The Ramayana (71 page)

Soon the sacred peninsula of Bharatavarsha, which had once been a vast island in the sea and had drifted north manvantaras ago, appeared under him. Sprawling jungles, rivers, plateaus, hills, and gleaming plains appeared below Hanuman as he flashed on and on, ever north. But he had no eyes for any of those excellent sights. Absorbed in his mission, he flew on, pushing himself until he flew quicker than the wind.

As evening fell, Hanuman saw the Himalaya ahead of him, stretching from horizon to horizon, like a necklace of crimson and gold across Bhumi Devi's throat. As he flew on, the great range grew taller with every moment, its majesty lit by the last shafts of the setting sun. Over the first peaks flitted Hanuman, over sheer white gorge and glacier, pale river and silvery waterfall. Night fell quickly around him.

The cold clutched at him, but he hardly noticed it. All he saw in his mind was Rama's face, its eyes shut and plunged in darkness. On flew Hanuman and crossed the jutting massifs of Himavan. He came beyond them to a tableland where a hundred lakes sparkled with reflected starlight. One of them was so magical he could feel its wonder reach up to caress him with mystic fingers. That lake perched between heaven and earth; Hanuman guessed it was the fabled Manasa sarovara, which Brahma created long ago, with a thought.

Now myriad flames dotted the hills under him, where fires burned in a hundred asramas to keep the biting cold at bay. This was holy country, where the greatest rishis of Aryavarta lived in tapasya. Ahead loomed two mighty peaks that stood apart from the rest of the Himalaya. In the starlight he navigated by, to Hanuman they seemed the most sacred and mysterious of all. One was tall and white as goose feathers, and Hanuman knew this was Kailasa, where Siva lived. Thrice he circled that holiest mountain, and it seemed to him that a blessing greater than earth and sky reached out to touch his heart from the white eminence.

Beyond Kailasa, he saw another taller mountain of burnished gold. Its sides were smooth, and it glowed like an occult and unknowable yantra: the heart of the earth! Yet it was not towering Meru that attracted Hanuman, but a third mountain that lay between pale Kailasa and the golden one. It was much smaller than the other two, and dark by comparison. But it shone with a million twinkling phosphorescences. When Hanuman looked closer, he saw these were not the night fires of rishis, but the leaves of the plants that grew here, leaves like silver tongues of flame.

Hanuman flew down toward the glowing leaves. But as he drew near, they vanished from below him and the little mountain lay in darkness. Hanuman sprang up again and flew back into the sky; once more the plants of healing glimmered below him. Again the son of the wind flew down. But even as his feet sought solid ground to land on, the light of the plants disappeared.

Hanuman knew that the plants and the mountain colluded to conceal the oshadhis from him. Thinking of Rama, who lay unmoving on distant Lanka, the vanara gave a roar that the planets above heard. He struck the mountain with his fist in rage. Growling, great Hanuman grew greater still. In hands grown vast beyond imagining, he grasped Oshadhiparvata by its sides. Hanuman shut his eyes; he gritted his teeth and pulled that mountain out of the earth by its roots.

The vanara's body blazed. He flashed through the sky, bearing Oshadhiparvata above him in immense palms. Like light, Hanuman flew with the mountain. He flew so fast he vanished from the starlit sky and arrived almost at once in Lanka. Like a falling meteor, the son of the wind descended to the earth. Gently he set the mountain of herbs down beside Sugriva's unconscious army in the zone of the brahmastra, where it was neither day nor night, but bizarre twilight.

A kindly breeze blew into the limbo and filled it with the scents of the oshadhis. At once Rama stirred, and then Lakshmana. They shook their heads and sat up. The darkness of the astra dissipated. One by one, rubbing their eyes, all the vanaras awoke. Sugriva awoke, Angada, Neela and Nala, Rishabha and Mainda, and the others. Every vanara the brahmastra had felled revived. The stars shone down again, and the rising moon, like balm. As the rich fragrances of the oshadhis caressed them, even the monkeys who had been killed in battle rose from the dead, to fight again for Rama against the legions of evil.

But no rakshasa rose from the dead, because none lay lifeless on the field. It was Ravana's command that the body of any demon who died was to be cast into the sea. Rama blessed Hanuman who stood before him with tears of joy in his eyes.

Rama said, “Mighty one, return the mountain to its roots. Let Oshadhiparvata stand where it has always stood, between Meru and Kailasa. Lest another hero like you fly there someday in quest of the healing herbs.”

Hanuman grew vast again; he lifted the mountain. While the vanaras cheered him wildly, he rose into the sky and raced away across the face of the moon, along the paths of the Devas and the wind, toward the Himalaya. Hanuman flew quickly as a wish once more, and returned in time too brief to tell, after planting Oshadhiparvata back in its place in the north.

*   *   *

Sugriva called Hanuman. He said, “The night is ripe for deeds. We must strike back while the rakshasas celebrate our death. Let some of our bravest monkeys enter Lanka with torches in their hands.”

An army of flames, the vanaras approached the drunken, triumphant rakshasas. Some demon guards saw the torches the monkeys carried appear on top of Lanka's smooth walls. They thought it was all the wine they had drunk that made them see things that were not there. Then they thought perhaps it was some of their own people waving lamps in celebration. For they had seen the vanara army laid low by Indrajit's astra. The monkeys scampered along the rooftops, so recently restored after Hanuman's inferno. Before the rakshasas had time to gather themselves or repulse the shadowy intruders, Lanka was on fire again.

Like a nest of sin being exorcised, Ravana's city blazed with monkey fire. Before they knew what flames consumed them, mansions and palaces caught and burned down, and thousands of rakshasas died in their sleep. Women perished, and children; this was war. When the vanaras had set the city of night alight, they came flying back to Rama. The screams of the burned and the burning swelled above the crash of waves against the shores of Lanka. Snatched back from the dimension of sleep, into which the brahmastra had plunged them, Rama and Lakshmana raised their bows and pulled on their bowstrings like echoes of the apocalypse.

Finally, the rakshasas realized the monkeys had risen from the dead. They poured out of their homes and swarmed, shouting, into the streets. All around them flames licked at the sky and the moon, like some macabre festival of lamps.

Outside the gates of Lanka, Rama stood with his bow in his hand, even like Siva with his Pinaka.

 

27. The sons of Kumbhakarna

It was an infernal midnight when Ravana was roused from sleep. Earlier, from his terrace he had seen the vanara army lying still on the field. He went to the gates with Indrajit and saw that no life stirred under the brahmastra's canopy of darkness. Heady celebrations swept Lanka. Now at midnight, suddenly the city was ablaze. Messengers rushed to Ravana's apartment with the incredible news: the monkeys had risen from the dead, and they had set Lanka on fire.

Ravana sent another army against Rama. He sent dead Kumbhakarna's sons, Kumbha and Nikumbha, to war. Under moon and stars, in the hour of the rakshasas' greatest strength, the two princes attacked, with a swarming legion around them. The demons' weapons and the jewels at their throats, chests, and arms shone like a river of stars fallen to the earth; through Lanka on fire, the river of rakshasas flowed. Their savage faces lit by the moon and the flames, they came to fight for their city and their lives. Their women and children had died tonight, and they came grimly, for revenge.

But the vanaras were exuberant. Hadn't they just risen from the dead to fight again for Rama and the army of dharma? They felt invincible, that not even death could stand between them and victory. Roaring, Angada leaped at three rakshasas who marched at the head of the demon legions. In a wink, he smashed their heads with a rock. The rakshasa army parted like a river with an island in its stream, and Kumbha of the rakshasas stood forth to confront Angada of the monkeys.

Kumbha was tall and lean, like his uncle, the king, and his valor was lustrous. His arrows were gashes of lightning in the sky, and even Angada could not stand against him alone. Mainda and Dwividha rushed to his side. Still, Kumbha's blinding archery beat back the vanaras. Dwividha was pierced with arrows of dim green light, and Mainda as well; both fainted. Angada sprang to them; but he, too, was shot swiftly with shafts of sleep.

From behind the vanara lines loomed Jambavan, fangs and claws flashing in the moonlight, and beside him stood Sushena; but they could not even reach Kumbha. Then the vanara army parted again and another warrior, greater than Angada or Mainda, Jambavan or Sushena, came through it. Sugriva, king of the vanaras, son of Surya, arrived to battle in the night.

He stood before the demon prince and cried, “Kumbha, you are the pride of the rakshasas. You are as mighty as your father and your uncle; why, you are like Bali and Prahlada, Indra, Kubera, and Varuna. Your archery is like Indrajit's and your strength like your father's. You are a jewel of your line. Yet, my brave prince, now you will die; for even against my will, I must kill you. Come, fight me hand to hand, unless you are afraid without your bow.”

At that taunt, following the cunning praise, Kumbha flung down his bow and sprang from his chariot to fight Sugriva with bare hands; which was just as the canny vanara intended. The two armies fell hushed around them, as vanara king and rakshasa prince locked with each other, and the muscles stood out on their bodies like tree roots.

Kumbha and Sugriva fought long and wildly, and Lanka shuddered with their roars and blows. But suddenly, Sugriva jumped back a nimble pace, clenched his fist, and struck Kumbha on his temple. One blow and the rakshasa sank to the ground, his skull crushed, blood and brains oozing from the wound. Crying out in terror, that yet another of their princes was slain, the rakshasas fled from Sugriva. The vanara king beat his chest; he gave the victory call of the deep jungle.

“Aaoongh! Aaoongh! Aaoongh!”
roared Sugriva, echoingly.

His army responded echoingly with
“Jaya, Sugriva! Jaya! Jaya!”

Nikumbha, ferocious as the dead Kumbha, rushed into battle, roaring to drown Sugriva's cries. Nikumbha was built more like his father than his uncle; he was another giant. Armed with an unlikely weapon came that prince of darkness: he came with a great pestle in his hands. The ayudha glowed in the night, now deep green, now dull red.

Nikumbha raised the weird thing above his head and began to spin it round; until it seemed to catch the movement and whirled, humming, with a will of its own. Nikumbha loosed the wheel of fire at the monkeys, a chakra of a thousand burning blades, a whirlwind of death. The vanaras fled shrieking from it, but it pursued them, quick as thinking. Thousands of jungle folk fell, headless, sliced in two or made ashes by that weapon of both blades and fire. Blood flowed in a gleaming rivulet under the moon.

Against the fleeing tide of monkeys came another vanara hero to confront Nikumbha dominating the field of death. The son of the wind came and stood before the prince: Hanuman, grown taller than the rakshasa. The wheel of death in Nikumbha's hands shone with new light. It shone like a red and green sun. Round and round, chanting an evil mantra, Nikumbha whirled the pestle weapon above his head. It seemed to grow in his hands. It flashed another hundred glinting blades; its flames were twice as livid as they had been before. Now the pestle howled in Nikumbha's sorcerer's hands like a spirit in torment.

He whirled it round so rapidly that it was an unbroken orb of light, a dark moon risen on the earth. With a cry that froze the blood, Nikumbha cast his weapon at Hanuman. It floated wailing through the moonlight and the vanaras fell on their faces. Like a comet, it blazed straight into Hanuman's chest. There was a white explosion, followed by stillness and silence.

Slowly the monkeys lifted their heads, expecting to see Hanuman blown to shreds. But he still towered above them, as he had been when he flew across the ocean. Of the pestle of fire, only some embers floated down from his chest, where that weapon had blown apart. Like a mountain trembling at an earthquake, Hanuman shook the embers from his fur.

Growling in his throat, an unimaginable beast of prey again, Hanuman sprang at the stunned Nikumbha. The son of Vayu bunched a fist and struck the rakshasa a staggering blow on his chest. Nikumbha's armor was riven; it pierced his flesh and blood flowed down his body. In a wink, Hanuman wrestled him to the ground, sat on his chest and strangled him with inexorable hands. Then he wrenched the prince's head off his neck, and anointed himself with the spouting gore.

 

28. Indrajit

When Hanuman killed Nikumbha, Lanka resounded with the vanaras' jubilation. The rakshasas shrank back in occult fear; they said that surely this battle could never be won. This was the ancient war between dharma and adharma, and they were fighting on the wrong side, the one that always lost in the final reckoning. Not all their dark weapons, not even their trained maneuvering or their greatest warriors were potent against the crude army of the jungle, armed with not just rocks and trees, but with dharma as well. Not a vanara knew how to hold a sword, a bow or arrow; yet victory so far was certainly theirs. It was as if the monkeys were protected by a power greater than the demons could fathom.

After Nikumbha was killed, another rakshasa, and a master of astras, Maharaksha, came forth. He invoked the agneyastra and shot it at the vanara army. It lit up earth and sky, and flew to consume the army of the jungle in primeval flames. But Rama came forth from the vanaras' side. Swifter than the agneyastra was his shaft in reply: a suryastra from the heart of the sun. The two weapons locked in the night sky, bright as midday with their garish splendor. But the will of Maharaksha was small match for the will of Rama, and the demon's astra fell away into the sea. Rama's arrow spumed on into Maharaksha's chest and consumed that rakshasa in an instant. The demon army fled again.