The Ramayana (20 page)

“They wept, my lord, before they left me. Your sons rubbed their hair with the juice of the nyagrodha and twisted locks of jata on their heads.”

Dasaratha listened to this in silence, and he seemed to become absorbed in the images of Rama that rose into his mind. But abruptly he sat erect and tried to get up from his couch. He could not, and cried, “Take me to him, Sumantra. I cannot live without my child. Yoke your horses; take me to him now!”

At his sides, Kausalya and Sumitra stroked his arms and tried to quiet him, though they also cried. Sumantra stood before them in anguish. The king clasped Kausalya's hands. He said to her, “Forgive me, Kausalya, forgive me. Don't be angry; ah, I could not bear that. Though I betrayed your love, you have always been kind to me. And now look what I have done. Forgive me, oh forgive me, Kausalya.”

He sobbed like a heartbroken child. Kausalya cradled Dasaratha's head against her. She caressed his face, saying, “There is nothing to forgive, my lord. If I have spoken harshly to you these past days, it is only from my own sorrow. We will share this grief and conquer it, and Rama will come back to us.”

But Dasaratha had fallen asleep from exhaustion. For a while, she held him quietly. Suddenly his eyes flew open as if a demon had visited his swoon. They darted here and there, as if searching blindly for something. Then he sighed and shut them once more.

Thus, with Kausalya's leave, Sumantra left Dasaratha. He bowed low to the king he had served for so many glorious years, and backed out of that chamber.

 

23. A forgotten curse

It was past midnight when Dasaratha awoke from a restless slumber. Kausalya and Sumitra sat beside him. Night was always a lucid time for the king. His mind seemed to clear when darkness fell, and so did his speech. Tonight he put his arms around Kausalya so she would hear what he had to say. Without Rama, he had no desire left to live in the bitter present; the past called him irresistibly. He thought he could see Kausalya dimly. He saw her as she had been many years ago: young and beautiful.

Slowly but clearly, he said to her, “Whatever a man does, good or evil, comes back to him someday. And he pays for everything. Once when I was young and a keen hunter, I had a strange adventure. I was expert at shabdavedi, by which one kills an animal from hiding, aiming blind at just the sound it makes. I was proud of my skill.

“It was a summer's end, I remember. I can see the parched earth thirstily drinking the first showers of the monsoon. The sky was heavy with storm clouds and the frogs on the swollen pools were giving throat all together to welcome the rain. I remember that day so clearly: as if it has returned to me and I have set out again to hunt beside the Sarayu, under the green mountain. The river had risen and everything had been lashed clean by the torrents of the past day.

“I stood very still, hidden in some thickets. I waited beside a pool on the river that was a favorite water hole for the animals of the jungle. For half an hour, I stood motionless and there was no sound save the songs of birds in the trees. Then I heard it, like music to my ears: the long gurgling noise that elephants make as they drink through their trunks. Never looking out from my hide, lest I give myself away, I eased my arrow through an opening in the thicket. Tracking the sound with only my hearing, I drew back my bowstring and shot a fierce arrow at where I judged the elephant's heart to be.

“Instead of the shrill trumpeting of a wounded beast, I heard a scream that froze my heart. It was the scream of a man. Then a voice was raised in agony: ‘Who has shot me like an animal? I am a rishi; why am I hunted with arrows? Who are you, sinner? Come out; let me see you before I die.'

“I scrambled out in shock and saw a young sannyasi before me, fallen over on his side. My arrow had pierced him right through and protruded evilly from his chest. Its feathers were stained with his blood, which gushed from him and fell on the white sand. Beside him lay his water pot, from which all the water had spilled. A legend of pain was in his eyes, and anger.

“When he saw me he cried through lips that frothed blood, ‘A kshatriya! What have I done to deserve your savage barb? I came to the river to fetch water for my old parents who are both blind. Now they will die without me, and thinking that I abandoned them.'

“His breath came in a tortured wheeze; more blood bubbled from his mouth. I fell sobbing at his feet. I told him how I came to shoot him with my arrow. I begged him not to curse me, to believe it had been a mistake. I held him in my arms, and between painful gasps he said, ‘Fill the water pot and take it back to my father. You will find him a way down this trail. Tell him what happened; pacify him and try to prevent him from cursing you. As for me, I know you did not mean to kill me and I forgive you.'

“The effort of speaking drained him and he lay quiet for a while. But I saw his eyes glaze over, as death came for him. His face contorted in another spasm of agony, and he cried to me, ‘Draw the arrow from me, Kshatriya, and let my life follow it. This pain is unbearable and I am dying too slowly.'

“He smiled wanly at me, and his thin face was so radiant and beautiful. I grasped the shaft of the arrow and, with a heave, pulled it dripping from him. With one last scream that echoed through those woods, frightening the birds in the trees into flight, his eyes rolled up and he was dead in my arms. Now there was peace on his face; his lips softened into a smile.

“For a long time, I stood stricken beside him. Then I picked up his water pot and filled it from the river. Summoning all my courage, and on heavy feet that wanted to turn and run back to the comfort of the palace, I made my slow way along that dreadful path through the forest, toward his father's asrama. The father heard me before I saw him, and thinking I was his son returning with water, hailed me.

“They sat at the door to their hut: two blind old people bent with age and poverty. Their eyes gazed sightlessly at me and I stood silent before them. The old muni said with some asperity, ‘Why are you standing there so quietly? Your mother is thirsty; give her the water. This is not the time to be playful.'

“I took a deep breath and gave the water into the old woman's hands. Then I said, ‘I am not your son. My name is Dasaratha, and I am a prince of the House of Ikshvaku.' I paused and moistened my lips, which were dry as deserts. They craned their heads to my voice. Somehow, I went on, ‘I have caused you both great grief. What I have done is unforgivable. But I did not do it wantonly and I beg you to forgive me.'

“The blind father asked, ‘What have you done, Kshatriya?'

“I told them as best as I could: how the water pot being filled had sounded like an elephant drinking, and how I shot my arrow without looking. The rishi and his wife received my news with grave calm. They were obviously master and mistress of their emotions.

“Slowly, the old man said, ‘If you had not come here with such courage, my curse would have burst your head from afar like a melon. Take us to our son. We want to touch him one last time with our fingers, which for us are our eyes'

“In misery, I led them by their wizened hands down the path of sorrow. Kneeling in the wet sand, the father stroked his son's face and wept. Then the mother knelt beside him. When her fingers felt her child's cold body and the wound in his side, she screamed and fell over.

“Grimly the old rishi performed the last rites for his son. He asked me to gather dry twigs and branches for the cremation. He piled them over his dead youth, chanting hymns from the Veda. At last, he offered water as tarpana to the departed soul, for his journey in death. Then he lit that fire with a touch of his hands.

“As it blazed up, his wife clutched his hand. The rishi turned to me. ‘You cannot imagine how I suffer at being parted so brutally from my child. I curse you that in your old age you will also die of the grief of being separated from your son. Before you die, like us you will lose the sight of your eyes'

“Before I could stop them, they walked into the fire and were made ashes with their son.”

Dasaratha sighed. Kausalya held his hands tightly in hers and the tears she shed onto them burned him. She said, “You never told me about the brahmana's curse before.”

“Only now I thought of him, when my sight left me and I was as blind as he was. Kausalya, hold me, and forgive me for everything I have done. My senses grow weak and I feel as if I am in a dark cave. I will not live long, my queen; the brahmana's curse will soon be fulfilled. Rama, I see your face before me, but you are so far away when I need you most. Oh, Kaikeyi has been the death of me.”

He lapsed into incoherence. Kausalya held him close in the darkness, and Sumitra covered them both with a shawl. Dasaratha fell into an uneasy sleep. Only at times he would grow restless and whimper Rama's name.

 

24. The death of a king

The sun crept over the rim of the world, and the morning vandhis and magadhis came to Dasaratha's door, singing his praises. The women of the harem brought water and unguents for his bath. During the early hours, Kausalya had left her husband in a deep sleep and gone to her own bed for a short time. The women who slept in the queen's quarters came that morning, as they did every day, to awaken the king.

They stripped the sheets from his bed and saw them damp with sweat. Dasaratha did not stir, and his face was set in a serene smile. Growing anxious now, they shook his arms and then his body. But he slept on. It was the women's screams that woke Kausalya and Sumitra, and they came running. But their husband had left them forever in his sleep.

A cry went forth through the palace, and soon through all Ayodhya. The king was dead. Just five nights he had lived after Rama left; the sixth had killed him. It was as if he had only waited, that warrior, keeping death's messengers at bay in his final battle, until Sumantra came and gave him news of Rama. He had waited in desperate hope that his prince would change his mind and return to him.

Now he lay conquered, the smile of death's peace curving his lips. His face was miraculously unwrinkled again; all the conflict was gone from it. Dasaratha, great kshatriya, a father to his people, Indra's friend who had fought beside the king of Devaloka, the one Narayana had chosen to be his own father in the world, was dead because of a woman's weakness. He died of a broken heart, for what he had done to his son. He lay beyond caring, his hands folded across his chest, while his wives and the other women of the palace cried around his bed.

With hollow words of comfort, some of the women led Kausalya away. She wailed that now both her son and her husband were gone, what had she to live for? She would lie with Dasaratha on his pyre.

The people of Ayodhya were dazed: first Rama had been banished, now the king was dead. Insecurity, not untinged with guilt for having judged Dasaratha harshly in his last days, spread among them like a demon. It was the old terror of a people who were suddenly without a ruler. There was silence in the thronged streets; no other crowd so vast could have been so quiet.

Dasaratha had been blessed with four splendid sons; he had died with none of them at his side. Vasishta and the ministers of the court looked outside the palace and saw the crowd swollen there, on the edge of madness. They saw the people were so shocked they did not even cry. There was no telling what they might do in such a mood. Certainly, Kaikeyi's life was in danger. Vasishta decided Bharata must be sent for at once; until he arrived to perform the last rites for his father, the king's body should be preserved with oils.

This was announced to the people, and like sleepwalkers they returned to their homes. There were some murmurs about Kaikeyi, but mainly the people appeared to be too grief-stricken to think of any violence. Few slept that night. They sat up into the small hours, speaking of Dasaratha's magnificent reign, just as they had sat talking about Rama some days ago. Tonight no one mentioned the final tragedy that ruined the king's good name. Caught between sorrow and panic, the citizens of Ayodhya stayed awake.

*   *   *

All night they rode like time, the messengers whom Vasishta had dispatched to Rajagriha, the capital of Kekaya, where Bharata stayed in his grandfather Asvapati's palace. They carried this message to the prince: “Return at once to Ayodhya. A matter of life and death calls you home.”

The messengers bore the customary gifts of silks and jewels that came from one king to another, and stern instructions from Vasishta not to breathe a word of either Rama's exile or Dasaratha's death. Across the river Malini, they rode like a gale. They thundered past Hastinapura, crossed the Ganga by dark, and turned west. They left Panchala behind and came to the Ikshumati. They forded her without dismounting and pressed on as if they rode for their lives.

All day and night, those men rode without rest. At dawn they came to Rajagriha, like a storm spent, but bearing the lightning of their message from Ayodhya.

*   *   *

As the messengers rode as if death rode behind them, while Ayodhya stayed awake mourning, Bharata had no inkling of the momentous events at home. He lay asleep in Rajagriha and was visited by nightmares such as come to a man but once or twice in his life.

He dreamed his father was perched on a precipice, his clothes soiled and rent, his hair flying in an eerie wind. Bharata watched Dasaratha fall from that cliff, down, down into a pit of excrement. Then he saw the king again, covered in filth, drinking black oil out of cupped palms.

His dream shifted in evil. He saw all the oceans of the earth dried up, and a broken moon fallen into the seabed where numberless fish lay marooned and gasping. His dream turned dark again, and in that darkness a great white elephant crashed trumpeting through a field of cruel spikes planted in the ground, trying blindly to find his way home.

Dasaratha reappeared in his son's nightmare. His hair hung to his shoulders, pure white, and his face was calm and toothless. He rode in a cart pulled by mules and wore a garland of wildflowers around his neck.