The Ramayana (43 page)

Rama said, “My loyal friend, let your people find where Ravana lives. Let them discover whether Sita is alive. But command your great army yourself, Sugriva: they are your people and you are their king.”

Sugriva summoned a vanara chieftain called Vinata. He said to Vinata, “Take a fourth of our army and go west. On the mountains, and in their every cave, search for Sita. Seek her as you might seek your very life if it were lost. Seek her in jungles, across rivers, and upon hills. Cross the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the Saraswati on your quest; cross the Sindhu. If you still don't find her, cross into alien lands. Scour the frontier countries for her and fly back to me in a month. May success attend your search. For your life shall be forfeit, Vinata, if you do not find Sita.”

Sugriva sent Hanuman to the south, with Angada to lead that expedition. He sent Tara's father, Sushena, to the east, with a teeming force, and Shatabali to the north. To each vanara chieftain, Sugriva described all the lands and nations he would search in astonishing detail. Rama wondered at how widely Sugriva had ranged over the earth, and how well he remembered everything he had seen on his journeys. This was not knowledge acquired from stories he had heard: it was the learning of sight and sound, touch, scent, and adventure.

Then Sugriva called Hanuman to him alone. “Wherever she may be, there is no one more likely to find Sita than you. Not the mottled face of the earth, not the sky with its realms of clouds, not the seven seas can contain you, Son of the wind. O ablest of all my people, not even the worlds of spirits are inaccessible to you, who can fly as swiftly as your father of light and air. Do you remember the day she dropped the bundle of her jewels down to us on Rishyamooka? The Rakshasa took her south that day. While all the others may fail, I know that you, Hanuman, will find Rama's Sita for him.”

Rama went to Hanuman and put his hands on the loving monkey's shoulders. He smiled at Sugriva's wisest minister. “I believe that, of all the vanaras, you will find Sita.”

Rama took a golden signet ring from his finger and pressed it into Hanuman's long hand. “Show this to her when you find Sita, and she will know you have come from me.”

Deep peace came over the spirit of Rama when the vanara received that ring and prostrated himself before the prince. Rama was strangely certain that when Hanuman headed south to seek Sita, the quest for her would truly begin. Hanuman went down the hill and gathered his vanaras to him; and to Rama he seemed briefly like the moon with a thousand stars twinkling around him. Rama called out again to the vanara who had, from the first, impressed him as being the sagest of his kind.

“Hanuman,” he cried, waving, “remember I count on you!”

Sugriva's army flashed away across the earth on its quest. The monkeys went through the world like fireflies through a jungle.

 

16. In the south

The vanara armies went in pageant from Prasravana, some under the trees, some over the leafy, nimble ways of their branches; and the hillside was emptied of a hundred thousand monkeys.

At the cave mouth, Rama turned to Sugriva and said with a smile, “When you described the far countries to your chieftains, I felt you had seen them all with your own eyes. How do you know so much about the earth, Sugriva?”

Sugriva said, “Rama, when my brother Vali pursued me in anger once, I fled through the world. Through forests and across rivers, over mountains and through mazes of caves I flew, with him after me. He chased me across the earth and I fled for my life with my four ministers. Finally, Hanuman reminded me of Matanga's curse, and we came out of the north to Rishyamooka. My eyes saw the world in terror. Fear held them wide open and every detail is engraved on my memory. For years Vali chased me, Rama, and for years I flew before him.”

Teasingly, Rama asked, “Isn't it time you returned to your palace? Tara waits for you, Sugriva, and Ruma and many others. I will see you in a month, when the moon is full again.”

In hope, Rama waited. When he grew dejected, Lakshmana was beside him to divert him from his grief. His brother took Rama on long walks through the jungle of endless fascination. Lakshmana would always say that sooner than Rama thought, Sita would be found.

*   *   *

Vinata in the west, Sushena in the east, and Shatabali in the north combed those quarters for Sita. Great vanara legions poured through forests and across rivers, over mountains and into deep caves, questioning the wild folk they met along the way, cajoling or threatening them as they saw fit. The monkeys scoured the corners of Bharatavarsha for Ravana's kingdom or lair. But they found no trace of him, or of her whom they sought. After the month given them was over, they came back, disappointed and apprehensive, to Kishkinda and Prasravana.

Sugriva stood on the hill's shoulder with Rama, overlooking his forces that had returned to him empty-handed. He said quietly, “These I never expected to find Sita. Didn't we see the Rakshasa bear her away to the south? Be of firm faith, Rama. Vayu's son Hanuman will return with news of your wife.”

*   *   *

The force of vanaras that went south with Hanuman, Angada, and Thara at its head, traveled across all the lands that Sugriva had described to them. They were exactly as he said. The intricate caves of the Vindhya mountains, its thick jungles, the hidden fissures behind many falls that plunged down mountain slopes—they searched all these, but found no sign of Ravana or Sita, nor gleaned any news of them from the denizens of those parts. Forest after forest they combed, and with each one they passed without finding her their dejection grew.

Once they wandered into the strangest vana any of them had ever seen. The trees of that forest had neither leaves nor flowers. Riverbeds they saw here, but no drop of water between their banks. It was a dead forest, where no blade of grass grew, where no living creature drew breath. The silence of the lifeless realm was absolute and Angada's monkeys were unnerved. Huddling together, the vanara army crept breathlessly through that wasteland, and at its very heart they saw a rishi sitting in tapasya. His austere face shone, his jata was piled high, and near him was a charming pool on whose bank flowering trees grew, and trees laden with fruit.

They did not know it, neither did they dare disturb the solemn muni at his tapasya, but he was Kandu. Years ago, his son of sixteen summers had been lost in this same forest. When, after days of searching frenziedly for him, the rishi did not find the boy, he cursed the forest and everything in it to be desolate forever.

Silently, the vanaras passed through the eerie place. They went farther south. Quite suddenly, they saw trees ahead of them full of lush green leaves. They heard all the sounds of a living jungle: streams full of gushing water and branches full of birds that sang among brilliant flowers and their scents. Fierce tigers, elephant, and deer they saw, and the monkeys heaved a sigh of relief that the bizarre zone of death had ended.

But they had hardly entered the living jungle when a rakshasa, whose body faced one way and his head another, attacked them with a roar. Gibbering in fright, all the vanaras save Hanuman and Thara scampered into the nearest trees. Not that their perches were safe, because the rakshasa was as tall as any tree that grew there. Angada faced the strange monster alone.

In a wink, Vali's son grew as tall as the demon, and cried to Hanuman, “It is Ravana, uncle, and I will kill him!”

Before the rakshasa had recovered from his surprise, Angada smashed his head with a blow. The rakshasa fell, oozing blood and brains. As he died, he told them he was not Ravana, but the Rishi Marichi's son. Would they please release him from the bondage of his fiendish body by burning him? A thousand monkeys dug a pit for the rakshasa. In no time, they covered him with dry branches and set him alight. They saw a spirit form rise from the fire and, hands folded, ascend into the sky.

*   *   *

On they pressed. This was a jungle of endless hills, and each one had a honeycomb of caves scooped into its side. Patiently, the vanaras searched every hill and cave, flowing into those mazes in a tide of monkeys; and they came out again, shaking their heads, chattering in frustration. When they had combed that southernmost jungle without success, Angada's vanaras gathered around a great tree that grew in a clearing at the forest's limit. Restless and despondent, wave upon wave of the monkey folk stood around their prince.

Angada said to them, “The wise say that unwavering resolve in adversity leads to success. Don't be discouraged, we still have a week left. Let us forget our tiredness and begin again. We may have overlooked the one cave in which the Demon holds her.”

The vanaras cheered him loudly. Like a golden river, they flowed away from the conclave around the solemn tree. Shouting encouragement to each other, they climbed the silver hill, Rajata, which was named for its pale color. Cautiously, they peered into every cave on that silvery hill. Each one they entered and searched, and they finally reached the summit. But they found no Sita, nor any clue of her.

They returned to Vindhya through the dead forest. Cave by cave, they searched that mountain, wood by wood; but not even here did they find the princess. The last week of the month Sugriva had given them elapsed. Hunger, thirst, and the weakness of the final week's frantic efforts had taken their toll on the monkeys. The army was exhausted. Great were the numbers and the appetite of that force, and they had denuded the jungles through which they passed of all their fruit.

Suddenly, a young vanara at the foot of the mountain they were combing cried to Angada and Hanuman, “My lords, come and look! A cave we haven't seen before.”

They scrambled down the slope and saw that there was indeed a cave mouth, overgrown with foliage and flowering creepers, and veiled by a stand of trees, as well, as if nature had conspired to keep that cavern hidden from the eyes of strangers. As they stood gazing, they felt a gust of air blow at them. The bushes across the mysterious opening were agitated and the vanaras leaped back in alarm. But only a white stork and some painted teal winged their way out from the cave, squawking at the congregation of monkeys.

A delicious fragrance wafted around the vanaras invitingly. By now hunger churned their stomachs as much as failure did their spirits, and they were desperate to discover what lay within the cave mouth. They pulled away creepers, bent bushes and small trees, and in single file, slowly, and often painfully when some thorny plants scratched their hands and faces, managed to push their way in.

That cave was called Rikshabila; but Angada's monkeys did not know this. All was dark inside. When the creepers and bushes outside sprang back into place, no glimmer of light penetrated the blackness within. The monkeys held tightly on to one another's hands, forming a long chain of vanaras. Now they crept forward, so no one was afraid or lost in that perpetual night. Outside, hearing that an unexplored cave had been discovered, more and more vanaras arrived at the cave mouth. Bending back tree and bush, pulling aside creepers, they also crawled into Rikshabila.

For an hour and a yojana, the vanaras crept along the perfectly dark tunnel. Where the roof was low they were forced to crawl on all fours. As they went they were swathed in the ethereal scent, always wafted to them from ahead. Then Angada, who led the way, cried, “Light!”

The vanaras at the head of the chain emerged into another cavern with a high, sloping roof. They gasped when they shaded their eyes against the glare: before them they saw a garden bathed in mellow light. A profusion of trees grew here; but they were golden trees! Their blooms shone with colors that stirred the soul: calescent colors that were not any of the rainbow, nor of this world, but beyond both. From these flowers the quintessential fragrance that had swept over them seeped all the way to the cave mouth.

Clear pools dotted the garden, their water scintillating as if they were made of droplets of diamonds and pearls. An exuberance of water birds swam on these and warbled in joy. But there was more: imposing mansions of gleaming silver stood among the groves of golden trees. In awe, the vanaras stole forward. They saw the paths at their feet were of beaten gold and, like the mansions, encrusted with thousands of tiny precious stones. Apart from the bird's songs, a deep silence hung over the garden of enchantment, which was surely a relic from another age of the earth.

On soft feet, the wide-eyed monkey folk ventured cautiously into the first palatial edifice. They found it deserted. They came out and went into another; but that, too, had no living soul within its splendid walls. The vanaras roamed the wonderful streets for some time and they saw no one; until, all at once, Hanuman and Angada felt they were being watched.

Hanuman glanced at his prince. Angada's eyes roved up and down the airy street. He said, “Someone is here.”

The next moment there was a quaint flash of light and a very tall woman stood before them: an ascetic wearing deerskin. She and they all stood still for a moment, staring at each other. Then she smiled at them and folded her palms. Hanuman answered her, folding his own hands and bowing deeply to her.

“Greetings, Swamini. We came through a dark tunnel and we do not know where we are. We were hungry and thirsty, and we saw water birds fly out of a cave mouth on the hillside. We followed their flight and arrived in this wonderful place. What is this garden, and who are you, holy one?”

She raised her fine hand in a blessing. “In olden days, great Mayaa, the architect of the Asuras, who built the fabled Tripura, created this garden. Mayaa worshipped Brahma with a long tapasya and the Pitama gave him the magical knowledge of architecture, which once only Usanas possessed.

“But Mayaa and Indra had battle between them over a woman, and Indra drove Mayaa from here with his vajra. Brahma gave that woman, Hema, these gardens and mansions. As for me, I am Svayamprabha, Merusavarni's daughter, Mena's friend, and the guardian of this Rikshabila.