The Ramayana

by Ramesh Menon

  Desperate as he was, Harishchandra swore he would. Within the year, with the ocean’s blessing, the king’s wife bore a son. Harishchandra called the boy Rohita, and he was as dear to him as his life. But he had not enjoyed his Rohita for a day when Varuna came to him and said in his voice full of the soft thunder of waves, “I have come for your son, Kshatriya. He was the offering of your sacrifice.”

  Harishchandra said quickly to the Deva of the deeps, “O Varuna, a newborn child is unclean. Come for him in ten days.”

  Ten days later, Varuna came to the king again, and said in his voice of moon tides, “I have come for your son.”

  Harishchandra said, “Lord of waves, a yagnapasu must have teeth. Let Rohita cut his teeth before I offer him to you in dignity.”

  When Varuna came again, Harishchandra said milk teeth were not enough, and let them fall; next, that the child’s new teeth should grow; and later, that the Sovereign of the seas should wait until Rohita wore armor, because a kshatriya is pure only when he dons mail. And so on, making great Varuna seem like a collector who came, again, for a bad debt.

  Meanwhile, Rohita grew up. One day, in anguish, his father told him about his pledge to Varuna. He said he could not put the Deva off forever. Rohita was terrified. Taking just his bow and arrows, he ran away from his father’s palace, into the forest.

  When Varuna heard, he cursed Harishchandra. He visited him with mahodara, an imbalance in the bodily fluids, and the king wasted from the terrible disease. Rohita heard about this in the jungle and started back to offer himself to the Sea God. But Indra accosted him on his way, appearing suddenly before the boy, effulgent. The Deva king said to Rohita, “Go on a yatra to all the tirthas, and your father will recover.”

  Rohita went to the sacred rivers. He bathed in them and worshipped their divine waters. Word reached him that Harishchandra was well again. Rohita returned to his hideaway in the forest. But in a year, Varuna’s affliction returned to Harishchandra. Again, Rohita set out on his pilgrimage to the tirthas. His father got better once more. But after a year, the mahodara returned to Harishchandra more virulently than before.

  Five times this happened. Then, one day, when Rohita was on his tirtha yatra, he met an impoverished brahmana traveling with his wife and three grown sons, who were about the same age as the prince himself. A bizarre idea struck Harishchandra’s prince. He said to the brahmana, whose name was Ajigartha, “My lord Brahmana, I will give you a thousand cows if you let me have one of your sons.”

  Ajigartha wanted to know a little more. Rohita told him all about himself and his father and the offering to Varuna. The brahmana and his wife stood listening carefully on that path in the wilderness. Ajigartha said, “I cannot part with my eldest son; he is like my life to me.”

  At once his wife cried, “I will not give you my youngest, he is like my very breath. It is always thus, prince. The oldest is the father’s favorite, and the youngest the mother’s.”

  Now they both looked at their second son, whose name was Sunashepa. That boy stared in disbelief at his parents. In a stricken voice Sunashepa said, “Rohita, take me with you. My mother and father have sold me for a thousand cows.”

  It was high noon, one day, when Sunashepa and Rohita arrived at Pushkara. Rohita fell asleep at the foot of a tree. Sunashepa sat numb with grief that his own parents had sold him for some cows. He was thirsty and hungry, and he knew he was to be sacrificed to Varuna. Suddenly, the brahmana’s son saw Kaushika sitting under another tree in dhyana. Sunashepa ran to the rishi and flung himself at his feet.

  Startled out of his samadhi, Kaushika saw that a fine young brahmana lay before him, crying. At once his soft heart was full of pity. Stroking the boy’s head, he said, “Tell me, child, what grieves you? I will set it right.”

  Sunashepa sobbed out his story. He said, “I do not want the yagna for which my father sold me to be spoiled, Kaushika. Nor do I want to die. I want to live long, so I can do enough tapasya to reach Swarga. Help me, Muni; I have no one else to turn to.”

  Kaushika summoned his own sons. He said to them, “Which of you will go to his death in place of this unfortunate child? You are rich in punya by your very birth. One of you can easily be the yagnapasu at Harishchandra’s sacrifice.”

  But his eldest son, Madhuchandas, thought his father was joking and began to laugh. Kaushika’s other sons laughed with him. Madhuchandas said, “Father, how can you sacrifice one of your own sons because an orphan comes and cries at your feet? Next, you will tell us to eat the flesh of a dog.”

  His old enemy, rage, sprang up hotly in Kaushika. His eyes blazed and he cried, “A son who disobeys his father is not worthy of being called a son. Be you all chandalas like Vasishta’s sons. And you shall indeed eat the flesh of dogs for a thousand years!”

  His boys fled howling from there. Kaushika was lost in thought for a while. He turned to Sunashepa and said, “Go with Rohita to the sacrificial stamba. They will tie you to the post with ropes purified with mantras. They will smear your body with red sandalwood paste and drape wildflower garlands around your neck. I will teach you two slokas. You must sing them at the yagna, and no harm will come to you. And the yagna shall be complete as well.”

  Sunashepa learned the secret hymns from Kaushika. He went back to Rohita, who still lay asleep, and shook him awake. “Come, my prince, let us hurry to your father’s sacrifice. I am prepared for what befalls me.”

  Rohita embraced him. The prince was glad the wonderful brahmana boy had accepted his fate with such serenity. They went to Harishchandra’s palace. The king lay on his sickbed in a dark room, because no light should touch him. Five men carried Harishchandra to the yagnashala.

  They tied Sunashepa to the yupastamba. They smeared him with the red paste of sandalwood and adorned him with garlands of gay flowers, as an offering fit for a God. Suddenly, the boy began to sing in his unbroken voice. He sang so sweetly: the magical slokas Kaushika had taught him. At first the singing was greeted with silence; it was so unexpected. But when the people realized the meaning of the songs, they began to cheer the brave child.

  Two unearthly flashes of light lit the yagnashala, and Indra and Varuna himself appeared before Sunashepa to bless him. Because of Kaushika’s brilliant songs, Harishchandra was forgiven by the Lord of oceans. But the king had learned a lesson from his long illness: that excessive putrasneha is a curse to any father. Now he wanted to go himself to Kaushika and learn the profound brahmavidya from that rishi.

  Meanwhile, Kaushika’s hundred natural sons agreed to accept Sunashepa as their eldest brother, and their father took back his curse. From that day, all the descendants of those hundred and one were known as Kaushika, and that was also their gotra.

  * * *

  For a thousand years, Kaushika sat in tapasya beside Brahma’s sacred lake in Pushkara. One day, Brahma came to him, glorious, and said, “Be known as rishi from today, Kaushika. For you are more than a rajarishi now.”

  Kaushika, the rishi, allowed himself a smile. But he was determined to be Vasishta’s equal, a brahmarishi yet. He went north to the Himalaya to continue his penance.

  Indra was worried. So powerful was Kaushika’s tapasya upon the Himalaya, Indra was anxious he would lose his place as the Lord of heaven. Also, it was the Deva’s very dharma to test the penance of the rishi who had once been a king: to upset its fervent solitude with sweet temptation.

  Indra called Menaka and said to the apsara, “Kaushika shines like a sun by his tapasya. He will have my throne if he continues. Go and tempt him with your charms. Make him forsake his dhyana and you will please me.”

  But she demurred. “This is a kshatriya who became a rishi. He cursed Vasishta’s sons to be chandalas. This is Kaushika who created another universe for Trishanku that you are asking me to seduce. He is quick to anger, Indra, and I fear him. Surely, he is beyond temptation such as mine.”

  But the Deva king coaxed her; he threatened her. He promised he would be at hand to rescue her from the r
ishi’s wrath, if it was roused. With Kama, the God of love, and Vasantha, the spring, and Mandanila, the breeze who unsettles men’s minds with desire, all going before her, Menaka went reluctantly to Kaushika’s tapovana, where he sat in padmasana with his eyes shut and his spirit yoked.

  She waited patiently, that apsara whose beauty and lovemaking were a legend in Devaloka. One day, Kaushika, who had sat motionless for a month, opened his eyes. He rose for a bath in the nearby mountain stream. He came to the sparkling water, overhung with wildflowers blooming madly on the trees with the untimely spring. His mind was pleasantly stirred by the crisp mountain breeze that blew around him. The unsuspecting Kaushika saw there was a woman already in the stream: a woman of such incredible beauty that before her his own queens of old were less than plain. He saw her bathing naked in the rushing current, giving little cries as the icy water stung her golden skin.

  Kaushika saw she was not of humankind. He waded into the freezing flow and found her too willing to yield to him. They lay entwined on the vivid moss, half in and half out of the water, and now Menaka’s cries rang among pale ridges.

  His tapasya forgotten in the apsara’s arms, Kaushika took her to be his new devotion in that permanent spring. Ever watchful at the wings of their sometimes torrid, sometimes languorous lovemaking, Indra was delighted. Five years went by, and another five. Then one morning, when a great deal of his punya was exhausted, Kaushika awoke with the thought burning him that he had been tricked by Indra. Who else could have sent Menaka to him?

  In rage, he confronted his apsara. She confessed everything, and stood shaking before him. But he knew that, though she had once come to cheat him, she loved him now. In as much sorrow as anger, he cursed her to be parted from him forever. He left her sobbing while he went north again, higher up the mountain, to resume his broken tapasya.

  Kaushika went to the banks of the river now called the Kaushiki. She was his own sister, flowing through the world as a blessing. He sat on her banks and sunk himself in dhyana for another thousand years. Brahma came before Kaushika again, with the Devas in train, and he said, “Kaushika, I name you maharishi, O greatest among the sages of the earth.”

  Kaushika was unmoved, either to joy or disappointment. Bowing to the Pitama, he asked quietly, “Tell me, my Lord, have I perfect control over my senses?”

  Brahma smiled and shook his head. “No, you are not yet a jitendriya.”

  Kaushika looked downcast, and Brahma said kindly, “But you must become that also.”

  Kaushika sat amidst five fires now, in summer: four he stoked around him on burning rock, and the fifth was the sun above. He ate nothing and held his arms stiffly above his head. In winter, he sat naked in the frozen river. The flame of his penance swirled up into the spiritual dimensions as a burning mist. Indra called another apsara, Rambha, and said to her, “Go and seduce Kaushika from his tapasya. He who has fallen once, can be tempted again.”

  But Rambha was terrified. “He won’t be deceived twice,” she cried. “And he will curse me to some dreadful fate, for he doesn’t love me as he did Menaka.”

  But Indra said, “I will be on the mango tree beside Kaushika, with Kama beside me. In the tree from which the koyal will sing.”

  Kaushika was startled out of his tapasya by the sweet warbling of the cuckoo. He smelt spring flowers on the autumn air. Already suspicious, he opened his eyes and saw lovely Rambha standing before him, wide-eyed and fluttering long lashes. It was in the heart of a deep jungle that Kaushika now sat. He knew at once the woman who stood before him could not have come to this place unless she had been brought here. Besides, this was familiar, and he knew whom she reminded him of.

  He cursed her, “Indra sent you to steal my punya from me. Be a stone and live on earth for a thousand years. So no one will be tempted for so long by your beauty.”

  Instantly, Rambha was turned to stone. But no sooner had the curse flown from his lips than Kaushika regretted it. He cried in anguish, “Brahma was right, I have not mastered my anger yet!”

  He went away from there, to perform an even more severe tapasya. So he could quell not only the passions of his body, but the rage of his mind as well. Kaushika sat for another thousand years on the highest Himalaya. He was thin as a twig; his hair hung lankly to his waist. The spirit fire of his tapasya issued from his attenuated body, and began to scathe Devaloka. And though the Devas often put provocation in his way to incite him, he seemed immune now, beyond anger.

  One day, after he had starved for years, he broke his fast and cooked himself some rice. Just as he was about to eat the first mouthful, an emaciated brahmana came begging for food. It was Indra, come to test the tapasvin. Without a thought, Kaushika gave him all he had cooked and went back to his dhyana.

  By the hour, Kaushika’s tapasya grew fiercer. He had mastered even his breathing and respired no more than twice or thrice in a day. Powerful emanations billowed from his head, plumed through the higher realms, and the Devas had no peace in their heaven.

  They went to Brahma and said, “Kaushika blazes in tapasya. Even the sun is lusterless beside him. Oceans rise in fury and mountains spew lava from their crowns. The earth spins out of her orbit and cosmic storms rage through the mandalas. If you do not give him what he wants, his dhyana will consume the three worlds.”

  Brahma came shimmering before Kaushika, who sat utterly absorbed. In some haste the Creator cried, “Welcome, welcome to the highest fold, O Brahmarishi!”

  A wan smile cracked the gaunt face of the hermit on the mountain. He said to Brahma, “Let the Vedas recognize me as a brahmarishi. Most of all, let your son Vasishta, who began my journey, acknowledge that I am his equal.”

  They brought Vasishta to Kaushika. Brahma’s son embraced the muni who had once been a king, and cried, “You are a brahmarishi, Kaushika; there is no doubt about it!”

  At last the storm in Kaushika’s heart subsided. Because he was so full of compassion that he could never refuse anyone who came to him in need, regardless of the cost to himself, they named him Viswamitra.

  GLOSSARY

  abhichara Sorcery; also, a spirit raised by an occult ritual.

  abhichari A sorcerer.

  abhisheka An investiture.

  achamana The ritual sipping of holy water from the palm of one’s hand.

  acharya A brahmana master.

  adharma Evil.

  adharmi A sinner.

  Adi Kavya The First Poem; the Ramayana.

  Adisehsa Great Serpent; also, Vishnu’s rest, his serpent bed.

  Aditi Mother of the Devas.

  Aditya The Sun God; Also, twelve demigods associated with the Sun God.

  Adityahridaya An ancient prayer; “heart of the sun.”

  agneyastra A fire weapon or missile.

  agneyi Self-immolation by invoking inner fire.

  agni Fire.

  Agni The Fire God.

  agnihotra The fire ritual.

  agnihotrashala A place where sacred fire burns, where the agni lotra is performed.

  agni pariksha Trial by fire.

  aindastra Indra’s astra.

  aindra Indra’s astra.

  Airavata Indra’s four-tusked, white, flying elephant.

  akasa The fifth element, cosmic ether.

  aksauhini An army or legion of 21,870 chariots, as many elephants, 65,610 horses, and 109,350 foot soldiers.

  Alakananda The Ganga (Ganges).

  alidha The archer’s stance.

  amavasya The new moon.

  Amravati Indra’s heavenly city.

  amrita The nectar of immortality.

  amsa Essence; part.

  Anantasesha The cosmic serpent; also, Vishnu’s rest, the bed upon which he lies.

  anarya An ignoble person.

  Angaraka The planet Mars; he is also a God.

  anjali An offering.

  antapura A harem.

  apradakshina Counterclockwise, or inauspicious, circumnavigation; the opposite of pradakshina.

/>   apsara A nymph.

  aranya A jungle.

  arghya An offering of welcome.

  artha Wealth, possessions. Artha is one of the four goals in life (the others are dharma, kama, and moksha).

  Aryaman The first man; ancestor.

  asariri A disembodied voice.

  asokavana A grove or thicket of asoka trees.

  asrama A hermitage. The four asramas of life are brahmachari (celibate), grihasta (householder), vanaprastha (renunciate), and sannyasi (hermit).

  astra A supernatural weapon.

  Asura Any of a class of demons.

  aswamedha yagna A horse sacrifice.

  aswattha A pipal tree.

  Aswins Heavenly twins, known for their beauty.

  Atharva The fourth Veda, concerned with sorcery.

  atibala Extreme strength.

  atman The individual soul.

  AUM, OM A holy syllable that represents the ultimate reality.

  Avatara An incarnation of a God, especially Vishnu.

  ayana A journey.

  ayudha A weapon.

  bala Strength.

  bhakta A devotee.

  bhakti Devotion; worship.

  Bharatavarsha The land of Bharata; India.

  bhasma Holy ashes.

  Bhumi The earth.

  Bhumi Devi The Earth Goddess.

  bhuta Spirit; ghost.

  bindu Point; mystic singularity.

  braahma A weapon of Brahma.

  Brahma A God of the Hindu Trinity; the Creator.

  brahmachari A celibate.

  brahmahatya The murder of a brahmana.

  Brahmaloka Brahma’s realm.

  Brahman Ultimate Godhead.

  brahmana A member of the priestly caste; also, “Brahma’s people.”

  Brahmarishi A sage of Brahman.

  brahmashakti Brahma’s feminine power or weapon.

  brahmastra Brahma’s astra, known for its protective powers.

  Brahmavadi A knower of Brahman.

  Brahmavidya Knowledge of Brahman.

  Bramadatta A bow Rama used against Khara.

  Brighu An ancient rishi.

  Brihaspati The guru of the Devas; also, the planet Jupiter.