They sought the king, a mournful train,
And cried. 'My lord, thy son is slain.
By Lakshmau’s hand, before these eyes,
The warrior fell no more to rise.
No time is this for vain regret:
Thy hero son a hero met;
And he whose might in battle pressed
Lord Indra and the Gods confessed,
Whose power was stranger to defeat,
Has gained in heaven a blissful seat.
The monarch heard the mournful tale:
His heart was faint, his cheek was pale;
His fleeting sense at length regained,
In trembling tones he thus complained:
‘Ah me, my son, my pride: the boast
And glory of the giant host.
Could Lakshman’s puny might defeat
The foe whom Indra feared to meet?
Could not thy deadly arrows split
Proud Mandar’s peaks, O Indrajit,
And the Destroyer’s self destroy?
And wast thou conquered by a boy?
I will not weep: thy noble deed
Has blessed thee with immortal meed
Gained by each hero in the skies
Who fighting for his sovereign dies.
Now, fearless of all meaner foes.
The guardian Gods [1] will taste repose:
But earth to me, with hill and plain,
In* desolate, for thou art slain.
Ah, whither hast thou fled, and left
Thy mother, Lanká, me bereft;
Left pride and state and wives behind,
And lordship over all thy kind?
I fondly hoped thy hand should pay
Due honours on my dying day:
And couldst thou, O beloved, flee
And leave thy funeral rites to me?
Life has no comfort left me, none,
O Indrajit my son, my son.’
Thus wailed he broken by his woes:
But swift the thought of vengeance rose.
In awful wrath his teeth he gnashed,
And from his eyes red lightning flashed.
Hot from his mouth came fire and smoke,
As thus the king in fury spoke:
‘Through many a thousand years of yore
The penance and the pain I bore,
And by fierce torment well sustained
The highest grace of Brahmá, gained,
His plighted word my life assured,
From Gods of heaven and fiends secured.
He armed my limbs with burnished mail
Whose lustre turns the sunbeams pale,
In battle proof gainst heavenly bands
With thunder in their threatening hands.
Armed in this mail myself will go
With Brahmá’s gift my deadly bow,
And, cleaving through the foes my way,
The slayers of my son will slay.’
Then, by his grief to frenzy wrought,
The captive in the grove he sought.
Swift through the shady path he sped:
Earth trembled at his furious tread.
Fierce were his eyes: his monstrous hand
Held drawn for death his glittering brand.
[ p. 488 ]
There weeping stood the Maithil dame:
She shuddered as the giant came.
Near drew the rover of the night
And raised his sword in act to smite;
But, by his nobler heart impelled,
One Rákshas lord his arm withheld:
‘Wilt thou, great Monarch,’ thus he cried,
‘Wilt thou, to heavenly Gods allied,
Blot for all time thy glorious fame,
The slayer of a gentle dame?
What! shall a woman’s blood be spilt
To stain thee with eternal guilt,
Thee deep in all the Veda’s lore?
Far be the thought for evermore.
Ah look, and let her lovely face
This fury from thy bosom chase.’
He ceased: the prudent counsel pleased
The monarch, and his wrath appeased;
Then to his council hall in haste
The giant lord his steps retraced. 1
The groans and cries of dames who wailed
The ears of Lanká’s lord assailed,
For from each house and home was sent
The voice of weeping and lament.
In troubled thought his head he bowed,
Then fiercely loosing on the crowd
Of nobles near his throne he broke
The silence, and in fury spoke:
‘This day my deadly shafts shall fly,
And Raghu’s sons shall surely die.
This day shall countless Vánars bleed
And dogs and kites and vultures feed.
Go, bid them swift my car prepare,
Bring the great bow I long to bear:
And let my host with sword and shield
And spear be ready for the field.’
From street to street the captains passed
And Rákshas warriors gathered fast.
With spear and sword to pierce and strike,
And axe and club and mace and pike. [2]
Then Rávan’s warrior chariot [3] wrought
With gold and rich inlay was brought.
Mid tinkling bells and weapons’ clang
The monarch on the chariot sprang,
Which, decked with gems of every hue,
Eight steeds of noble lineage drew.
Mid roars of drum and shell rang out
From countless throats a joyful shout.
As, girt with hosts in warlike pride.
Through Lanká’s streets the tyrant hied.
Still, louder than the roar of drums,
Went up the cry ‘He comes, he comes,
Our ever conquering lord who trod
Beneath his feet both fiend and God.’
On to the gate the warriors swept
Where Raghu’s sons their station kept.
When Rávan’s car the portal passed
The sun in heaven was overcast.
Earth rocked and reeled from side to side
And birds with boding voices cried.
Against the standard of the king
A vulture flapped his horrid wing.
Big gouts of blood before him dropped,
His trembling steeds in terror stopped.
The hue of death was on his cheek,
And scarce his flattering tongue could speak,
When, terrible with flash and flame,
Through murky air a meteor came.
Still by the hand of Death impelled
His onward way the giant held.
The Vánars in the field afar
Heard the loud thunder of his car.
And turned with warriors’ fierce delight
To meet the giant in the fight.
He came: his clanging bow he drew
And myriads of the Vánars slew.
Some through the side and heart he cleft,
Some headless on the plain were left.
Some struggling groaned with mangled thighs,
Or broken arms or blinded eyes. [4]
[ p. 489 ]
The plain with bleeding limbs was spread,
And heaps of dying and of dead.
His mighty bow still Ráma strained,
And shafts upon the giants rained.
Still Angad and Sugríva, wrought
To fury, for the Vánars fought.
Crushed with huge rocks through chest and side
Mahodar, Mahápárs’va died,
And Vinúpáksha stained with gore
Dropped on the plain to rise no more.
When Rávan saw the three o’erthrown
He cried aloud in furious tone:
‘Urge, urge the car, my charioteer.
The haughty Vánars’ death is near.
This very day shall end our griefs
For leaguered town and slaughtered chiefs.
Ráma the tree whose lovely fruit
Is Sítá, shall this arm uproot,—
Whose branches with protecting shade
Are Vánar lords who lend him aid.’
Thus cried the king: the welkin rang
As forth the eager coursers sprang,
And earth beneath the chariot shook
With flowery grove and hill and brook.
Fast rained his shafts: where’er he sped
The conquered Vánars fell or fled,
On rolled the car in swift career
Till Raghu’s noble sons were near.
Then Ráma looked upon the foe
And strained and tried his sounding bow.
Till earth and all the region rang
Re-echoing to the awful clang.
His bow the younger chieftain bent.
And shaft on shaft at Rávan sent.
He shot: but Rávan little recked;
Each arrow with his own he checked,
And headless, baffled of its aim,
To earth the harmless missile came;
And Lakshman stayed his arm o’erpowered
By the thick darts the giant showered.
Fierce waxed the fight and fiercer yet,
For Rávan now and Ráma met,
And each on other poured amain
The tempest of his arrowy rain.
While all the sky above was dark
With missles speeding to their mark
Like clouds, with flashing lightning twined
About them, hurried by the wind.
Not fiercer was the wondrous fight
When Vritra fell by Indra’s might.
All arts off war each foeman knew,
And trained alike, his bowstring drew.
Red-eyed with fury Lanká’s king
Pressed his huge fingers on the string,
And fixed in Ráma’s brows a flight
Of arrows winged with matchless flight.
Still Raghu’s son endured, and bore
That crown of shafts though wounded sore.
O’er a dire dart a spell he spoke
With mystic power to aid the stroke.
In vain upon the foe it smote
Rebounding from the steelproof coat.
The giant armed his bow anew,
And wondrous weapons hissed and flew,
Terrific, deadly, swift of flight,
Beaked like the vulture and the kite,
Or bearing heads of fearful make,
Of lion, tiger, wolf and snake. 1
Then Ráma, troubled by the storm
Of flying darts in every form
Shot by an arm that naught could tire,
Launched at the foe his dart of fire,
Which, sacred to the Lord of Flame,
Burnt and consumed where’er it came.
And many a blazing shaft beside
The hero to his string applied.
With fiery course of dazzling hue
Swift to the mark each missile flew,
Some flashing like a shooting star,
Some as the tongues of lightning are;
One like a brilliant plant, one
In splendour like the morning sun.
Where’er the shafts of Ráma burned
The giant’s darts were foiled and turned.
Far into space his weapons fled,
But as they flew struck thousands dead.
487:1b The Lokapálas are sometimes regarded as deities appointed by Brahmá at the creation of the word* to act as guardians of different orders of beings, but more commonly they are identified with the deities presiding over the four cardinal and four intermediate points of the compass, which, according to Manu V.96, are 1, Indra, guardian of the East; 2, Agni, of the South-east; 3, Yama, of the South; 4, Súrya, of the South-west: 5, Varuna, of the West; 6, Pavana or Váyu, of the North-west; 7, Kuvera, of the North; 8, Soma or Chandra, of the North-east. ↩︎
488:2 I omit several weapons for which I cannot find distinctive names, and among them the Sataghní or Centicide, supposed by some to be a kind of fire-arms or rocket, but described by a commentator on the Mahábhárata as a stone or cylindrical piece of wood studded with iron spikes. ↩︎
488:1b The chariots of Rávan’s present army are said to have been one hundred and fifty million in number with three hundred million elephants, and twelve hundred million horses and asses. The footmen are merely said to have been ‘unnumbered.’ ↩︎
488:2b I omit Cantos XCVII., XCVIII,and XCIX, which describe in the usual way three single combats between Sugríva and Angad on the Vánar side and Virúpaksha, Mahodar, and Mahápárs’va on the side of the giants. The weapons of the Vánars are trees and rocks: the giants fight with swords, axes, and bows and arrows. The details are generally the same as those of preceding duels. The giants fall, one in each Canto. ↩︎