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Three brothers are at their tapas, and Brahma, seeing it, has come near to offer a boon. They are the three the last episode left in Pulastya’s line: the king, his brother, and his minister, who became Ravana, Kumbhakarna, and Vibhishana. Ravana is the first to ask, and the boon he asks for carries an exception that he names himself.
The story Shiva is telling Parvati, in Yajnavalkya’s telling of it to Bharadvaja, goes on from the three askings to a bride given by a builder. A city in the sea that Brahma built, a chariot taken from its owner, and a mountain lifted for sport. Then come a house of warriors counted name by name, a plan laid in the assembly for the one way the gods’ death will come. A march that finds the worlds empty, a world in which no one is left free. And fire in the villages where cows and brahmins are found.
Lanka’s new royal house
The main figures in this episode
- Ravana the first of the three to ask. He asks to die by no one’s killing except monkeys and men. He is given Mandodari. He takes the fort on Trikuta from Kubera’s guards and makes it his capital. He wins the Pushpaka and lifts Kailasa. From his assembly he sends his race against the rites and himself against the gods, until the world is under his sway and no one is free. At any word of japa or of a share in a yajna he himself rises and runs. Whoever speaks the Vedas and Puranas he drives from the country.
- Brahma who comes near when he sees the tapas. He gives Ravana his boon together with Shiva, as the commentary reads the line. He turns Kumbhakarna’s wit through Sarasvati before that brother asks, and calls Vibhishana son. His building the fort in the sea is.
- Kumbhakarna the brother at whose sight Brahma wonders. He asks for six months of sleep once his wit is turned. He drinks and sleeps those six months, with the three worlds in terror when he wakes.
- Vibhishana the third brother, who asks for pure love at the Lord’s lotus feet. Ravana marries him off along with Kumbhakarna. The verse says nothing more of him in this episode.
- Maya and Mandodari a danava and his daughter. Maya brings Mandodari and gives her to Ravana, knowing he will be lord of the rakshasas. It is Maya who fitted out the fort on Trikuta with its countless gold mansions set with jewels.
- Meghanada Ravana’s eldest son, first in the line of the world’s warriors. His father calls him, instructs him, and sends him to conquer in battle the strong gods who are proud of their fighting and bring them bound. The verse names him Baridanada when he first appears, which the commentary reads as Meghanada. It calls him Indrajit at the end of the episode.
- Kubera whom the verse first calls the lord of the yakshas, and whom the commentary names there. His ten million guards hold the fort until Ravana’s army comes. The verse names him itself when Ravana runs at him and wins the Pushpaka from him. The wealth-holder among the officers Ravana hounds is Kubera too, by the commentary’s reading.
One tapas, and three things asked for
The three brothers did tapas of many kinds, very fierce, past describing. The verse gives the tapas no particulars beyond those two, its kinds and its fierceness. Brahma saw the tapas and came near. “Ask a boon,” he said. “I am pleased, child.” Ravana made his entreaty, grasped Brahma’s feet, and spoke. “Hear, lord of the world. May we die by no one’s killing, except the two kinds, monkeys and men.” The answer came: “So be it. You have done great tapas.” The line goes on in the first person: “I and Brahma together gave him the boon.” The one who says I here is Shiva, the commentary’s bracket says, the teller of this story to Parvati.
Then Brahma went to Kumbhakarna, and at the sight of him wonder rose in his mind. If this villain eats every day, the whole world will be laid waste. The commentary makes this Brahma’s reckoning. He prompted Sarasvati and turned Kumbhakarna’s wit, and Kumbhakarna asked for six months of sleep. Then Brahma went to Vibhishana and said, “Son, ask a boon.” Vibhishana asked for pure love at the Lord’s lotus feet. The commentary reads the purity as a love without desire and without any second object.
Having given them the boons, Brahma went, and the three came home glad. Three brothers, three askings. Ravana’s is the one with an exception in it, and he named the two kinds himself. Kumbhakarna’s came out of a wit another had turned. Vibhishana’s came with no prompting that the verse records.
Mandodari, and the fort in the middle of the sea
Maya’s daughter was named Mandodari, most beautiful, a jewel among women. Maya the danava, the builder, brought her and gave her to Ravana, knowing that Ravana would be lord of the rakshasas. Glad at getting a good wife, Ravana then went and married off his two brothers. Their wives are not named.
On Mount Trikuta, in the middle of the sea, stood a work of Brahma’s building, very great and hard to reach. It is the fort, as the verse will call it when Ravana comes to it. That same Maya the danava had fitted it out again, with countless gold mansions set with jewels. For its loveliness the verse sets two cities beside it: Bhogavati, where the serpent clan dwells, which the commentary places in the world below. And Amaravati, Indra’s dwelling, which it places in heaven. Lovelier and finer than either, it was famed in the world by the name Lanka.
A moat of sea, very deep, runs round it on all four sides. A strong rampart of gold set with jewels stands there, whose making cannot be described. Then the doha widens its time. By the Lord’s prompting, in whichever kalpa, whichever age of the world, whoever becomes lord of the rakshasas, that brave, glorious one of matchless strength lives there with his host. The city is older than the man who is about to take it. The doha gives its tenant a rule that holds in every kalpa.
Lanka taken, the Pushpaka, and Kailasa
Great night-walker warriors had lived there, and the gods had slain them all in battle. Now, by Indra’s prompting, ten million guards of the lord of the yakshas lived there. The commentary names that lord as Kubera. The verse names him when Ravana goes for him. Ravana got news of it somewhere. The verse names no one who brought it. He arrayed his army, went, and besieged the fort. At the sight of that formidable warrior and his great army, the yakshas fled for their lives.
Ravana went round the whole city and looked at it. His worry went, and great happiness came. The commentary reads the worry as a worry over where to live. Judging the city naturally beautiful and beyond reach, Ravana made his capital there. He gave houses to each as was fit and made all the night-walkers happy. The word for what left him is the word the last episode gave to the ascetic, to the king, and to the city: worry.
Once he ran at Kubera, won the Pushpaka from him, and brought it back. The commentary calls it a vimana, a chariot that travels the sky. Kubera’s guards had fled before him. Now a thing of Kubera’s came to his hand. Then, in mere sport, he went and lifted Kailasa, as if weighing the strength of his own arms, and went away having found great happiness. Kailasa is the mountain where, by the verse’s own earlier account, Shiva and Parvati always dwell, and it is Shiva who is telling this.
Growing wealth, and the line of warriors
Happiness, wealth, sons, army, allies, victory, glory, strength, intellect, greatness. All of it grew for him, new every day, as greed grows with each gain. The simile is the verse’s own. Such a brother as the mighty Kumbhakarna was his, to whom no rival was born in the world. He would drink, wine in the commentary’s reading, and sleep for six months, and when he woke there was terror in the three worlds. If he ate every day, the whole world would soon be laid waste. The verse said as much at the boon, with other words for every day, for the world, and for its waste. In battle he was steadfast past telling, and there were countless strong heroes like him, in Lanka, the commentary adds. The six months asked for at the boon have come back as the way this brother lives.
Then comes the eldest son, whom the verse calls Baridanada here. The commentary reads the name as Meghanada, the name the story will use for him. Among the warriors of the world he stood first in the line. No one could face him in battle. In the city of the gods there was flight every day, from fear of him, the commentary adds. And there was a host of warriors: Kumukha, Akampana, Kulisarada, Dhumaketu, Atikaya, the first and the third given by the commentary as Durmukha and Vajradanta. Each one of them was able to conquer the world.
The rakshasas could all take any form at will and knew all maya, and even in a dream they had no dharma and no mercy. Their race is given its nature before it is given its orders.
In the assembly, the way to bring the gods under
Once Ravana sat in his assembly and looked at his boundless family. Sons in crowds, servants, kinsmen, grandsons. Who could count the night-walker race? The question is the verse’s. Seeing his army, proud by nature, he spoke words steeped in anger and arrogance.
“Hear, all you hosts of night-walkers,” Ravana said. “The hosts of the gods are our enemies. They do not fight face to face. Seeing a strong enemy they run away. Their death comes in one way. I will explain it. Hear it now. Brahmin-feeding, yajna, homa, shraddha: go and obstruct them all. Weak with hunger and without strength, the gods will easily come and meet me. Then I will kill them, or let them go after making them wholly my own.” The commentary says what the four rites are to the gods: the acts that build their strength. And it reads the letting go at the end of the doha as a letting go into complete dependence.
The speech opens on the gods as enemies. The one way it names for their death runs through four rites: the feeding of brahmins, the yajna, homa, the fire offering, and shraddha, the offering to the dead.
Meghanada’s orders, and Ravana’s roar
Then he had Meghanada called, instructed him, and raised his strength and his enmity. “Those gods who are steadfast and strong in battle and have pride in fighting,” Ravana told his son, “conquer them in battle and bring them bound.” The son rose and took his father’s order on his shoulder. In this way Ravana gave orders to all, and he himself set out with a mace in his hand. The hosts had their work against the rites, the son had the strong gods to bind, and the father was in the field himself.
As Ravana walked, the earth shook, and at his roar the wombs of the gods’ lovely women miscarried. Hearing that Ravana was coming in anger, the gods looked to the caves of Mount Meru. The commentary says they fled there and took shelter. Ravana found all the handsome worlds of the guardians of the quarters empty. Again and again he gave a great lion’s roar, abused the gods, and challenged them. Then, drunk with the arrogance of battle, he ran about the world hunting a rival, and found none anywhere.
No one left free
Sun, moon, wind, Varuna, the wealth-holder, whom the commentary names as Kubera, fire, Kala, Yama, all the officers of the world. Kinnaras, siddhas, men, gods, nagas. He went stubbornly after them all. The commentary adds that he let no one sit in peace. As far as Brahma’s creation held bodied beings, every man and woman was under Ravana’s sway. All of them, in fear, did his bidding, and came daily to bow humbly at his feet.
By the strength of his arms he brought the world under his sway and left no one free. Ravana, the jewel of the circle of kings, ruled by his own counsel, which the commentary reads as ruling as he wished. And by the strength of his own arms he won and married the daughters of gods, yakshas, gandharvas, men, kinnaras, and nagas, many fine and beautiful women. On Kailasa it was as if he weighed the strength of his arms. That strength is what brings the world under him here, and what wins him the wives.
Whatever Ravana had said to his son, whom the verse here calls Indrajit, was as if already done before it was said. The commentary reads this as the speed of his obedience, the saying being the only delay. No separate story of the son’s conquests is told. The story turns back to those who had their orders first. “Hear the deeds they did,” Shiva tells Parvati.
The assembly’s order becomes fire in the villages
All the hosts of night-walkers were terrible to look at, sinners, tormentors of the gods. The asura hosts made trouble and took many forms by maya. The taking of forms at will that the verse gave them as a nature is now in use. Whatever would uproot dharma, all of that they did, contrary to the Vedas. And in whatever country they found cows and brahmins, they set fire to that city, village, and hamlet.
Nowhere was there good conduct. The commentary counts under that name the feeding of brahmins, the yajnas, and the shraddhas, three of the four rites the assembly had named. It gives fear of the rakshasas as the reason they stopped, a reason the verse leaves unstated. No one honored god, brahmin, or guru. There was no devotion to the Lord, no yajna, no tapas, no knowledge, and the Vedas and Puranas were not heard even in a dream. Even in a dream is the verse’s phrase for the rakshasas’ want of dharma and mercy, and now for the world’s want of the Vedas.
The chhand gives Ravana’s own part. If he heard with his ears of japa, the murmured repeating of a mantra, of yoga, of dispassion, of tapas, or of a share in a yajna. It is the gods’ share by the commentary’s reading. Then he himself rose and ran. Nothing was allowed to remain. He seized everything and destroyed it. The world’s conduct became so corrupt that dharma was not heard of even by the ear. Whoever spoke the Vedas and Puranas, him he tormented in many ways and drove from the country. The assembly had named four rites. The chhand names five things that bring him running, and one of them, the yajna, stands in both lists.
A love of violence
The dreadful injustice the night-walkers did cannot be described, the sortha says. Their love, it says, was great, and it was for violence. And it asks: what limit is there to the sins of such as these? The chhand had given Ravana’s own part. The sortha closes the episode on the night-walkers, and on what their love was for.
Voices put out, villages burning
The episode keeps a long account of power: tapas, boons, a gold rampart, ten million guards who fled. A brother without a rival, warriors who could each conquer the world. The verse says in a few words what Ravana’s rule came to: all obeying in fear, and no one free.
Ravana began by grasping Brahma’s feet and asking. Before the episode is out, every bodied being in Brahma’s creation comes daily to bow at his. The gods, when they heard him coming, looked to the caves of a mountain. A mountain’s cave is the verse’s phrase, in the last episode, for where the priest was kept while a rakshasa took his form.
And there are the voices. The plan in the assembly was against four rites. What followed was fire where cows and brahmins were found, a world in which the Vedas and Puranas were not heard even in a dream. And a man who rose and ran at any word of japa or of a share in a yajna. He had given his own people houses as was fit. Whoever spoke the Vedas he drove out of the country. The story that began with three brothers at their tapas stops on a world where dharma is not heard even by the ear. And the rakshasas’ love is for violence.
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 177 to sortha 183, read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.