Tuesday 26 November 2013

106. Rama eliminates the fourteen mighty rakshashas of Khara.

            Due to the excruciating pain caused in her nose and ears, as well as the embarrassment, humiliation, chagrin and ignominy inflicted on her by the lowly humans she was not able to say clearly what she wanted to say. Khara looked down at her with great concern and asked her kindly "Rise up, first tell me clearly, putting away your flurry and fluster, who disfigured your form in this way. Who for sport is poking his fingertip at a venomously fanged black-cobra that has chanced in his close proximity but slouching down inoffensively? Who on harrowing you is heedless now about his gulping a deadly poison, or about the noose of Yama  squeezing around his own neck.
             "You are gifted with boldness and bravery,  a whimsical rover, a guise changer by your wish and Yama to your adversary. By whom have you been driven to this kind of plight? Who is that kind of highly intrepid warper? Is he one from gods, or from devas or from the high-souled rishis who indeed rendered you shapeless? Indeed, I am not aware of anyone who has the audacity to cause any displeasure to me in this world, even among divinities including the thousand eyed Indra.
                "Now, I will take away the lives of that miscreants with my arrows that are terminators of lives. Whose frothy blood is that the earth wishes to quaff when I cut off his crucial organs by my arrows and drop him dead in a combat? Whose body is it from which birds pressing round gladly wish to wring flesh to pieces for eating when I slay him in war? Now, when I haul him easily on the ground in a battle that villain cannot be saved either by gods, celestials, evil spirits, or by rakshashas. It will be apt of you to gather your sensitivity slowly and tell me as to which miscreant attacked and disfigured you in the forest." 
              Shuurpanakha was rancorous and shaking at the humiliation she met with. The kind words of her cousin somewhat mollified her.  She then said with tears flowing like waterfalls from her eyes "This was done by two good-looking humans in adulthood. They are gentle yet greatly mighty, eyes broad like lotuses, dressed in jute-cloths and deerskin, subsisting on fruits and tubers, composed and sagacious. They are the sons of some king Dasharatha, named Rama and Lakshmana.  They have all the requisites of a king. I could not make out whether they are devas or asuras.
              "I have seen a curvaceous lady between those two, a real beauty, rich in comeliness, adorned with lots of ornaments. It was because of her I got into this plight.
               "I wish to drink the frothy blood of that guileful woman Seetha along with that of those two, Rama and Lakshmana, when they are killed in war. I want you to make it possible for me."
                On hearing Shuurpanakha, Khara nodded and vengefully summoned fourteen great mighty rakshashas resembling yama.
               Khara told them "Wielding weapons and wearing jute-cloths and deerskin two humans have got into our forest of Dandaka along with a woman of age. You shall return only after killing those two and also that treacherous woman, and after this cousin of mine drunk their blood.  Go and make the fanciful hearty desire of my cousin fulfilled."
               Shuurpanakha with a glee led the mighty rakshashas to Panchavati.     
               On arriving at Raghava's hermitage that ghastly Shuurpanakha pointed out to the fourteen rakshashas the brothers, Rama and Lakshmana, along with Seetha. Rama was seated in the thatched cottage along with Seetha and Lakshmana attending to him.
               Seeing the arrival of the rakshashas, and the rakshashi Shuurpanakha, Rama told his brother "Oh, Bro! Take care of Seetha until I dispatch the fourteen rakshashas to Yama."
               Then Rama took his bow, stringed it with bowstring and as a forewarning told the rakshashas  "We the sons of Dasharatha are brothers named Rama and Lakshmana, and we entered the forests Dandaka along with my wife Seetha. We are dispassionate and subsist on fruits and tubers and treading in the path of virtue. Like rishis we are residing in Dandaka forest.  I do not understand why you want to kill us. If you start a fight with me, then let me warn you that I have a bow and arrows with which I can retaliate. If you love your lives return immediately."
                 Unaware of the might and valour of Rama, and as they did not have any resistance from any ascetics so far, the fourteen ghoulish rakshashas who were used to slay or harm Brahmans, who used to shrink and cuddle with fear whenever they see any rakshasha, were highly infuriated on hearing the words of the bow wielding ascetic. They shouted back at Rama "You are going to be killed in a jiffy by us for the reason you incited the fury in our highly great souled lord Khara. What you alone can do anything against many of us. We are now going to kill you. Protect yourself, if you can."
                Then they unhesitatingly rushed towards Rama and hurled lances towards that unconquerable Raghava. Rama in turn shredded all of those fourteen lances with as many arrows that are adorned in gold. Next that great resplendent Rama in high wrath took fourteen iron bolt like arrows that were whetted on whetstone and equaling the sun in their dazzle. Then Raghava took up his bow, arched it, and aiming at the targeted rakshashas, released arrows as Indra would release his Thunderbolt.
                And those arrows pierced the hearts of those rakshashas, and then on coming out bedaubed with blood they swiftly penetrated into earth like snakes into snake pit. All the fourteen rakshashas, with busted hearts were stone dead and like the uprooted trees they fell onto the ground.
On seeing the rakshashas falling onto the ground that rakshashi Shuurpanakha was stunned. She just could not believe it. Convulsed in rage, and with a blanched face she rushed to Khara in an agonising manner like a creeper exuding resin on incision, and fell before him as before.
               Then she in the presence of her cousin Khara discharged a great outcry, and with a bloodless face she spilled tears. She then reported to Khara all about the destruction of those rakshashas  in its entirety.
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