The Ramayana (105 page)

Brahma was there, above the place along the Sarayu from where an invisible path led directly to his loftiest realm and beyond. The Devas let fall a sweet rain of flowers on Rama. The sky seemed to open and the music of gandharvas filled it. Apsaras danced on the air on immaterial feet. The earth welled in great springs of grace, gushing forth everywhere, filling Rama and those who followed him with bliss.

Rama arrived at the place by the river from where the pathway of light led up into the realms beyond. Now Brahma spoke in his voice deeper than the sky, deep as the ages: “Narayana, return to us. Come again into your immortal form, O Sleeper upon the waters of eternity. Refuge of the worlds, set aside your human body, incomprehensible, deathless, Unborn One. O Vishnu, be again as you have always been.”

Brahma stood four-faced above the river. Slowly, Rama approached the water. In the west, the setting sun had turned the color of blood. Brahma held his arms open. His body growing more brilliant with each moment, Rama waded into the Sarayu. The river seemed to erupt in fire. Great columns of light rose from it and pierced the sky. Towering flames rose from it, and Rama walked into these flames.

The others on the bank of the river could not look at the water or at him who had entered her currents. Both were blinding. Then there was light everywhere, a single light, a light of lights from which all this world had come. Rama melted into that light; he was that light.

Slowly, the light faded and a gasp went up from those who still stood ashore: Rama had four arms now, he was Someone Else, someone he had always been. He was Mahavishnu, the God of Gods. He bore the Kaumodaki, the dazzling Sudarshana chakra, the Panchajanya, and the Saringa, in four hands that were the hue of the deepest blue lotus. His presence was greater than Brahma's above; his refulgence filled heaven and earth.

When Rama became Vishnu again, Bharata and Shatrughna also entered into the Blue God; they were also absorbed into the Infinite One. Then the Devas worshipped that Vision, as did the Sadhyas, the Marut hosts, with Indra and Agni at their head. All the munis of the three worlds worshipped Him, the gandharvas and apsaras, the suparnas, the nagas and yakshas, the Daityas and Danavas, and the great rakshasas.

Mahavishnu's voice said to Brahma, “These men and their families have followed me in love. They have abandoned their very lives to be with me. They are like my own self. Let them be blessed. Let all the birds and beasts who have followed me be blessed.”

Brahma said, “They shall all come to Santanaka, where there is every joy, and no death. And those of them that were once born of the Devas shall be Devas again.”

The vanaras, who were Devas in amsa, whose sires were the ones of light, assumed their fathers' illustrious, immortal forms again; the reekshas did as well. Sugriva entered the blazing disk of the sun; he was one with his father Surya. Great Vishnu stood at the mouth of the golden path that led out of this world, the Gopratara. He opened his arms wide to them.

In waves, like a river flowing into the sea, that throng of Ramabhaktas walked into the Sarayu. As soon as the holy water touched them, their mortal bodies dissolved and they rose up in resplendent forms of light. Man and beast were like Gods. Why, even the rocks in the Sarayu that day were saved, and rose with shining spirit-bodies.

When the last of his bhaktas had ascended, Rama himself rose out of this world. He left his grace upon the earth for an age, and the undying memory of a perfect life and a perfect reign: Ramarajya. Narayana was in Vaikunta again. And there, Sita, who is the Devi Lakshmi, waited for him.

AUM. SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI AUM.

 

Phalasruti

This is the Ramayana and its Uttara Kanda, which are worshipped by the brahmanas and the holiest rishis. When Rama returned to Vaikunta, the Ramayana of his life and his deeds on earth was sung in the transcendent realms as well, from the Patalas to the highest lokas of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.

It has been said that he who hears the Ramayana lives a long life; for this Adi Kavya is such a holy poem it dispels the sins that cling to a man. It is equal to the Vedas, and should be read at funerals for the peace of the soul of the departed.

The man who has no child and reads the Ramayana is blessed with sons and daughters. The poor man who listens to it with faith becomes wealthy. The man who reads even a fourth of this holiest of poems is freed from all his sins. Why, even a sloka of the Ramayana cleanses a man of his daily sins. The man who reads the Ramayana to others is a blessed one indeed; he has honor even in heaven.

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.
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