The Sanskrit Epics, page 133
But as they flew struck thousands dead.
Canto CI. Lakshman’s Fall.
WHEN RÁVAṆ SAW his darts repelled,
With double rage his bosom swelled.
He summoned, wroth but undismayed,
A mightier charm to lend its aid.
And, fierce as fire before the blast,
A storm of missiles thick and fast,
Spear, pike and javelin, mace and brand,
Came hurtling from the giant’s hand.
But, mightier still, the arms employed
By Raghu’s son their force destroyed,
And every dart fell dulled and spent
By powers the bards of heaven had lent.
With his huge mace Vibhishaṇ slew
The steeds that Rávaṇ’s chariot drew.
Then Rávaṇ hurled in deadly ire
A ponderous spear that flashed like fire:
But Ráma’s arrows checked its way,
And harmless on the earth it lay,
The giant seized a mightier spear,
Which Death himself would shun with fear.
Vibhishaṇ with the stroke had died,
But Lakshmaṇ’s hand his bowstring plied,
And flying arrows thick as hail
Smote fiercely on the giant’s mail.
Then Rávaṇ turned his aim aside,
On Lakshmaṇ looked and fiercely cried:
“Thou, thou again my wrath hast braved,
And from his death Vibhishaṇ saved.
Now in his stead this spear receive
Whose deadly point thy heart shall cleave.”
He ceased: he hurled the mortal dart
By Maya forged with magic art.
The spear, with all his fury flung,
Swift, flickering like a serpent’s tongue,
Adorned with many a tinkling bell,
Smote Lakshmaṇ, and the hero fell.
When Ráma saw, he heaved a sigh,
A tear one moment dimmed his eye.
But tender grief was soon repressed
And thoughts of vengeance filled his breast.
The air around him flashed and gleamed
As from his bow the arrows streamed;
And Lanká’s lord, the foeman’s dread,
O’erwhelmed with terror turned and fled.
Canto CII. Lakshman Healed.
BUT RÁMA, PRIDE of Raghu’s race,
Gazed tenderly on Lakshmaṇ’s face,
And, as the sight his spirit broke,
Turned to Susheṇ and sadly spoke:
“Where is my power and valour? how
Shall I have heart for battle now,
When dead before my weeping eyes
My brother, noblest Lakshmaṇ, lies?
My tears in blinding torrents flow,
My hand unnerved has dropped my bow.
The pangs of woe have blanched my cheek,
My heart is sick, my strength is weak.
Ah me, my brother! Ah, that I
By Lakshmaṇ’s side might sink and die:
Life, war and conquest, all are vain
If Lakshmaṇ lies in battle slain.
Why will those eyes my glances shun?
Hast thou no word of answer, none?
Ah, is thy noble spirit flown
And gone to other worlds alone?
Couldst thou not let thy brother seek
Those worlds with thee? O speak, O speak!
Rise up once more, my brother, rise,
Look on me with thy loving eyes.
Were not thy steps beside me still
In gloomy wood, on breezy hill?
Did not thy gentle care assuage
Thy brother’s grief and fitful rage?
Didst thou not all his troubles share,
His guide and comfort in despair?”
As Ráma, vanquished, wept and sighed
The Vánar chieftain thus replied:
“Great Prince, unmanly thoughts dismiss,
Nor yield thy soul to grief like this.
In vain those burning tears are shed:
Our glory Lakshmaṇ is not dead.
Death on his brow no mark has set,
Where beauty’s lustre lingers yet.
Clear is the skin, and tender hues
Of lotus flowers his palms suffuse.
O Ráma, cheer thy trembling heart;
Not thus do life and body part.
Now, Hanumán, to thee I speak:
Hie hence to tall Mahodaya’s996 peak
Where herbs of sovereign virtue grow
Which life and health and strength bestow
Bring thou the leaves to balm his pain,
And Lakshmaṇ shall be well again.”
He ceased: the Wind-God’s son obeyed
Swift through the clouds his way he made.
He reached the hill, nor stayed to find
The wondrous herbs of healing kind,
From its broad base the mount he tore
With all the shrubs and trees it bore,
Sped through the clouds again and showed
To wise Susheṇ his woody load.997
Susheṇ in wonder viewed the hill,
And culled the sovereign salve of ill.
Soon as the healing herb he found,
The fragrant leaves he crushed and ground.
Then over Lakshmaṇ’s face he bent,
Who, healed and strengthened by the scent
Of that blest herb divinely sweet,
Rose fresh and lusty on his feet.
Canto CIII. Indra’s Car.
THEN RAGHU’S SON forgot his woe:
Again he grasped his fallen bow
And hurled at Lanká’s lord amain
The tempest of his arrowy rain.
Drawn by the steeds his lords had brought,
Again the giant turned and fought.
And drove his glittering chariot nigh
As springs the Day-God through the sky.
Then, as his sounding bow he bent,
Like thunderbolts his shafts were sent,
As when dark clouds in rain time shed
Fierce torrents on a mountain’s head.
High on his car the giant rode,
On foot the son of Raghu strode.
The Gods from their celestial height
Indignant saw the unequal fight.
Then he whom heavenly hosts revere,
Lord Indra, called his charioteer:
“Haste, Mátali,” he cried, “descend;
To Raghu’s son my chariot lend.
With cheering words the chief address;
And all the Gods thy deed will bless.”
He bowed; he brought the glorious car
Whose tinkling bells were heard afar;
Fair as the sun of morning, bright
With gold and pearl and lazulite.
He yoked the steeds of tawny hue
That swifter than the tempest flew.
Then down the slope of heaven he hied
And stayed the car by Ráma’s side.
“Ascend, O Chief,” he humbly cried,
“The chariot which the Gods provide.
The mighty bow of Indra see,
Sent by the Gods who favour thee;
Behold this coat of glittering mail,
And spear and shafts which never fail.”
Cheered by the grace the Immortals showed
The chieftain on the chariot rode.
Then as the car-borne warriors met
The awful fight raged fiercer yet.
Each shaft that Rávaṇ shot became
A serpent red with kindled flame,
And round the limbs of Ráma hung
With fiery jaws and quivering tongue.
But every serpent fled dismayed
When Raghu’s valiant son displayed
The weapon of the Feathered King,998
And loosed his arrows from the string.
But Rávaṇ armed his bow anew,
And showers of shafts at Ráma flew,
While the fierce king in swift career
Smote with a dart the charioteer.
An arrow shot by Rávaṇ’s hand
Laid the proud banner on the sand,
And Indra’s steeds of heavenly strain
Fell by the iron tempest slain.
On Gods and spirits of the air
Fell terror, trembling, and despair.
The sea’s white billows mounted high
With froth and foam to drench the sky.
The sun by lurid clouds was veiled,
The friendly lights of heaven were paled;
And, fiercely gleaming, fiery Mars
Opposed the beams of gentler stars.
Then Ráma’s eyes with fury blazed
As Indra’s heavenly spear he raised.
Loud rang the bells: the glistering head
Bright flashes through the region shed.
Down came the spear in swift descent:
The giant’s lance was crushed and bent.
Then Rávaṇ’s horses brave and fleet
Fell dead beneath his arrowy sleet.
Fierce on his foeman Ráma pressed,
And gored with shafts his mighty breast.
And spouting streams of crimson dyed
The weary giant’s limbs and side.
[I omit Cantos CIV and CV in which the fight is renewed and Rávaṇ severely reprimands his charioteer for timidity and want of confidence in his master’s prowess, and orders him to charge straight at Ráma on the next occasion.]
Canto CVI. Glory To The Sun.
THERE FAINT AND bleeding fast, apart
Stood Rávaṇ raging in his heart.
Then, moved with ruth for Ráma’s sake,
Agastya999 came and gently spake:
“Bend, Ráma, bend thy heart and ear
The everlasting truth to hear
Which all thy hopes through life will bless
And crown thine arms with full success.
The rising sun with golden rays,
Light of the worlds, adore and praise:
The universal king, the lord
By hosts of heaven and fiends adored.
He tempers all with soft control,
He is the Gods’ diviner soul;
And Gods above and fiends below
And men to him their safety owe.
He Brahmá, Vishṇu, Śiva, he
Each person of the glorious Three,
Is every God whose praise we tell,
The King of Heaven,1000 the Lord of Hell:1001
Each God revered from times of old,
The Lord of War,1002 the King of Gold:1003
Mahendra, Time and Death is he,
The Moon, the Ruler of the Sea.1004
He hears our praise in every form, —
The manes,1005 Gods who ride the storm,1006
The Aśvins,1007 Manu,1008 they who stand
Round Indra,1009 and the Sádhyas’1010 band
He is the air, and life and fire,
The universal source and sire:
He brings the seasons at his call,
Creator, light, and nurse of all.
His heavenly course he joys to run,
Maker of Day, the golden sun.
The steeds that whirl his car are seven,1011
The flaming steeds that flash through heaven.
Lord of the sky, the conqueror parts
The clouds of night with glistering darts.
He, master of the Vedas’ lore,
Commands the clouds’ collected store:
He is the rivers’ surest friend;
He bids the rains, and they descend.
Stars, planets, constellations own
Their monarch of the golden throne.
Lord of twelve forms,1012 to thee I bow,
Most glorious King of heaven art thou.
O Ráma, he who pays aright
Due worship to the Lord of Light
Shall never fall oppressed by ill,
But find a stay and comfort still.
Adore with all thy heart and mind
This God of Gods, to him resigned;
And thou his saving power shalt know
Victorious o’er thy giant foe.”
[This Canto does not appear in the Bengal recension. It comes in awkwardly and may I think be considered as an interpolation, but I paraphrase a portion of it as a relief after so much fighting and carnage, and as an interesting glimpse of the monotheistic ideas which underlie the Hindu religion. The hymn does not readily lend itself to metrical translation, and I have not attempted here to give a faithful rendering of the whole. A literal version of the text and the commentary given in the Calcutta edition will be found in the Additional Notes.
A canto is here omitted. It contains fighting of the ordinary kind between Ráma and Rávaṇ, and a description of sights and sounds of evil omen foreboding the destruction of the giant.]
Canto CVIII. The Battle.
HE SPOKE, AND vanished: Ráma raised
His eyes with reverence meet, and praised
The glorious Day-God full in view:
Then armed him for the fight anew.
Urged onward by his charioteer
The giant’s foaming steeds came near,
And furious was the battle’s din
Where each resolved to die or win.
The Rákshas host and Vánar bands
Stood with their weapons in their hands,
And watched in terror and dismay
The fortune of the awful fray.
The giant chief with rage inflamed
His darts at Ráma’s pennon aimed;
But when they touched the chariot made
By heavenly hands their force was stayed.
Then Ráma’s breast with fury swelled;
He strained the mighty bow he held,
And straight at Rávaṇ’s banner flew
An arrow as the string he drew —
A deadly arrow swift of flight,
Like some huge snake ablaze with light,
Whose fury none might e’er repel, —
And, split in twain, the standard fell.
At Ráma’s steeds sharp arrows, hot
With flames of fire, the giant shot.
Unmoved the heavenly steeds sustained
The furious shower the warrior rained,
As though soft lotus tendrils smote
Each haughty crest and glossy coat.
Then volleyed swift by magic art,
Tree, mountain peak and spear and dart,
Trident and pike and club and mace
Flew hurtling straight at Ráma’s face.
But Ráma with his steeds and car
Escaped the storm which fell afar
Where the strange missiles, as they rushed
To earth, a thousand Vánars crushed.
Canto CIX. The Battle.
WITH WONDROUS POWER and might and skill
The giant fought with Ráma still.
Each at his foe his chariot drove,
And still for death or victory strove.
The warriors’ steeds together dashed,
And pole with pole reëchoing clashed.
Then Ráma launching dart on dart
Made Rávaṇ’s coursers swerve and start.
Nor was the lord of Lanká slow
To rain his arrows on the foe,
Who showed, by fiery points assailed,
No trace of pain, nor shook nor quailed.
Dense clouds of arrows Ráma shot
With that strong arm which rested not,
And spear and mace and club and brand
Fell in dire rain from Rávaṇ’s hand.
The storm of missiles fiercely cast
Stirred up the oceans with its blast,
And Serpent-Gods and fiends who dwell
Below were troubled by the swell.
The earth with hill and plain and brook
And grove and garden reeled and shook:
The very sun grew cold and pale,
And horror stilled the rising gale.
God and Gandharva, sage and saint
Cried out, with grief and terror faint:
“O may the prince of Raghu’s line
Give peace to Bráhmans and to kine,
And, rescuing the worlds, o’erthrow
The giant king our awful foe.”
Then to his deadly string the pride
Of Raghu’s race a shaft applied.
Sharp as a serpent’s venomed fang
Straight to its mark the arrow sprang,
And from the giant’s body shred
With trenchant steel the monstrous head.
There might the triple world behold
That severed head adorned with gold.
But when all eyes were bent to view,
Swift in its stead another grew.
Again the shaft was pointed well:
Again the head divided fell;
But still as each to earth was cast
Another head succeeded fast.
A hundred, bright with fiery flame,
Fell low before the victor’s aim,
Yet Rávaṇ by no sign betrayed
That death was near or strength decayed.
The doubtful fight he still maintained,
And on the foe his missiles rained.
In air, on earth, on plain, on hill,
With awful might he battled still;
And through the hours of night and day
The conflict knew no pause or stay.
Canto CX. Rávan’s Death.
THEN MÁTALI TO Ráma cried:
“Let other arms the day decide.
Why wilt thou strive with useless toil
And see his might thy efforts foil?
Launch at the foe thy dart whose fire
Was kindled by the Almighty Sire.”
He ceased: and Raghu’s son obeyed:
Upon his string the hero laid
An arrow, like a snake that hissed.
Whose fiery flight had never missed:
The arrow Saint Agastya gave
And blessed the chieftain’s life to save
That dart the Eternal Father made
The Monarch of the Gods to aid;
By Brahmá’s self on him bestowed
When forth to fight Lord Indra rode.
’Twas feathered with the rushing wind;
The glowing sun and fire combined
To the keen point their splendour lent;
The shaft, ethereal element,
By Meru’s hill and Mandar, pride
