter. Mandodari was pregnant again; she was certain the child, growing a month in her womb, was a girl. She knew how much her husband wanted a daughter. At last, here was something she could give him, or deny him.

  Mandodari did not tell Ravana she was pregnant. She sent a message to him, saying she wanted to visit her father, Mayaa, in his palace in a forest of Bharatavarsha. Ravana did not find the time to come to see her before she left. He merely sent a message back, that she could go in the pushpaka vimana; and send for it again when she was ready to return. She hardened her heart for what she wanted to do. She left without seeing him.

  In her father’s house, she kept much to herself. Mayaa was troubled for his child. He sensed how unhappy she was. But she would say nothing to him about Ravana, or about her life in Lanka. She stayed with him for a month, and no message came from her husband asking her to return home. Mandodari’s pregnancy grew day by day and she was afraid Mayaa would discover it. She said she wanted to go on a pilgrimage to all the holy tirthas of Bharatavarsha, to pray for Ravana.

  Mayaa sent a trusted escort of Asuras with her, and she set out. First she went north, to the river fords of the Ganga and the Himalaya, and worshipped at all the most auspicious tirthas of grace on earth. She spent four months in Badarikasrama, where Nara Narayana once sat in tapasya. Mandodari was filled with a peace she had never known before. She felt purified, both by her prayers and by the child in her womb. She knew it was no ordinary child growing inside her. She was briefly tempted to return to Lanka and give Ravana the daughter he wanted so desperately. But then, she steeled herself to do what she had decided.

  In her ninth month, she left sacred Badari and went down again into the plains of Bharatavarsha. One night, she cut the throats of her escort while they slept, and rode away by herself. They knew her secret; Ravana and Mayaa must never learn of her pregnancy. She rode numbly through the world. Her time drew nearer, and never knowing it, she journeyed into the heart of a great and ancient kingdom.

  One morning, when she awoke at dawn, after a night full of the most illumined and terrifying dreams, she saw she had fallen asleep at the very hem of the jungle. She saw the turrets and ramparts of a magnificent city silhouetted against the rising sun.

  Even as she roused herself, she felt the first sharp pain of her labor. She staggered toward the city, hoping to give birth there. But she could manage only a few steps before her water broke and she had to squat down in a field, because her child was surging out of her. In a few moments, Mandodari cradled a golden baby girl in her arms, and never had she seen anything so absolutely beautiful. A shower of barely substantial petals fell out of the sky over her; she heard ethereal music fill the earth, music she had only heard in her dreams. She also saw her baby was swathed in a pulsing halo.

  Mandodari felt wracked with
guilt at what she was about to do. But this was the revenge that would make the rest of her life in Lanka bearable. She cut her baby’s umbilical cord with the silver dagger she carried at her waist. With a last, lingering kiss on the little eyes, her tears falling freely onto the tiny, perfect face, Mandodari laid her baby down on the earth. Tearing herself away and mounting her black horse, she turned its sleek face toward her father’s palace.

  The same day, near noon, King Janaka of Mithila went out of his city to a field south of it. He brought his rishis, and a golden plow to turn the earth for a sacrifice he was planning. Janaka had no children and he meant to perform a putrakama yagna …

  * * *

  Years later, when Hanuman first leaped into Lanka and saw Mandodari asleep in Ravana’s apartment, he mistook her for the princess he had come in search of. Rama’s description of Sita seemed to fit the sleeping queen so well, until Hanuman reminded himself Sita would be younger than the woman he saw. Besides, she would kill herself before she slept in Ravana’s bed.

  Then there is the fatal attraction Sita held for Ravana. He was the wisest king of his time, perhaps of all time. Yet he sacrificed everything he had—his people, his brothers, his sons, his precious Lanka, and at last his very life—for Sita. In the most ancient Indian tradition, it is said that at times, one’s worst enemies from previous lives are born as one’s children, to fulfill fate’s most mysterious, most savage designs.1

  THE STORY OF VISWAMITRA

  This is the story Sadananda told in Mithila.

  Vijaya was the youngest son of Pururavas, who was the ancestor of the race of Soma on earth. The Moon was Pururavas’s father. Vijaya’s son was Bheema; Bheema’s son was Kanchana and Kanchana’s son was Jahnu, who once swallowed the Ganga as she rushed after Bhagiratha’s chariot. And she was called Jahnavi. Jahnu’s son was Pooru, and Pooru’s son was Ajaka, whose son was Kusa.

  Kusa had four sons, and the youngest was Kusanabha. Gadhi, the great, was Kushanaba’s son, and Kaushika was Gadhi’s son.

  King Kaushika was an able ruler of his father’s kingdom. Once he went on a yatra through his country, to all its towns and villages, meeting the common people and sharing their joys and sorrows. Through cities and jungles he went, fording rivers, crossing wooded hills and remote valleys, blessing Nature’s bounty and grateful that he was born such a fortunate king.

  In the forests he passed through, he visited every asrama he came upon. He was a devout man, and believed that his kingdom thrived because of the holy rishis who lived in tapasya within its frontiers. One day, Kaushika came to a forest and saw a beautiful hermitage set in an orchard overgrown with fruit and flowering trees and a profusion of wild plants. A lively stream flowed past, and all the place had an air of deep sanctity: there was more than just nature at work here.

  As Kaushika entered the tapovana, he was astonished to see little golden deer, no higher than his knee and obviously quite tame. Then from the jungle’s silence, he heard soft music being played on reeds and fine lutes, which were so sweet he knew they were not of the world of men. Behind the trees the king caught fleeting glimpses of exotic folk he had only heard of in stories before: beings clad in leaves and flowers, shining ones who sang and danced. They sang in tongues that had passed out of the use of men long ago, for they were not made to describe human affairs.

  Reining in his horse, warning his army to stay back, Kaushika saw the elusive gandharvas, as they chose to reveal themselves to him, in a shifting dream of sight and sound, teasing and joyful. His gaze was pulled this way and that, as the elfin folk appeared and vanished in different places.

  Kaushika saw that many rishis sat in dhyana in that asrama, rapt, seemingly unaware of the bit of heaven on earth they sat amidst. Kshatriya custom demanded the king pay homage to the guru who was master here. He went into the hermitage and prostrated himself at the feet of the great seer within, who was called Vasishta. Excitedly, the rishi rose to welcome Kaushika. He embraced him and sent for a darbhasana for him to sit on.

  Vasishta offered the king fruit from his trees and sweet water from the jungle stream. Graciously, Kaushika accepted whatever he was offered, and the two of them sat talking. Little did the kshatriya know his destiny stood nearer him than he would have cared to have her. Vasishta, who was Brahma’s own son, was delighted that Kaushika had come to visit him.

  “Is your kingdom at peace? Are your enemies subdued? Is your treasury full, and your granary? Is your army powerful, are your people happy?”

  And so on, as is proper to ask a king when he visits. Kaushika answered directly and elegantly, and Vasishta quickly grew fond of him, even as he might a gifted disciple! The conversation wandered into more private matters, and Vasishta confirmed his intuition that this king was a remarkable man, a very unusual kshatriya.

  Suddenly, the sage leaned forward and, taking Kaushika’s hand, cried, “I am so happy you have come here with your army. I want to entertain you all in my asrama.”

  Certain that he would inconvenience the muni, Kaushika said, “Muni, I am already overwhelmed by your kindness. But it is time I left you to your more sacred pursuits.”

  Lest he bring shame to the rishi’s hospitality—for his army was large—he rose to leave. But Vasishta restrained him, laying a hand on his arm, insisting, “You must eat with us, my son.”

  He would not hear of Kaushika leaving without first having eaten in the asrama, and all his men with him. Kaushika sighed inwardly and said, “You leave me no choice! Very well, we will share anything you are pleased to offer us. Though nothing can be as satisfying as your kindness.”

  Laughing, they rose together, their arms linked. Vasishta called softly, “Surabhi, come here, my child.”

  A supernaturally lovely cow came at his call. Her eyes were like long lotuses. Her skin shimmered, dappled white and black. To the king’s amazement, the rishi spoke to her as if she were really a human child. “Shabale, this is the king of this country, the noble Kaushika, who has come to visit us with his army. They must eat with us, my daughter. Let nothing be lacking in the feast, for they are used to royal fare.”

  The king did not know Surabhi was Kamadhenu herself, the cow of wishes. She had once been churned up from the Kshirasagara with the amrita, and given to the rishis as the Gods’ gift to them. Kaushika stared at her; in all his life he had never seen such an exquisite creature. And when the king saw the feast she created in a moment for himself and his army, he was astounded.

  Surabhi created every kind of delicacy for Kaushika’s men, and there was an endless amount of it all. Those soldiers ate and ate, because they could scarcely have enough of the unearthly food. They marveled and they ate, and their king with them. Not he, nor any of them, had ever tasted anything to remotely rival the feast Surabhi laid on for them.

  At last, when he tore himself away from the table, Kaushika went to Vasishta and bowed to the muni. The king said humbly, “Never in my life have I tasted food like what we had today.”

  But then he was a king, and used to possessing whatever took his fancy. Looking away from the rishi, Kaushika went on, “But Vasishta, this cow of yours should not be kept hidden away in an asrama. She belongs with me, so her bounty can be shared by everyone in the kingdom. Let me take her, Muni, and I will give you a thousand cows for her. What are your needs that a thousand ordinary cows cannot meet? After all, you are sworn to austerity. This cow is a treasure, and any treasure in the kingdom belongs with me.”

  Vasishta was startled. He did not realize how earnest Kaushika was, and said quietly, “Shabale is not just a cow; she is my daughter. Not for a thousand cows, not for a hundred thousand, why, not for all the gold in your coffers, would I part with her.” Vasishta laid an affectionate hand on Kaushika’s arm. He added with a smile, “Taking her from me would be like parting a famous man from his fame: it cannot be done.”

  All this was still said in the friendliest tone. And smiling, Kaushika replied, “I will give you a thousand elephants, all caparisoned in s
ilk and gold. I will give you eight hundred chariots with horse. I will give you a crore of kapila cows. If you want, I will give you jewels such as kings of the earth are envious of: heirlooms handed down in our line from Soma Deva himself. But let me have your Surabhi.”

  Vasishta saw Kaushika would go to any length to get what he wanted. The son of Brahma said firmly, “Much as it saddens me to refuse you, Surabhi is the jewel of my tapasya and nothing will induce me to part with her.”

  Kaushika stared hard at the muni who thwarted his will. He thought Vasishta was being unreasonable, and the king’s face grew dark. He turned abruptly and stalked out from the asrama. But he said to his men, “This old man will not give the cow reasonably. Take her by force.”

  Kaushika’s soldiers dragged Surabhi from her shelter. Tears streamed from her eyes because she thought Vasishta had given her away. They dragged her to the edge of the asrama, where she tossed her horns at them and bolted back to the muni. She cried in a human voice, “Father, why have you abandoned me? What have I done?”

  Vasishta saw through time as clearly as other men see what is before their eyes. He said gently, ‘This sorrow of yours isn’t meaningless, child. That kshatriya—”

  But he had no time to finish. With ringing cries, Kaushika’s sons were upon him, weapons flashing under the serene trees. Great Vasishta, feared in the three worlds, drew a deep breath. With a single “HUMmmmm!,” terrible humkara, he made ashes of those princes and their army.

  It was as if Kaushika had been struck by lightning. He bent his head and walked away in rout from that asrama. The shock of his sons’ death all but deranged that king: his fate called him, inexorably, with formidable grief. From then on, he sat absently on his throne, brooding on the rishi and his cow, and the syllable that had made ashes of his legion. He brooded that his own kingship was as dust under the feet of the brahmarishi.