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Pratapbhanu is asleep in the hermitage, and his host has risen to greet a friend: the rakshasa who had become the boar. Before the king wakes he will be carried home with his horse. The one who carries him will go on to a second errand, which ends in a priest’s bed.
What follows runs from a bed to a kitchen to a battlefield. A hundred thousand brahmins will be invited with their families. A voice will come out of the sky as the king begins to serve them. The brahmins, in anger and without a thought, will curse him with his family. A second voice will say he did no wrong. In Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas the story keeps both, the voice that clears the king and the curse that stands. No one of Satyaketu’s line is saved. In time the man who began to serve the feast has ten heads and twenty arms. This is still the story Shiva told Parvati, in Yajnavalkya’s telling of it to Bharadvaja.
At the king’s house, on the day of the invitation
The main figures in this episode
- Pratapbhanu the king, carried home asleep. He takes the man in his priest’s form for his guru. He invites a hundred thousand brahmins with their families and begins to serve them. He is cursed by brahmins who give it no thought. He is called blameless by a voice from the sky and then by the brahmins themselves. He falls in battle with his brother. In time he becomes Ravana.
- The false ascetic king the host of the hermitage, who rises glad to meet his friend and tells him the whole story. To him the news comes when the priest has been returned.
- Kalaketu the rakshasa. He carries the king home with his horse and carries the priest off to a mountain cave. He lies in the priest’s bed in the priest’s form. He cooks the feast and taints it. He returns the priest to his house and gives the ascetic the news. The commentary gives him the first voice from the sky as well.
- The royal priest the real one, carried off with his mind confused by maya, kept in a mountain cave, and later returned to his house. He never speaks.
- The brahmins a hundred thousand guests with their families, their feet washed and their seats given with honor. They rise at the first voice and curse the king and his family in anger and without thought. They are astonished by the second voice. They tell the king that what is to be does not fade though the fault is not his.
- Arimardan and Dharmaruchi the king’s younger brother and his minister. The brother falls with the king in the siege and becomes Kumbhakarna. The minister becomes Vibhishana, Ravana’s younger brother by another mother.
The ascetic meets his friend, and is glad
The ascetic king saw his friend, rose, and met him with joy. He was happy. He told his friend the whole story, and the rakshasa, pleased, spoke. “Now I have mastered the enemy. Hear, king, if you have done as I instructed. Give up your worry and sleep. The creator has removed the disease without medicine. I will sweep the enemy away by the root, with his line, and on the fourth day I will come and meet you.” Having reassured the ascetic king well, the great deceiver, very angry, went.
The verse gives the two men their gladness one after the other. The ascetic’s at the sight of his friend and the rakshasa’s beside his hearing of the whole story. Worry was the verse’s word for the ascetic as he kept his seat while the king slept. It is the word the friend now tells him to give up. The verse still calls the host the ascetic king. It calls the friend a rakshasa as he is pleased and the great deceiver as he leaves, with anger on him. The king is still asleep in the same hermitage, knowing nothing. The rakshasa has promised to come and meet his friend on the fourth day with the king swept away by the root, with his line.
The king reaches home, and the priest reaches a cave
The rakshasa delivered Pratapbhanu, with his horse, to his home in a moment. He laid the king down to sleep beside his queen, and tied the horse well in the stable. Then he carried off the king’s priest, confused his mind with maya, and kept him in a mountain cave. He made himself into the priest’s form and went and lay down on the priest’s fine bed. The man who had said in the hermitage that he would come in the priest’s guise was the ascetic. The one lying in the priest’s bed is his friend.
The king woke before dawn, saw his house, and was filled with wonder. He reckoned the sage’s greatness in his mind. He rose quietly so that the queen would not know, mounted that same horse, and rode out to the forest. No man or woman of the city knew. When two watches had passed, the king came back. There was festivity in every house, and the welcome music played. When the king saw the priest, he remembered that same work and looked at him in amazement. The greatness he reckoned in his mind was a rakshasa’s work. The man he looked at in such amazement was the one who carried him home.
Three days passed for the king like an age, with his mind fixed at the false sage’s feet. Knowing the time, the priest came and explained everything to the king according to the counsel. The king rejoiced, recognizing his guru. In the grip of delusion he had no awareness. The commentary spells the delusion out: whether this was the ascetic sage or Kalaketu the rakshasa. At once he invited a hundred thousand fine brahmins with their families. The verse’s word for the one he recognizes is guru, and the number he sends for is the hermitage’s number.
The guests seated with honor, and the first voice from the sky
The priest made the feast: the six flavors and the four kinds of food, as the Vedas sing them. The verse calls his cooking a cooking of maya, and the dishes were so many that no one could count them. He cooked the flesh of many kinds of animals, and into it that villain mixed the flesh of brahmins. All the brahmins were called to the meal, their feet were washed, and they were seated with honor.
The moment the king began to serve, a voice came from the sky. The commentary names the voice as Kalaketu’s. “Brahmins, rise, rise and go home. There is great harm. Do not eat the food. In the kitchen is the flesh of brahmins.” Trusting it, all the brahmins rose. The king was distraught. His wit was lost in delusion. In the grip of what was to be, no word came to his mouth.
The serving was the king’s part in the plan laid out in the hermitage. There the verse left him knowing nothing, in the grip of what was to be. The same grip is on him here, and now it holds his tongue.
A curse given in anger
Then the brahmins spoke in anger, and they gave it no thought at all. “Go, fool of a king, become a night-walker with your family. Kshatriya, you called the brahmins with their company to destroy them. God has protected our dharma. You will be gone, with your family. Within a year let your destruction come, and no one will remain in your line to give water.” The commentary reads the word they use for him as a low kshatriya. Hearing the curse, the king was very distraught with terror. Then a fine voice came from the sky again.
The king did no offense
“Brahmins,” the voice said, “you gave the curse without thought. The king did no offense at all.” Hearing the voice from the sky, all the brahmins were astonished. The king went to the place where the food had been cooked. There was no food there, and no brahmin cook. The dishes no one could count were gone with the cook. He turned back with boundless worry in his mind, told the brahmins the whole matter, and, terrified and distraught, fell to the ground.
“King,” the brahmins said, “what is to be does not fade, though the fault is not yours. It cannot be made otherwise. A brahmin’s curse is very dreadful.”
The city’s grief, and the siege
So saying, all the brahmins went away. The people of the city got the news. They worried, and they blamed fate, which the commentary reads as the creator. He had made a crow while fashioning a swan. The commentary opens the image too: a king of such merit should have been made a god, and he was made a rakshasa. The last the verse showed of the city’s people was festivity in every house, with the welcome music playing. Now they worry.
Kalaketu, whom the verse calls the asura here, delivered the priest to his house and gave the ascetic the news. That villain sent letters here and there, and all the kings, their armies arrayed, came rushing. They surrounded the city with drums sounding, and every day there was fighting of many kinds. All the warriors fought and died doing their deeds, and the king fell to the earth with his brother. Of Satyaketu’s line no one was saved. How could a brahmin’s curse prove false? The kings conquered their enemy, settled the city, and went back to their own cities with victory and fame.
Satyaketu had given this kingdom to his elder son and gone to the forest. The brother who falls with the king is his younger son, Arimardan. And where the verse reports the end, it uses two of the curse’s own words, line and no one.
Dust, a father, and a rope
Here the verse turns to its listener, and the teller names him. “Hear, Bharadvaja,” Yajnavalkya says. “When the creator turns against a man, for him dust is like Meru, a father like Yama, and a rope like a snake.” The commentary gives each likeness its edge: the dust crushes, the father is death itself, and the rope bites. Three ordinary things, and against each a thing of dread. The doha stands between the king’s death and his next birth.
The rakshasa had named the creator at the start of the episode, as the one who removed a disease without medicine. The people of the city, when the news reached them, blamed fate, the creator in the commentary’s reading.
That same king became Ravana
“Hear, sage,” Yajnavalkya goes on. In time that same king became a night-walker, with his company: ten heads, twenty arms, Ravana by name, a hero of great might. The king’s younger brother, Arimardan by name, became Kumbhakarna, the abode of strength. And his minister, who was Dharmaruchi, became Ravana’s younger brother by another mother: Vibhishana by name, whom the world knows, a devotee of Vishnu and a treasury of knowledge. Those who were the king’s sons and servants became night-walkers, dreadful and many.
The curse had said night-walker. The verse now gives the night-walker a name and a count, ten heads and twenty arms, and gives the interval one phrase: in time. Three men come back with three marks, Ravana’s might, Kumbhakarna’s strength, Vibhishana’s devotion and knowledge. The relation that was the kingdom’s in one life, a king and his minister, is the family’s in the next: the minister became the brother. In the king’s life the verse gave the two brothers a love free of every fault and guile. It gave the minister love for the Lord’s feet.
A pure line, and the curse’s power
The king’s sons and servants could take any form at will, villains of many kinds, crooked, terrible, bereft of discernment. Without mercy, violent, sinners all, tormentors of the world. The verse says they cannot be described. And though they were born in Pulastya’s line, pure, spotless, matchless, yet in the grip of the brahmins’ curse they all became sin in form.
The verse sets Vibhishana’s devotion just before this description. The doha sets a pure birth beside the curse, with the concession the brahmins had used of the king: though. The word for the curse’s hold is a word the episode has used twice already. The king in the grip of delusion, the king in the grip of what was to be. And now every one of them in the grip of the curse. And the verse’s word for the form the rakshasa made for himself, the priest’s, is its word for the power it now gives all of them. It is a form taken at will.
Tainted food, a blameless king
The king’s part in the feast was the inviting and the serving. The cooking was the work of the villain in the priest’s form. Both voices from the sky spoke to the brahmins. The first told them to rise and named the harm. The second told them they had given the curse without thought and that the king had done no offense. The verse gives that voice no speaker. What did not come to the king’s mouth when he began to serve came after the curse, when he told the brahmins the whole matter. The fault is said twice to be none of his, by the second voice and by the brahmins themselves, and the curse stood through both.
A few words travel the length of the episode. Worry sat on the ascetic as he kept his seat while the king slept. His friend told him to give it up. It came to the king, boundless, as he turned from an empty kitchen. And it came to the city with the news. Line is in the rakshasa’s promise, the enemy swept away with his line. It is the brahmins’ word for what would be left with no one to give water, the water a line’s living pour for its dead. It is the verse’s word for Satyaketu’s line when no one of it was saved, and at the end Pulastya’s. And the king’s own words for his one fear in the hermitage, that a brahmin’s curse is very dreadful, come back to him, in nearly the same words. They are from the brahmins as he lies on the ground.
The plan had been made, as the king saw it, for his welfare, and its pieces arrived. He was carried home with his horse while he slept. The priest came when the three days had passed. The brahmins came by the hundred thousand with their families. The food was cooked, by another hand than the ascetic’s, and the king began to serve it. The voice that stopped the meal was, by the commentary, the cook’s own. The one line of men the ascetic had left outside the boon was the line the feast was for. The curse, when it came, came from that line.
Ravana’s name arrives at the end of a story in which the man who bore it was cleared twice. Kumbhakarna’s comes with Arimardan’s, and Vibhishana’s with Dharmaruchi’s, with his devotion named beside it. The story stops on those births, in Pulastya’s spotless line, where the curse’s power and a devotee’s description stand side by side.
The same story, elsewhere: Valmiki’s Ramayana, chapter 30: The Ancient History of Ravana’s Line.
Source: the Gita Press edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, doha 171 to 176, read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.