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The three of them had bathed in the Godavari and come back to the same leaf-thatched hut at Panchavati. Rama finished the morning devotions, and with Lakshmana he stepped inside and sat down. Honored by the great sages of that country, the brothers were living there in ease; and seated in the hut beside Sita, the mighty-armed Rama shone like the moon in the company of the star Chitra, turning over one story and another with his brother. It was into this quiet, while Rama sat lost in talk, that an ogress came wandering through the region by chance. Here begins the stretch of the Aranyakanda in which a single insult brings a whole army of the night down on that clearing. This book carries you from Canto 17 through Canto 30: a rakshasi loses first her heart and then her nose and ears, she runs to her brothers at Janasthana, and Rama, alone and on foot, faces first fourteen ogres and then fourteen thousand, and leaves the Dandaka clean of them.
Shurpanakha is smitten with Rama
The ogress was Shurpanakha, the sister of Ravana, the ten-headed ogre; her name means the one whose nails are like winnowing baskets. She came up to Rama and looked at him, and he seemed to her a god come down to earth. She saw a radiant face, mighty arms, eyes wide as the petals of a lotus, a gait as stately as an elephant’s, a rounded mass of matted hair, a body tender to look at yet charged with extraordinary strength, marked all over with the signs of a king, dark as a blue water-lily, lit with a splendor like the god of love, a man who might have been Indra himself. Looking at him, the ogress was overcome with desire.
Of what Shurpanakha herself was, Valmiki keeps a careful reckoning, feature against feature. Rama’s face was fair; hers was hideous. Rama was slender at the waist; she was swollen-bellied. Rama’s eyes were large; hers were deformed. Rama’s hair was beautiful; hers was coarse and coppery. Rama was pleasing to look at; she was misshapen. Rama’s voice was sweet; hers was frightful. Rama was young; she was aged and hard. Rama’s conduct was upright; hers was utterly vile. Rama was a delight to the eye; she was a thing one turned away from. Such was the rakshasi who, the fire of desire risen in her body, spoke to Rama.
“Wearing matted locks, dressed in the garb of an ascetic, carrying a bow and arrows, and traveling with your wife, how have you come to this region that ogres frequent? What is the purpose of your visit? Be good enough to tell me the truth of it.”
Rama, being of a guileless mind, began to tell her everything. “There was a king named Dasaratha, whose valor was the equal of the gods’. I am his eldest son, known among men by the name of Rama. Here is my younger brother, Lakshmana, devoted to me, and here is my wife, the princess of Videha, known by the name of Sita. Bound by the command of my father the king and of my mother, seeking to honor my sacred duty to them and to hold to virtue in the form of austerities, I have come to live in this forest.
“Now I wish to know you. Whose daughter are you, what is your name, and whose wife? Your limbs are charming, and yet, seeing you, I take you for an ogress who can wear whatever shape she pleases. Tell me truly what has brought you here.”
Stricken with love, the ogress answered him. “Hear my word, Rama, and I will give you the plain truth. I am an ogress, Shurpanakha by name, and I can take any form I choose. I roam this forest alone and put fear into all of it. I have a brother, Ravana by name; perhaps his name has reached your ears. He is the valiant son of Vishrava. Kumbhakarna too, the very mighty one who is given over to endless sleep, is my brother. My third brother, Vibhishana, is pious-minded, and has none of the ways of an ogre in him. And my other two brothers, Khara and Dushana, are famed for their valor in battle.
“In valor I surpass them all, Rama. From the first moment I set eyes on you I have taken you, the foremost of men, for my husband in my heart. I am rich in power, and by my own strength I can go where I will. Be my husband, and long may you be so. What will you gain by keeping Sita? She is deformed and ugly, no match for you. I alone am worthy of you; look on me as your wife. This ugly, worthless, hideous woman with the sunken belly I will devour, and your brother with her; and then, wandering past the peaks of mountains and forests of every kind, you will roam the Dandaka with me, full of longing.”
The gist: at the Panchavati hut on the bank of the Godavari, Ravana’s sister Shurpanakha sees Rama and is overcome with desire. Rama, guileless, gives his name and lineage plainly (son of Dasaratha, husband of Sita, elder brother of Lakshmana). The rakshasi names her five brothers (Ravana, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, Khara, Dushana) and demands that Rama marry her and let her devour Sita.
Shurpanakha disfigured at Lakshmana’s hands
Rama, an adept at speech, answered the love-bound Shurpanakha as it pleased him, smiling, in soft and gentle words. “I am already married, lovely one; here is my beloved wife. For women like you a co-wife is a hard and bitter thing. But here is my younger brother, Lakshmana, of good conduct, fair to look at, glorious and brave, and he has no wife with him. He is a man of rare qualities, young and pleasing to the eye, and for a form as comely as yours he will make a fitting husband, if he seeks a wife. Take this brother of mine for your husband, large-eyed lady, and you will have no rival, as the sunlight woos Mount Meru with no rival by.”
At these words the love-deluded rakshasi let Rama go and turned all at once to Lakshmana. “For a form as comely as yours I will be a worthy wife. Wander the whole of the Dandaka with me in ease.”
Lakshmana, son of Sumitra, himself skilled in speech, smiled and gave Shurpanakha his own fitting answer. “How do you seek to become a wife when you would only be a servant’s servant, you who wear the hue of a red lotus? I am a slave, and dependent on my worthy brother. You, large-eyed lady, become the happy younger wife, of spotless color, of my elder brother, who is rich in every kind of wealth, and gain your desire that way. Giving up this deformed, worthless, hideous, aged wife with her sunken belly, he will take you and only you. Casting off a form as fine as yours, what clear-sighted man would fasten his love on human women?”
Too naive to catch the joke, the hideous, sunken-bellied ogress took his words for the truth. Deluded by desire, she came back once more to Rama, hard to overpower, as he sat in the leaf-hut with Sita. “Clinging to this old, deformed, worthless wife with her sunken belly, you make nothing of me. Today, before your very eyes, I will devour this human woman, and rid of my rival I will roam with you at ease.”
Saying so, her eyes burning like live coals, the rakshasi in a great rage rushed at the fawn-eyed Sita, the way a huge meteor would come down on the star Rohini. Checking the oncoming ogress, who was like the very noose of Death, mighty Rama grew angry and said to Lakshmana: “One should never trade jokes with cruel and unworthy people, gentle brother. Look how narrowly Vaidehi has escaped with her life. Cut this ugly, worthless, insolent, big-bellied ogress out of her shape, tiger among men.”
At this command the mighty Lakshmana, in anger, drew his sword and, while Rama looked on, cut off Shurpanakha’s ears and nose. With her ears and nose gone, the fierce ogress fled into the forest the way she had come, screaming out of tune. Bathed in her own blood, the ugly and terrible rakshasi roared in a hundred ways like a cloud in the rains; and dripping blood as she went, raising both her arms and howling, that creature of dreadful looks plunged into the heart of the great forest.
The gist: Rama turns Shurpanakha teasingly toward Lakshmana, and the two brothers put her off, each in turn, with a straight face. Taking the jest for earnest, she lunges to devour Sita; at Rama’s order Lakshmana slices off her ears and nose. Bloodied and disfigured, Shurpanakha flees screaming into the forest.
Shurpanakha before Khara, and fourteen ogres sent
Disfigured, she reached her brother Khara of terrible energy, who lived at Janasthana ringed by a host of ogres, and dropped to the ground before him like a bolt out of the sky. Fainting with fear and drenched in blood, the sister of Khara told him all of it: how Raghava had come to the forest with his wife and Lakshmana, and how she had been cut out of her shape.
Burning with anger to see his sister fallen like that, disfigured and soaked in blood, the ogre Khara demanded: “Get up, shake off this swoon and this alarm, and tell me plainly who has cut you up in this way. Whoever laid a hand on you today has poked in sport, with the tip of his finger, a poisonous black serpent sitting harmless in front of him; he has swallowed a most deadly poison, and in his folly does not know that he has fastened the noose of Death around his own neck.
“You are full of strength and prowess, you go where you please and wear what shape you please, you are a match for Death itself; who, then, has brought you to this? Among gods and gandharvas, among spirits and high-souled seers, what mighty being has cut you out of your shape? I can see no one in the world who would dare do me a wrong, not even the thousand-eyed Indra, tamer of the demon Paka. Today I will take the offender’s life with my deadly arrows, the way a swan draws off the milk from water it drinks. Come slowly back to your senses and tell me the name of the insolent one who beat you in the forest.”
Hearing her brother speak, and his fury above all, Shurpanakha answered with tears in her eyes. “They are two, young, richly made, tender and yet very strong, with great lotus eyes, clad in bark and black antelope skin, living on fruits and roots, masters of their senses, ascetics and celibates. They are the two sons of Dasaratha, the brothers Rama and Lakshmana. They look like the king of the gandharvas and bear the marks of kings; whether they are gods or demons I cannot guess. Among them I saw a young woman, richly made, decked in every ornament, slender at the waist. It was for that woman that the two brothers between them brought me to this, as though I were some helpless and worthless creature. I long to drink the foaming blood of that crooked woman and of the two brothers, once they are killed in battle. Grant me this first desire of mine there.”
Even as she spoke, the enraged Khara gave his orders to fourteen ogres, mighty as Death: “Two human beings, fully armed, clad in bark and black antelope skin, have entered the dreadful Dandaka forest with a young woman. Make short work of the two brothers and of that vile woman too, and come back; this sister of mine will drink their blood. Go quickly, ogres, crush them with your might, and grant my sister her cherished wish. Seeing the brothers dead at your hands on the field, she will drink their blood in joy.” Commanded so, the fourteen ogres went with her, like storm-driven clouds.
The gist: the disfigured Shurpanakha falls before Khara at Janasthana. When he asks, she describes Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita, and demands their blood. The enraged Khara at once sends fourteen mighty ogres back with her to kill Rama.
Rama destroys the fourteen ogres
Reaching Raghava’s hermitage, the dreadful Shurpanakha pointed out to the ogres the two brothers with Sita. They saw the exceedingly mighty Rama seated with Sita in his leaf-hut and waited upon by Lakshmana. Seeing her and the ogres come, the glorious Raghava said to his brother Lakshmana of shining luster: “Stay a moment by Sita’s side, Saumitri; these ogres who have come here in the ogress’s wake I will finish myself.” Hearing the words of Rama, the knower of his own Self, Lakshmana bowed to Raghava’s command and said, “So be it.”
Then the pious Raghava strung his great gold-worked bow and spoke to the ogres. “We are two sons of Dasaratha, Rama and Lakshmana, come with Sita into the hard-to-cross forest of Dandaka. We live on fruits and roots, masters of our senses, keeping to austerities and to continence; why do you seek to harm us? Your minds are given to sin and you have wronged the sages, and it is at the sages’ own bidding that I have come with my bow to kill you. Halt where you stand, night-stalkers, if you love a fight; if you love your lives, turn back.”
Hearing him, the fourteen dreadful ogres, slayers of Brahmanas, their eyes red with blood and pikes in their hands, though they had already seen his prowess, answered the sweet-spoken Rama with harsh words. “You have roused the anger of our high-souled master Khara, and you will give up your life at once, struck down by us on the field. What power have you, one man, to stand before so many of us, let alone to fight? Under the iron clubs, the pikes, and the pattishas hurled by our arms, you will lose your life, your valor, and that bow gripped in your hand.”
With that, the fourteen ogres ran at Rama alone, their swords and other weapons raised, and flung their pikes at the hard-to-conquer Raghava. Kakutstha cut down all fourteen pikes with fourteen gold-decked arrows of his own. Then, blazing with energy and in high anger, he drew from his quiver fourteen solid iron shafts bright as the sun, bent his bow, took aim at the ogres, and loosed them as Indra hurls his thunderbolts. Piercing the ogres’ chests and soaked in blood, the shafts dashed to the ground like serpents darting out of an anthill. Their hearts torn open and their bodies bathed in blood, the ogres fell to the earth, maimed and dead, like uprooted trees.
Seeing them fallen on the ground, the ogress, the blood on her now half dried, blind with rage, came again to Khara and dropped down agonized, like a climbing vine oozing resin. Pale-faced and stricken with grief, she raised a great outcry before her brother and wept aloud, sobbing. Looking at the ogres killed in battle, Shurpanakha darted off once more from that place, and Khara’s sister told him of the wholesale ruin of all the ogres and everything that went with it.
The gist: Rama sets Lakshmana to guard Sita and holds the line alone. Ignoring his warning, the fourteen ogres hurl their pikes; Rama shears the pikes with fourteen arrows and kills them all with fourteen more. Shurpanakha runs back to Khara to wail again.
Shurpanakha goads Khara
Seeing Shurpanakha fallen again, come to bring ruin on her brother’s house, Khara spoke to her once more in anger, in plain words. “Those brave flesh-eating ogres I dispatched just now to please you. Why are you crying again? They are devoted to me, bound to me, always my friends; they cannot be killed even when they are attacked, and it is not possible that they would fail to do my bidding. What is the reason you thrash about on the ground like a snake, crying, ‘O lord’? I wish to hear it. With me here to protect you, why do you wail like some helpless thing? Get up, rise; do not do this; put off this despair.”
Comforted at every point, wiping her wet eyes, the ogress, who was hard to console, answered her brother Khara. “A little while ago I came to you with my ears and nose lopped off, drenched in a stream of blood, and you comforted me then. The brave flesh-eaters you sent, the fourteen of them, though full of fury and armed with pikes and pattishas, were every one killed in battle by Rama, with arrows that pierced the vital spots. When I saw those swift ogres fallen in a single instant, and saw the great deed Rama had done, a great terror seized me. Frightened, shaken, and cast down, seeing danger on every side, I have come again to you for shelter, night-stalker.
“Why do you not save me, sunk as I am in a vast ocean of grief, thick with the crocodile of despair and rough with waves of terror? If you have any pity for me and for those ogres, and if you have the power or the fire to stand against Rama, then kill that thorn in the ogres’ side who has taken up his home in the Dandaka. If you do not kill Rama, the slayer of his foes, this very day, then before your eyes I will give up my life, stripped of my honor as I already am. With the eye of my own foresight I can see plainly that even with your army at your back you cannot stand before Rama in a great fight. You count yourself brave; you are not truly brave; the valor you claim is a valor you never had.
“Kill the two princes in battle, or clear out fast from Janasthana with your kinsmen, disgrace of your line. If you truly cannot dispose of those two men, Rama and Lakshmana, how shameful is this dwelling of yours here, empty of strength and thin of valor. Overwhelmed by Rama’s fire, you will soon be undone; for that son of Dasaratha is full of fire, and his brother too is of extraordinary prowess, the one at whose hands I stand disfigured.” Wailing on and on in this way, the sunken-bellied ogress fell in a faint beside her brother, sick with grief, and beating her belly with both hands, in the depth of her misery, she burst into tears.
The gist: Khara offers comfort, but Shurpanakha shames him, calling him a disgrace to his line and a man of false valor. She sings the strength of Rama, tells him his stay at Janasthana is worthless, and threatens to end her own life if Rama is not killed, driving her brother toward war.
Khara and Dushana march with fourteen thousand
Stung in this way by Shurpanakha, the valiant, cruel Khara spoke sharper words still among the ogres. “This measureless anger of mine, born of your insult, cannot be held back any more than a mighty wave of the ocean. By my prowess I count for nothing this human Rama, whose life is already spent and who this day will lose it by his own misdeeds. Restrain these tears and shed your fear; I am sending Rama and his brother to the abode of Yama. Today, ogress, you will drink the hot red blood of Rama, laid low on the ground and struck dead by my axe.” Overjoyed to hear the words from Khara’s mouth, she, in her folly, praised her brother, that giant among ogres, once more.
Snubbed at first and then praised, Khara gave his orders to his general, an ogre named Dushana. “Gentle one, make ready for battle all fourteen thousand ogres who follow my mind, of terrible speed, who never turn back from the field, dark as blue-black clouds, who take their sport in slaughter and are full of the zeal for war. Bring me quickly my chariot and my bows, my many-colored arrows, my swords of every kind, and my various keen javelins. For the killing of the insolent Rama I wish to march at the head of these high-souled Paulastyas, brother skilled in war.”
Even as he spoke, Dushana brought word of a huge chariot shining like the sun, drawn by fine spotted horses, tall as a peak of Mount Meru, worked in refined gold, with golden wheels and a pole of cat’s-eye gems, covered with golden figures of crocodiles, flowers, trees, mountains, the moon and sun, flocks of birds and stars, hung with ensigns and swords, and set with sweet little bells. In his fury Khara mounted it. Seeing that great host of chariots, armor, weapons, and standards move out, Khara and Dushana ordered all the ogres to advance.
Then that army of ogres, with its dreadful shields and weapons and standards, poured out of Janasthana with a great roar and a great rush. With clubs, pattishas, and pikes, with keen axes and flashing swords, with discuses and iron bars gripped in their hands, with javelins and shining goads, with fearful iron-spiked maces, huge bows, war-clubs, scimitars, pestles, and dreadful bolts, all fourteen thousand of the most terrible ogres, who followed Khara’s mind, marched out of Janasthana. Seeing those fearsome ogres racing ahead, Khara’s chariot too followed close behind them.
A sub-tale: Khara calls these ogres Paulastyas, meaning the descendants of the sage Pulastya. Pulastya was one of the mind-born sons of Brahma, a Prajapati; from his son Vishrava sprang Ravana, Kumbhakarna, Vibhishana, and Shurpanakha. It is from this line that the ogre progeny of Ravana’s house are called Paulastya.
The gist: the goaded Khara promises his sister Rama’s blood and orders his general Dushana to array fourteen thousand ogres. A chariot grand as a peak of Meru is made ready, and that vast host, armed with every kind of weapon, sets out from Janasthana toward Rama’s hermitage.
Ill omens for Khara; the army near the hermitage
As that dreadful, inauspicious army marched out, a huge and terrible cloud, gray as a donkey, poured down an evil rain the color of blood. On the level, flower-strewn highway the swift horses yoked to Khara’s chariot stumbled and fell by accident. Around the sun appeared a dark, red-rimmed halo like a whirling ring of fire. Onto the standard raised high on its golden pole a gigantic and most frightful vulture came down and settled. Near Janasthana, flesh-eating beasts and birds raised harsh and various cries, and in the sunlit quarter fearful jackals howled an ill-boding note for the ogres.
Clouds carrying blood for their rain, huge as elephants in rut, curtained off the sky. A dreadful, hair-raising darkness came down; neither the quarters nor the points between them could be clearly seen. The earth, with its mountains and forests and woodlands, shook hard. As the shrewd Khara thundered from his chariot, his left arm throbbed and his voice went hoarse; looking about him, his sight grew blurred with tears. A pain woke in his forehead, and still he would not let go of his folly. Rahu, the great planet, seized the sun out of its due season; the wind blew hard and the sun went dim. Stars flashed like fireflies though there was no night; the lotuses in the ponds withered, and the fish and water-birds sank into the depths. In that same moment the trees stood stripped of blossom and fruit, and dust rose gray as a cloud, though no wind blew.
Seeing those great and hair-raising portents risen up, Khara laughed out loud and said to all the ogres: “Trusting to my own strength, I care no more for all these dreadful signs than a strong man cares for weaklings. With my sharp arrows I can bring down the very stars from the sky. In my anger I will yoke Death itself to mortal death. I have no wish to turn back without killing, with my keen arrows, that Raghava drunk on his strength, and his brother Lakshmana too. Let my sister, on whose account Rama and Lakshmana have done this wrong, have her wish and drink their blood. Never yet, in any battle, have I met defeat.
“You see it for yourselves; I tell no lie. In my anger I could make short work even of Indra, lord of the gods, mounted on the maddened Airavata and holding his thunderbolt, let alone these two mortals.” Hearing his roar, that huge army of ogres, caught in the noose of Death, filled with a joy beyond measure. Eager to watch the encounter, high-souled seers, gods, gandharvas, and siddhas with the charanas gathered there, and, meeting together, those beings of blessed deeds, friendly to all, said to one another: “May all be well with the cows and the Brahmanas, and with all who are honored in the world. As Vishnu, discus in hand, conquered all the foremost demons, so may Raghava conquer these night-stalkers born of Pulastya’s line.” Saying this and much more, the great seers and the gods in their aerial cars watched, full of wonder, that army of ogres whose span of life had already run out.
Khara raced ahead of his army in his chariot; and twelve ogres of great prowess marched around him, Shyenagami, Prithugriva, Yajnashatru, Vihangama, Durjaya, Karaviraksha, Parusha, Kalakarmuka, Hemamali, Mahamali, Sarpasya, and Rudhirashana. Four more, Mahakapala, Sthulaksha, Pramathi, and Trishira, followed at Dushana’s heels at the head of the host. That fearsome army of ogre warriors, of terrible speed, hungry for the fight, came on suddenly toward the two princes like a cluster of planets bearing down on the moon and the sun.
The gist: Khara’s march is met by grim omens: a blood-raining cloud, a firebrand halo around the sun, a vulture on his standard, Rahu’s eclipse, an earthquake, and his own throbbing arm. In his folly Khara scorns them all and boasts of killing even Indra. His twelve chief captains and four more are named as the host closes on Rama.
Good omens for Rama; preparing for battle
The moment Khara reached the hermitage, Rama and his brother saw those same portents. Filled with anger to see those most dreadful signs, so harmful to the ogres, Rama said to Lakshmana: “Look, mighty-armed brother, at these great portents that have risen for the destruction of all the ogres. Those donkey-gray clouds floating in the sky are raining down torrents of blood with a violent crash. My arrows, seeing the smoke of these omens, feel carried away with joy at the coming fight, and my gold-backed bows are stirring, straining to be strung.
“The wild birds crying here tell us that safety stands before us, and mortal danger before the ogres. There will surely be a very great fight. This right arm of mine, throbbing again and again, foretells victory for us and defeat for the enemy. Your face too, brave brother, looks bright and glad. When men are ready for battle and their faces have lost their luster, their span of life is at its end, Lakshmana. And here is the terrible roar of the thundering ogres, and the crash of the kettledrums beaten by ogres of cruel deeds.
“A wise man who seeks his own welfare and fears a danger must guard against a calamity before it comes. So take Vaidehi, my boy, and with your bow and an arrow in hand, take shelter in a mountain cave, hard to reach and hedged about with trees. I do not want this command of mine opposed; I lay my feet upon you as an oath, go without delay. You are brave and strong, and could kill these ogres, no doubt of it; but I wish to kill all these night-stalkers myself.” At these words Lakshmana took up his bow and arrows and went with Sita into a cave hard to reach.
When Lakshmana had duly entered the cave with Sita, Rama said, “Good, my command has been carried out,” and put on his coat of mail. Adorned with that armor, bright as fire, Rama looked like a great flame risen all at once in the dark. The heroic Rama lifted his great bow, took an arrow in his hand, and stood there unmoving, filling the quarters with the twang of his bowstring.
Then the gods with the gandharvas, and the siddhas with the charanas, gathered to watch the battle. The high-souled seers of the world, the foremost of the Brahman sages, came together too and said to one another: “May it be well with the cows and the Brahmanas, and with all folk who stand secure. May Raghava conquer in battle the night-stalkers born of Pulastya’s line, as Vishnu, discus in hand, conquered the foremost of the demons.” Then, looking at one another, they said again: “Here are fourteen thousand ogres of terrible deeds, and the pious Rama is alone; how in such a case can there be a fight?” So the royal sages, the siddhas, the best of the twice-born with their companies, and the gods in their aerial cars stood, filled with wonder.
Seeing Rama filled with martial fire and standing at the front of the fight, all beings who did not know his greatness trembled in fear. The form of the angry Rama, tireless in his deeds, had become like the form of high-souled Rudra in his wrath. Even as the gods, gandharvas, and charanas spoke, the ogre army, with its dreadful shields and weapons and standards, closed in from every side with a deep roar. The huge, tumultuous din of those ogres, as they flung out war-cries, gave one another orders in the arts of battle, twanged their bows, leapt and bounded again and again, clamored and beat their drums, filled that whole forest. Terrified by the noise, the wild beasts of prey fled to where the sound could not reach and never looked back.
Bearing weapons of every kind, that army of terrible speed, deep as the sea, bore down on Rama. Skilled in war, Rama swept his eyes all around and, ready for the fight, watched the army of Khara. Drawing his fearful bow to its full length and pulling arrows from his quiver, he summoned a fierce anger for the killing of all the ogres, and, blazing with wrath, he grew as hard to look upon as the fire at the end of an age. Seeing him filled with fire, the sylvan deities were sore afraid; the form of the angry Rama had become like that of Rudra, wielder of the Pinaka bow, risen up to wreck the sacrifice of Daksha. With its bows and ornaments and chariots, and its coats of mail blazing like fire, that army of flesh-eating ogres looked like a bank of blue clouds at sunrise.
The gist: to Rama the same portents read as good omens; his throbbing right arm and Lakshmana’s bright face promise victory. Rama sends Lakshmana with Sita into a hard-to-reach cave, dons his armor, and stands alone at the front. The gods and sages marvel to see one Rama against fourteen thousand ogres, and the angry Rama takes on the look of Rudra come to shatter Daksha’s rite.
The ogres attack; Rama answers
Reaching the hermitage, Khara and his followers saw the angry Rama, slayer of his foes, with his bow gripped tight. Seeing him lift that strung bow with its hard twang, Khara ordered his charioteer: “Drive the chariot straight at Rama.” At Khara’s command the charioteer drove the horses to where the mighty-armed Rama stood alone, plucking his bowstring.
His ogre followers closed in on all sides around Khara as he reached Rama with a great roar. Seated in his chariot among those night-stalkers, Khara shone like Mars risen among the stars. Piercing the matchless Rama with a thousand arrows, Khara let out a great roar on the field. Then all the enraged night-stalkers rained weapons of every kind on the hard-to-conquer Rama with his fearful bow, striking at the hero in their fury with clubs, iron pikes, barbed spears, swords, and axes.
Vast as thunderclouds and immensely strong, the ogres rode elephants like mountain peaks, and chariots, and horses, and rushed to kill Rama in battle. Like great clouds pouring their streams on lordly Meru, the ogre hordes rained arrows on Rama. Ringed by all those cruel-eyed ogres, Rama looked like Mahadeva ringed by his hosts of attendants on the Pradosha days sacred to Shiva. The weapons the ogres flung, Rama soaked up with his arrows, the way the sea soaks up the rushing waters of rivers. Pierced in every limb and smeared with blood, Rama stood unshaken, like a great mountain split by many blazing bolts; drenched in blood, he looked like the sun screened by the clouds of evening. Seeing him alone, ringed by so many thousands, the gods, gandharvas, siddhas, and great seers were cast into gloom.
Then Rama, in high anger, bent his bow to a full circle and loosed hundreds and thousands of keen arrows, hard to ward off and hard to bear, deadly as the noose of Death. He loosed the gold-worked, hawk-feathered shafts as if in play, and, flung so lightly at the enemy’s ranks, they took the ogres’ lives like the nooses of Death. Piercing the ogres’ bodies and bathed in blood, the arrows shone in the sky like kindled fire. From Rama’s circling bow came arrows without number, fierce and terrible, taking the lives of the ogres; with them he cut through their bows, the tops of their standards, their shields, their coats of mail, and their arms, decked with ornaments and thick as elephant trunks, in their hundreds and thousands on the field.
Rama’s arrows tore through horses in golden armor, and the chariots and drivers with them, through elephants and their riders, and horsemen and their mounts; killing the foot-soldiers too, he sent them all to the abode of Yama. Cut by his steel-tipped Nalikas, his all-iron Naracas, and his sharp barbed Vikarnis, the night-stalkers raised a terrible cry of pain. Torn by his many kinds of arrows piercing their vital parts, that army found no ease before Rama, like a dry wood set upon by fire.
Then some brave night-stalkers of terrible strength, in a great rage, flung barbed spears, pikes, and axes at Rama. The mighty-armed hero warded off their weapons with his arrows, cut through their necks, and took their lives. With their heads lopped off and their shields and bows split through, they toppled to the earth like trees flung down by the wind of Garuda’s wings. The night-stalkers who were left, wounded by his arrows and sunk in gloom, ran to Khara alone for shelter.
Then the general Dushana, subduer of foes, in a fury like the wrath of Yama, rushed at the angry Rama. Made fearless by the backing of Dushana, all the ogres turned again and rushed at Rama alone, taking up sal and palmyra trees and slabs of stone for weapons. Pikes and clubs in their hands, and nooses too, the mighty ogres rained down showers of arrows and weapons, and volleys of trees and stones. That fight between Rama and the ogres grew wondrous, tumultuous, most dreadful, and hair-raising; in their wrath they set upon Rama once more from every side.
Seeing every quarter and every point between them thronged with ogres and screened with showers of arrows, the mighty Rama gave a terrible roar and loosed against the ogres the shining Gandharva missile, presided over by the gandharvas. From his circling bow sped thousands of arrows, and all ten directions filled with them. Tormented by the arrows, the ogres could not see Rama draw his dread arrows or loose them; they saw only that he was pulling his bowstring. A darkness of arrows curtained the sky and the sun, and Rama stood pouring out arrows as though a machine were at work. Ogres falling together and dying together strewed the ground in an instant.
Killed, fallen, spent, cut, cleft, and torn open, the ogres lay in their thousands here and there. Strewn with turbaned heads, with armletted arms, with severed thighs and shoulders, with ornaments of every design, with broken horses and elephants and chariots, with powdered stones and shattered pikes, pattishas, swords, spears, and axes, that battlefield turned dreadful to look upon. Seeing them dead, the ogres who remained were seized with dread and could not take a single step toward Rama, conqueror of the enemy’s citadels.
The gist: from his chariot, ringed by his host, Khara looses a thousand arrows at Rama, and the ogres rain weapons, trees, and stones from all sides. Absorbing it all like the sea, Rama draws his circling bow and looses thousands of arrows in sport, then binds the ogres with the Gandharva missile like the noose of Death. The field is strewn with severed limbs, and the survivors flee to Dushana.
The slaying of Dushana and the rest of the host
Seeing his army cut to pieces, the mighty-armed Dushana ordered forward five thousand ogres of terrible speed, hard to approach, who never turned back from the field. With pikes, pattishas, and swords, with showers of stones and with trees, in an unbroken rain of arrows they poured down on Rama from every side. That great, life-taking downpour of trees and stones the pious Raghava warded off with his keen arrows; taking it as a bull takes a storm with its eyes shut, he summoned a supreme anger for the killing of all the ogres. Filled with wrath and blazing as if with fire, Rama covered that army, Dushana and all, with his arrows on every side.
Then the enraged general Dushana held Rama off with arrows like thunderbolts. In great anger the heroic Rama cut through Dushana’s huge bow with a razor-headed arrow, brought down the four horses of his chariot with four arrows, cut off the charioteer’s head with a crescent-headed shaft, and pierced Dushana’s chest with three. His bow shorn, his chariot wrecked, his horses and driver killed, the chariotless Dushana snatched up a hair-raising iron bar tall as a mountain peak, bound with plates of gold, studded with sharp iron spikes, smeared with the fat of his enemies, hard as a thunderbolt to the touch, a bar that could crush the army of the gods and break down the gates of enemy cities. Gripping that bar like a great serpent, the cruel-dealing night-stalker Dushana sprang at Rama.
As Dushana sprang, Raghava lopped off both his ornamented arms with two arrows. Loosed from the hands of the severed-armed Dushana, that huge bar dropped on the field like a banner raised in Indra’s honor. Along with his severed arms, Dushana crashed to the ground like a proud lordly elephant with its tusks torn out. Seeing him dead, all beings cried, “Well done! Bravo!” and praised Rama.
In that moment three captains of the van, caught in the noose of Death, rushed at Rama together, Mahakapala, Sthulaksha, and the mighty Pramathi: Mahakapala raising a huge pike, Sthulaksha holding a pattisha, and Pramathi gripping an axe. Seeing them come, Raghava greeted them with keen, sharp-pointed arrows, as one welcomes guests arrived at one’s door. He cut off Mahakapala’s head, crushed Pramathi under countless volleys of arrows, and filled Sthulaksha’s great eyes with shafts. Killed, the three fell to the earth like great trees with all their branches. Striking down Dushana’s five thousand followers with five thousand arrows, the angry Rama sent them all to Yama’s abode.
Hearing that Dushana and his followers were dead, the enraged Khara ordered his mighty captains: “Here is Dushana slain in battle with all his followers. Give battle to Rama, that wretched man, with your great host, and kill him, all you ogres, with weapons of every shape.” So saying, the angry Khara himself rushed at Rama; and the twelve captains of great prowess, Shyenagami, Prithugriva, Yajnashatru, Vihangama, Durjaya, Karaviraksha, Parusha, Kalakarmuka, Hemamali, Mahamali, Sarpasya, and Rudhirashana, fell upon Rama with their soldiers, loosing their finest arrows.
Then the fiery Rama destroyed the rest of that army with arrows set with gold and diamonds and blazing like tongues of flame. Like fire wrapped in smoke, those gold-winged shafts made an end of the ogres as thunderbolts make an end of great trees. On the field Rama killed a hundred ogres with a hundred barbed arrows and a thousand with a thousand, all at once. Their armor and ornaments shattered, their bows broken, and their bodies smeared with blood, the night-stalkers fell to the ground; and with their tangled hair, drenched in blood, fallen across the field, the ogres covered the whole earth like a great altar spread with kusha grass. In that moment the dreadful forest, heaped with the corpses of the ogres and fouled with the mire of flesh and blood, became a very hell.
One man, Rama, on foot and alone, had brought down fourteen thousand ogres of terrible deeds. Of that whole army only three now remained: the great chariot-warrior Khara, the ogre Trishira, and Rama, slayer of his foes; all the rest of those fierce, hard-to-face ogres of extraordinary prowess had been killed on the field by the elder brother of Lakshmana. Seeing that fearsome army destroyed by Rama in the great fight, Khara bore down on Rama in his huge chariot, like Indra with his thunderbolt raised.
The gist: Dushana charges with five thousand ogres; Rama wrecks his bow, chariot, and horses, cuts off both his arms, and fells him. Mahakapala, Sthulaksha, and Pramathi die, then the rest of the host with its twelve captains. Rama, one man on foot, kills all fourteen thousand alone; only Khara and Trishira are left, and Khara drives at Rama.
The slaying of Trishira
Blocking Khara as he bore down on Rama, his other general, the ogre Trishira, came forward and said: “Give the task to me, brave one, and turn back from this rash venture. Watch me bring the mighty-armed Rama down in battle. I take an unfailing vow before you and swear by my weapon that I will surely kill Rama, who deserves death at the hands of all the ogres. Either I will be his death on the field, or he will be mine. So hold back your battle-zeal and stand a while as a judge over us. If Rama is killed, you will go back to Janasthana in joy; and if I am killed, you will march against Rama for the fight.”
Won over by that Trishira, who was in love with death at Rama’s hands, Khara gave him leave with the words “Go, fight,” and Trishira advanced on Raghava. With his three heads like a three-peaked mountain, Trishira attacked Rama from a bright, horse-drawn chariot. Pouring out volleys of arrows like a great cloud, he roared like a kettledrum wet with water. Seeing the ogre come, Raghava greeted him with a bow that loosed keen arrows. The fight between Rama and Trishira, both of great strength, grew as fierce as the clash of a lion and an elephant.
When Trishira struck Rama on the forehead with three arrows, Rama, provoked, angry, and stirred, said: “Ah! What strength this ogre has in his onset, who has grazed my forehead with arrows soft as flowers! Now take the arrows loosed from my bow in turn.” So saying, in high fury Rama struck fourteen snake-venom arrows into Trishira’s chest, brought down his four horses with four bent-nodded shafts, and with eight more felled his charioteer on the seat of the chariot.
With one arrow Rama cut down his tall standard. Then, seeing the chariotless night-stalker Trishira leaping toward him, Raghava pierced his heart with arrows so that he was struck still; and Rama, whose measure none can take, in his fury brought down the ogre’s three heads with three swift arrows. Overcome by Rama’s shafts, the night-stalker, spewing smoke and blood, fell where he stood on the field, joining the heads that had already dropped. Then the ogres who were left, followers of Khara, broke and fled like deer scared off by a tiger, and would not hold their ground. Seeing them flee, the enraged Khara turned them back and rushed at Rama alone, swift as Rahu springing at the moon.
The gist: Khara’s captain Trishira swears an oath and, with Khara set to watch as judge, charges Rama. Grazed on the forehead by three arrows, the angry Rama drives fourteen arrows into his chest, wrecks his horses, driver, and standard, and shears off all three of his heads. The last ogres flee, and the enraged Khara falls on Rama himself.
Khara meets Rama face to face
Seeing Dushana and Trishira dead on the field, and seeing Rama’s prowess, dread entered Khara’s heart too. Watching that unbearable, mighty ogre-army, and Dushana and Trishira, all killed by Rama alone, and most of his host destroyed, the shaken Khara attacked Rama as the demon Namuci once attacked Indra.
Seeing that unbearable, mighty ogre-host, Rama for his part lifted his own great bow. Khara drew his heavy bow by main force and loosed at Rama his blood-drinking Naracas, like angry serpents. Shaking his bowstring in a hundred ways and showing off his skill with weapons, Khara from his chariot wove his tracks across the field with arrows. That great chariot-warrior filled all the quarters and the points between them with arrows; seeing it, Rama too lifted his very great bow. With his own dread arrows, like sparks of fire, he covered the sky as the rain-god covers it with showers. With the keen arrows loosed by both Khara and Rama, the sky all around them was crowded with shafts and left with no empty space.
Screened by that net of arrows loosed by the two warriors, each fighting in his zeal to kill the other, the sun could not be seen. Then Khara struck Rama on the field with Nalikas, Naracas, and sharp barbed Vikarnis, as one strikes a great elephant with a goad. All beings saw that ogre, rooted firm in his chariot, bow in hand, like Death himself with his noose. Khara took Rama, destroyer of his whole army, bent on heroism and of great strength, to be worn out at that moment. But Rama, seeing him bold as a lion and striding like one, was no more shaken than a lion at the sight of some small deer. Then Khara, in his huge sun-bright chariot, came at Rama like a moth at a flame.
Showing the speed of his hand, Khara cut through Rama’s bow, arrow and all, near the fist. Then, taking seven more arrows bright as Indra’s thunderbolt, the angry Khara struck at the high-souled Rama’s vital spots. Wounding the matchless Rama with a thousand arrows, Khara let out a great roar on the field. Struck by the fine-nodded arrows Khara loosed, Rama’s sun-bright coat of mail fell to the ground. Pierced in every limb, the angry Raghava shone on the field like a smokeless burning fire.
Then Rama, crusher of his foes, strung another great, deep-voiced bow to make an end of his enemy, the vast and matchless bow of Vishnu that the great sage Agastya had given him; and lifting it, he rushed at Khara. In high anger Rama cut down Khara’s standard on the field with gold-winged, even-nodded arrows. Cut in many places, that fair golden standard fell to the earth like the sun going to its setting at the command of the gods.
Knowing the vital spots, the angry Khara struck Rama in his limbs, and above all in the heart, with four arrows, as one strikes an elephant with javelins. Pierced by the many arrows from Khara’s bow and smeared with blood, Rama grew fiercely angry. Then Rama, the best of bowmen, the finest of archers, bent his bow in that great fight and loosed six unerring arrows: one at Khara’s head, two at his arms, and three crescent-headed shafts into his chest. Then, in his fury, the fiery Rama loosed at the ogre thirteen sun-bright arrows sharpened on stone.
Strong as Indra, Raghava, as if laughing, cut the yoke of the chariot with one arrow, the four spotted horses with four, the head of Khara’s driver with the sixth; with three more he cut the three poles that held the yoke, with two the axle, and with the twelfth, bright as a thunderbolt, he cut through Khara’s bow with the arrow set on it, and with the thirteenth he pierced Khara’s chest. His bow broken, his chariot wrecked, his horses and driver dead, Khara leapt down and stood on the ground, mace in hand. Seeing this deed of the great chariot-warrior Rama, the gods and great seers gathered at the front of their aerial cars praised him with joined palms, filled with joy.
The gist: shaken by the deaths of Dushana and Trishira, Khara closes with Rama as Namuci did with Indra, and the sky fills with arrows until the sun is screened. Khara cuts down Rama’s bow and armor, but Rama takes up the bow of Vishnu that Agastya gave him and shears away Khara’s standard, yoke, horses, driver, and bow. Chariotless, Khara stands on the ground with his mace as the gods hail Rama.
Sharp words between Khara and Rama
To Khara, standing below without his chariot, mace in hand, the fiery Rama spoke words that began gently and turned hard. “Lord of a great army thick with elephants, horses, and chariots, you have done a cruel deed that all the worlds despise. He who torments living beings, who is savage and works evil, does not last, though he be lord of all three worlds. He who takes a harsh course against the good of the people, night-stalker, is struck down by everyone, as men strike a wicked serpent that has come near. He who sins out of greed or lust and yet will not wake to it, and is glad, sees the end of his own sins with his own eyes, as the venomless lizard meets its end by swallowing hailstones.
“What reward on earth will you win, ogre, by killing the blessed ascetics who live in the Dandaka forest and keep to virtue? Cruel men who work sin and are despised by the world do not last long, even when they win lordship, any more than trees with rotten roots. The doer of a sinful deed surely reaps its terrible fruit when the time comes, as a tree puts forth its blossom in its season. The fruit of sinful deeds is reaped soon, night-stalker, like the fruit of poisoned food that has been eaten. To take the lives of those who work dreadful sin and wish the world ill, I have been appointed by the king, my father. Today the gold-decked arrows I loose will pierce your body, split the earth, and reach the nether world like serpents entering an anthill. The pious ascetics you have devoured in the Dandaka forest, you will follow this day, killed in battle with your army behind you.
“Let the great seers you killed before, seated in their aerial cars, watch you killed by my arrows and rotting in hell. Strike as you please, disgrace of your line, and do your utmost; this very day I will bring down your head like a palm fruit.”
At these words Khara, his eyes red with anger, beside himself with rage, laughed and answered Rama: “Having killed common ogres in battle, son of Dasaratha, how is it you praise yourself, though you are unworthy of praise? Those jewels among men who are truly brave or strong say nothing of themselves, being too proud in their fire for it. Only the vulgar, who have not mastered themselves and are a disgrace to the warriors of the world, brag to no purpose, as you are bragging now. When the hour of death is at hand in battle, what hero would praise himself out of season, naming his own line? By this self-praise you have shown your own smallness in every way, as brass that mimics gold shows its baseness when it is heated in the fire lit to refine gold.
“Do you not see me standing here, mace in hand, unshaken as a great mountain that holds the earth in balance and is rich with its ores? Like Yama, the god of death, standing with his noose, I with my mace am strong enough to take your life, and the lives of the dwellers in all three worlds. There is much I could say of you, but I will say no more; the sun is setting, and it may hinder the fight. Fourteen thousand ogres stand killed by you. By your destruction I will avenge their death today and wipe away the tears of their dear ones.”
So saying, the enraged Khara hurled at Rama his huge mace, ringed with fine gold and blazing like a bolt of fire. Burning up the trees and thickets in its path, that great, blazing mace, loosed from Khara’s arms, came on toward Rama. Like the noose of Yama, that mighty mace flew through the air, and Rama split it into many pieces with his arrows; broken by the shafts, the mace fell to the earth like a she-serpent brought down by the power of charms and herbs.
The gist: Rama, in words gentle then hard, lays out to Khara the fruit of sin and the sentence for slaughtering ascetics. Khara laughs, charges Rama with vain self-praise and empty boasting, calls himself a destroyer of the three worlds with his mace, and, pleading the sunset, hurls his blazing mace, which Rama shatters to pieces.
Rama slays Khara; gods and sages applaud
Having shattered that mace with his arrows, the virtue-loving Raghava smiled and spoke stirring words: “Is this the whole of your strength, vilest of ogres, that you have shown? Far weaker than I, you roar in vain. This mace of yours, split by my arrows and fallen to the ground, has dragged into the dust the trust you placed in it, you who are bold only in speech. The vow you made, to wipe away the tears of the ogres’ kin, has proved false too. Base ogre, mean of nature and false in conduct, I will take your life as Garuda took the nectar from the keeping of the gods. Today, when your throat is pierced and your body torn by my shafts, the earth will drink your blood, thick with foam and bubbles.
“Disgrace of the ogres, you will embrace the earth like a hard-won young woman, your whole body dusted with dust and both your arms cut off, and lie in the long sleep. When you are laid in that long slumber, ogre, this Dandaka forest will become a refuge for the sages who give refuge to all. When your dwelling at Janasthana is undone by my arrows, the sages will roam the forest without fear on every side. The ogresses who put terror into others will flee from the Dandaka today, their faces wet with tears, in dread, their kin killed by me. Wives whose husband is as base as you and who are born of like families will taste the flavor of sorrow today and be left with nothing. Cruel-natured, mean-spirited, forever a thorn in the side of the Brahmanas, it is on your account that the sages pour their oblations into the fire in fear.”
As Raghava spoke these stirring words in the forest, Khara, in a harsher voice still, hurled abuse at him: “You are surely puffed up beyond measure, and fearless even in the face of danger. You are in the grip of death, and that is why you cannot tell what should and should not be said. Men caught in the noose of Death, their six senses gone out of order, know neither what to do nor what to leave undone.” So saying, the night-stalker knit his brows and looked about him for a weapon for the fight, and seeing a great sal tree close by, he bit his lips and tore it up by the roots. Lifting it in his arms, the mighty Khara roared, cried “You are dead,” and flung it at Rama.
Cutting down the oncoming tree with volleys of arrows, the glorious Rama summoned a fierce anger to make an end of Khara in battle. Wet with the sweat of his anger, the corners of his eyes red with rage, Rama pierced Khara on the field with a thousand arrows. From the wounds those arrows made, blood poured foaming like the streams that pour from Mount Prasravana. Maddened by the smell of his own blood, Khara, harried by Rama’s arrows, sprang swiftly at him.
Seeing the enraged, blood-smeared Khara rushing at him, Rama, master of missiles and swift of foot, drew back two or three steps to strike him cleanly. Then, to kill Khara in the fight, Rama took up an arrow like fire, like a second rod of Brahma. That arrow, given to him by the wise Mahendra, lord of the gods, through the hand of Agastya, the pious Rama fitted to his bow and loosed at Khara. Loud as a thunderclap, the great shaft, loosed from Rama’s fully drawn bow, struck Khara in the chest. Burning in the fire of that arrow, Khara fell to the earth as Andhaka fell, burnt up by Rudra in the Sweta forest. Killed by that arrow, Khara fell as Vritra fell to the thunderbolt, as Namuci fell to the foam, and as the demon Bala fell to Indra’s lightning.
In that moment the gods with the charanas, beating their great drums on every side, filled with joy and wonder, rained down flowers on Rama and said: “In the space of a muhurta and a half, roughly an hour and a half, Rama has made an end, with his keen arrows in a great fight, of fourteen thousand ogres led by Khara and Dushana, who could take any shape at will. Ah, great is the deed of Rama, knower of the Self! Ah, his prowess! Ah, his firmness! It looks like the very firmness of Vishnu.” So saying, all the gods went back the way they had come.
Then the royal sages and the great seers, Agastya among them, gathered in joy and hailed Rama: “For this very purpose, to bring you to this region, the fiery Mahendra, tamer of the demon Paka, came to the holy hermitage of Sharabhanga. By a wise design the great seers led you to this land, for the killing of these sinful ogres, your sworn enemies. This work of ours, son of Dasaratha, you have done. Now the great seers will keep to their own duty in the Dandaka without fear.”
Meanwhile the heroic Lakshmana came out of the hard-to-reach mountain cave with Sita and sat down in ease in the hermitage. Glorified by the great sages and honored in every way by Lakshmana, the victorious hero Rama entered the hermitage. Seeing her husband, who had made an end of his enemies and brought ease to the great sages, Vaidehi was filled with joy and embraced him. Seeing the hordes of ogres killed and Rama safe and sound, the daughter of Janaka was glad through and through. Then, held in the highest honor by joyful high-souled beings, Rama, crusher of the ogre hosts, was embraced once more by the daughter of Janaka, and Sita’s face lit up with joy.
The gist: Rama pronounces on Khara the sentence of his sins and foretells the flight of the ogresses; Khara uproots a sal tree and hurls it, and Rama cuts it down. At last the arrow of Mahendra, given through Agastya and blazing like a rod of Brahma, pierces Khara’s chest, and he falls like Vritra, Namuci, and Bala. In a muhurta and a half the fourteen thousand are gone; the gods rain flowers, Agastya and the sages tell Rama their purpose is fulfilled, and Sita returns from the cave to embrace him.
Source: Srimad Valmiki Ramayana, Aranyakanda, Cantos 17-30 (Gita Press, Gorakhpur).
Basis: Valmiki Ramayana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)