But Kaikeyi could no longer contain herself. Dashrath stopped in his tracks. His favourite wife used that tone with him only when necessary. Kaikeyi walked up to him, held his hand and led him to the dinner table. She held his shoulders and roughly pushed him into the chair. Then she tore a piece of the roti, scooped up some vegetables and meat with it, and offered it to him. Dashrath opened his mouth. Kaikeyi stuffed the morsel of food into it. Chapter 3 Lying in her bed, Queen Kaushalya of Ayodhya appeared frail and worn.
All of forty, her prematurely grey hair seemed incongruous against her dark, still gleaming skin. In a culture that valued women for their ability to produce heirs, being childless had broken her spirit. Despite being the senior-most wife, King Dashrath acknowledged her only on ceremonial occasions. At most other times, she was relegated to obscurity, a fact that ate away at her. All she desired was a fraction of the time and attention that Dashrath lavished on his favourite wife, Kaikeyi.
No wonder then that today her spirit was all fired up, even though her body was weak. She had been in labour for more than sixteen hours but she barely felt the pain. She soldiered on determinedly, refusing the doctor her permission to perform a surgical procedure to extract her baby from her womb. A natural birth was considered more auspicious. She had no intention of putting the future prospects of her child at risk. She administered some herbal pain relievers to the queen and bided her time.
Ideally, the doctor wanted the birth to take place before midday. The royal astrologer had warned her that if the child was born later, he would suffer great hardships throughout his life. On the other hand, if the child was born before the sun reached its zenith, he would be remembered as one of the greatest among men and would be celebrated for millennia.
Nilanjana cast a quick glance at the prahar lamp, which measured time in six-hour intervals. The sun had already risen and it was the third hour of the second prahar. In another three hours it would be midday.
Nilanjana had decided to wait till a half hour before noon and, if the baby was still not born, she would go ahead with the surgery. Kaushalya was stricken with another bout of dilatory pain. She pursed her lips together and began chanting in her mind the name she had chosen for her child. The name she had picked was that of the sixth Vishnu.
The sixth man to have achieved this title was Lord Parshu Ram. That is how he was remembered by the common folk. Parshu means axe, and the word had been added to the name of the sixth Vishnu because the mighty battle axe had been his favourite weapon. His birth name was Ram. He had hardly slept the previous night, his self-righteous rage having refused to dissipate.
He had never lost a battle in his life, but this time it was not mere victory that he sought. Redemption now lay in his vanquishing that mercenary trader and squeezing the life out of him. The Ayodhyan emperor had arranged his army in a suchi vyuha, the needle formation. It was almost impossible to charge from the landward side of the port city.
They had to attack before they ran out of rations. More importantly, Dashrath was too angry to be patient. Therefore he had decided to launch his attack from the only strip of open land that had access to the fort of Karachapa: its beach.
The beach was broad by usual standards, but not enough for a large army. The best troops, along with the emperor, would man the front of the formation, while the rest of the army would fall in a long column behind. They intended a rolling charge, where the first lines would strike the Lankan ranks, and after twenty minutes of battle slip back, allowing the next line of warriors to charge in.
It would be an unrelenting surge of brave Sapt Sindhu soldiers aiming to scatter and decimate the enemy troops of Kubaer. Ashwapati nudged his horse a few steps ahead and halted next to Dashrath.
The bulk of our soldiers will be behind the ones charging upfront. They will not be fighting at the same time.
Is that wise? I do not see it coming to that though. I will annihilate them with our first charge! There was something strange about their structure. The front section, the bow, was unusually broad. Even if they have a reserve force on those ships, they cannot be brought into battle quickly enough. It will take them at least a few hours to lower their row-boats, load their soldiers, and then ferry them to the beach to join the battle. Raavan had, strangely, abandoned the immense advantage of being safe within the walls of the well-designed fort.
Instead of lining them up along the ramparts, he had chosen to arrange his army of probably fifty thousand soldiers in a standard formation outside the city, on the beach. With the fort walls being right behind his army, he does not even have room to retreat. Why has Raavan done this? He wants to prove a point to me. Well, I will make the final point when I dig my sword into his heart.
Even from this distance he could see Raavan, wearing his hideous horned helmet, leading his troops from the front. Ashwapati cast a look at his own army. The soldiers were roaring loudly, hurling obscenities at their enemy, as warriors are wont to do before the commencement of war. In sharp contrast, they emanated no sound. There was no movement either. They stood quietly in rigid formation, a brilliant tribute to soldierly discipline.
Ashwapati turned towards Dashrath to voice his fears, but the emperor of the Sapt Sindhu had already ridden away. Dashrath was on horseback at the head of his troops. He ran his eyes over his men confidently. They were a rowdy, raucous bunch with swords drawn, eager for battle. The horses, too, seemed to have succumbed to the excitement of the moment, for the soldiers were pulling hard at their reins, holding them in check. Dashrath and his army could almost smell the blood that would soon be shed; the magnificent killings!
They believed, as usual, that the Goddess of Victory was poised to bless them. Let the war drums roll! Dashrath squinted his eyes as he observed the Lankans and their commander Raavan up ahead in the distance.
Molten rage was coursing through him. He drew his sword and held it aloft, and then bellowed the unmistakable war cry of his kingdom, Kosala and its capital city, Ayodhya. Not all in his army were citizens of Ayodhya, and yet they were proud to fight under the great Kosala banner. No mercy! But then it all began to unravel. Dashrath and his finest warriors comprised the sturdy tip of the Sapt Sindhu needle formation. When the enemy cavalry was just a few hundred metres away, Raavan unexpectedly turned his horse around and retreated from the front lines, even as his soldiers held firm.
This further infuriated Dashrath. He screamed loudly as he kicked his horse to gather speed, intending to mow down the Lankan front line and quickly reach Raavan. This was exactly what Raavan had envisaged. The Lankan front line roared stridently as the soldiers suddenly dropped their swords, bent, and picked up unnaturally long spears, almost twenty feet in length, that had been hitherto lying at their feet.
Made of wood and metal, the spears were so heavy that it took two soldiers to pick each one up. The pointed heads tore into the unprepared horses and their mounted soldiers. Their liege Dashrath led the way as he swung his sword ferociously, killing all who dared to come in his path. But the Ayodhyan king was alive to the devastation being wrought upon his fellow soldiers who rapidly fell under the barrage of Lankan arrows and superbly-trained swordsmen.
Dashrath ordered his flag bearer, who was beside him, to raise the flag as a signal for the Sapt Sindhu soldiers at the back to also break into a charge immediately and support the first line. But things continued to deteriorate. The troops on the Lankan ships in the distance abruptly weighed anchor, extended the oars, and began to row rapidly to the beach, with their sails up at full mast to help them catch the wind.
The Lankan archers on the ships tore through the ranks of the Sapt Sindhus. Even as these landing crafts stormed onto the beach with tremendous force, the broad bows of the hulls rolled out from the top. These were no ordinary bows of a standard hull. They were attached to the bottom of the hull by huge hinges which simply rolled out onto the sand like a landing ramp. This opened a gangway straight onto the beach, disgorging cavalrymen of the Lankan army mounted on disproportionately large horses imported from the west.
The cavalry rode out of the ships and straight onto the beach, mercilessly slicing into all who lay in their path. As the emperor stretched to gaze beyond the sea of frenzied battling humanity, he detected a quick movement to his left and raised his shield in time to block a vicious blow from a Lankan soldier. Screaming ferociously, the king of Ayodhya brutally swung low at his attacker, his sword slicing through a chink in the armour.
The Lankan fell back as his abdomen ripped open with a massive spurt of blood, accompanied by slick pink intestines that tumbled out in a rush. Dashrath knew no mercy as he turned away from the poor sod even as he bled to his miserable end. Caught between the vicious pincer attack of the brutal Lankan archers and infantry at the Karachapa walls from the front, and the fierce Lankan cavalry at the back, the spirit of his all-conquering army had all but collapsed.
His men had broken rank and were in retreat. Raavan, on horseback, was leading his cavalry down the beach on the left, skirting the sea. It was the only flank of the Lankans that was open to counter-attack from the Ayodhya infantry. Accompanied by his well-trained cavalry, Raavan was shrieking maniacally and hacking his way brutally through the Ayodhya outer infantry lines before they could regroup. This was not a war anymore.
It was a massacre. But he had one last wish. Redemption lay in his spitting on the decapitated head of that ogre from Lanka. Pushing his enemy out of the way, Dashrath lunged forward as he desperately tried to reach Raavan. He felt a shield crash into his calf and heard the crack of a bone above the din.
The mighty emperor of the Sapt Sindhu screamed as he spun around and swung his sword at the Lankan who had broken the rules of combat, decapitating him cleanly.
He felt a hard knock on his back. He turned right back with a parry, but his broken leg gave way. As he fell forward, he felt a sharp thrust into his chest. Someone had stabbed him. Or had it gone in deeper than he thought? Maybe his body was shutting the pain out… Dashrath felt darkness enveloping him. His fall was cushioned by another soldier from among the heaving mass of warriors battling in close combat. As his eyes slowly closed, he whispered his last prayers within the confines of his mind; to the God he revered the most: the sustainer of the world, the mighty Sun God Surya himself.
Let me die. Let me die… This is a disaster! A panic-stricken Ashwapati rounded up his bravest mounted soldiers and raced across the battlefield on horseback. He negotiated his way through the clutter of bodies to quickly reach the kill zone right outside Karachapa fort, where Dashrath lay, probably seriously injured, if not dead.
Ashwapati knew the war had been lost. Vast numbers of the Sapt Sindhu soldiers were being massacred before his very eyes. All he wanted now was to save Emperor Dashrath, who was also his son-in-law.
His Kaikeyi would not be widowed. They rode hard through the battle zone, even as they held their shields high to protect themselves from the unrelenting barrage of arrows raining down from the Karachapa walls. His son-in-law lay there firmly clutching his sword. The king of Kekaya leapt off his horse even as two soldiers rushed forward to offer him protection.
He then jumped astride and rode off towards the field of thorny bushes even as his soldiers struggled to keep up with him. Kaikeyi stood resolute in her chariot near the clearing along the line of bushes, her demeanour admirably calm.
She picked up the reins and whipped the four horses tethered to her chariot. Thorns tore mercilessly into the sides of the horses, ripping skin and even some flesh off the hapless animals. But Kaikeyi only kept whipping them harder and harder. Bloodied and tired, the horses soon broke through to the other side, onto clear land. Kaikeyi finally pulled the reins and looked back. Kaikeyi understood immediately what her father was trying to do.
The sun had nearly reached its zenith now. It was close to midday. Kaikeyi cursed. Damn you, Lord Surya! How could you allow this to happen to your most fervent devotee? She kneeled beside her unconscious husband, ripped off a large piece of her angvastram, and tied it firmly around a deep wound on his chest, which was losing blood at an alarming rate. Having staunched the blood flow somewhat, she stood and picked up the reins.
She desperately wanted to cry but this was not the time. She had to save her husband first. She needed her wits about her. She looked at the horses. Blood was pouring down their sides in torrents, and specks of flesh hung limply where the skin had been ripped off. They were panting frantically, exhausted by the effort of having pulled the chariot through the dense field of thorns.
Not yet. The leather hummed through the air and lashed the horses cruelly. Neighing for mercy, they refused to move. Kaikeyi cracked her whip again and the horses edged forward. She had to save her husband. Suddenly an arrow whizzed past her and crashed into the front board of the chariot with frightening intensity. Kaikeyi spun around in alarm. Kaikeyi turned back and whipped her horses harder.
She was wrong. Its shock was so massive that it threw her forward as her head flung back. Her eyes beheld the sky as Kaikeyi screamed in agony. But she recovered immediately, the adrenaline pumping furiously through her body, compelling her to focus. Another arrow whizzed by her ears, missing the back of her head by a tiny whisker. The whip fell from her suddenly-loosened grip. Her mind was ready for further injuries now, her body equipped for pain.
She bent quickly and picked up the whip with her left hand, transferring the reins to her bloodied right hand. She resumed the whipping with mechanical precision. She steeled herself for another hit; instead, she now heard a scream of agony from behind her. A quick side glance revealed her injured foe; the arrow had buried itself deep into his right eye. What she also perceived was a band of horsemen moving in; her father and his faithful bodyguards. A flurry of arrows ensured that the Lankan attacker toppled off his animal, even as his leg got entangled in the stirrup.
Kaikeyi looked ahead once again. Dashrath must be saved. The rhythmic whipping continued ceaselessly. She tried to prop herself up on her elbows. A severely weakened Kaushalya, however, refused to submit. The queen held her motionless son close to her bosom.
With a loud and vigorous cry, Ram sucked in his first breath in this, his current worldly life. He opened his mouth and suckled reflexively. Nilanjana felt as if a dam had burst and began to bawl like a child. Her mistress had given birth to a beautiful baby boy. The prince had been born! Despite her evident delirium, Nilanjana did not forget her training. She looked to the far corner of the room at the prahar lamp to record the exact time of birth.
She knew that the royal astrologer would need that information. She held her breath as she noticed the time. Lord Rudra, be merciful! It was exactly midday. The astrologer sat still. The sun was poised to sink into the horizon and both Kaushalya and Ram were sound asleep. Not after? Exactly at noon. Will he be great or will he suffer misfortune? Nilanjana looked out of the window, towards the exquisite royal gardens that rolled endlessly over many acres.
The palace was perched atop a hill which also was the highest point in Ayodhya. As she gazed vacantly at the waters beyond the city walls, she knew what needed to be done. How would anyone be any the wiser? She turned to the astrologer. As the guards on duty sprang to attention, they wondered where the great raj guru, the royal sage of Ayodhya, was headed early in the morning.
He was thin to a fault and towering in height, despite which his gait was composed and self-assured. His dhoti and angvastram were white, the colour of purity. His head was shaven bare, but for a knotted tuft of hair at the top of his head which announced his Brahmin status. A flowing, snowy beard, calm, gentle eyes, and a wizened face conveyed the impression of a soul at peace with itself. Yet, Vashishta was brooding as he walked slowly towards the massive Grand Canal that encircled the ramparts of Ayodhya, the impregnable city.
His thoughts were consumed by what he knew he must do. Wounded themselves, none had the strength to confront even a weakened Ayodhya. Dashrath remained the emperor of the Sapt Sindhu, albeit a poorer and less powerful one. The pitiless Raavan had extracted his pound of flesh from Ayodhya.
Trade commissions paid by Lanka were unilaterally reduced to a tenth of what they had been before the humiliating defeat. In addition, the purchase of goods from the Sapt Sindhu was now at a reduced price.
Why, rumours even abounded that the streets of the demon city were paved with gold! Vashishta raised his hand to signal his bodyguards to fall behind. He walked up to the shaded terrace that overlooked the Grand Canal.
He then ran his gaze along the almost limitless expanse of water that lay ahead. The canal had been built a few centuries ago, during the reign of Emperor Ayutayus, by drawing in the waters of the feisty Sarayu River. Its dimensions were almost celestial. It stretched for over fifty kilometres as it circumnavigated the third and outermost wall of the city of Ayodhya.
It was enormous in breadth as well, extending to about two-and-ahalf kilometres across the banks. Its storage capacity was so massive that for the first few years of its construction, many of the kingdoms downriver had complained of water shortages. Their objections had been crushed by the brute force of the powerful Ayodhyan warriors. One of the main purposes of this canal was militaristic. It was, in a sense, a moat. To be fair, it could be called the Moat of Moats, protecting the city from all sides.
Prospective attackers would have to row across a moat that had river-like dimensions. The adventurous fools would be out in the open, vulnerable to an unending barrage of missiles from the high walls of the unconquerable city. Four bridges spanned the canal in the four cardinal directions.
The roads that emerged from these bridges led into the city through four massive gates in the outermost wall: the North Gate, East Gate, South Gate and West Gate.
Each bridge was divided into two sections. Each section had its own tower and drawbridge, thus offering two levels of defence at the canal itself.
Even so, to consider this Grand Canal a mere defensive structure was to do it a disservice. The Ayodhyans also looked upon the canal as a religious symbol. To them, the massive canal, with its dark, impenetrable and eerily calm waters, was reminiscent of the sea; similar to the mythic, primeval ocean of nothingness that was the source of creation. It was believed that at the centre of this primeval ocean, billions of years ago, the universe was born when The One, Ekam, split into many in a great big bang, thus activating the cycle of creation.
The impenetrable city, Ayodhya, viewed itself as a representative on earth of that most supreme of Gods, the One God, the formless Ekam, popularly known in modern times as the Brahman or Parmatma. It was believed that the Parmatma inhabited every single being, animate and inanimate.
Some men and women were able to awaken the Parmatma within, and thus become Gods. These Gods among men had been immortalised in great temples across Ayodhya. Small islands had been constructed within the Grand Canal as well, on which temples had been built in honour of these Gods. Vashishta, however, knew that despite all the symbolism and romance, the canal had, in fact, been built for more prosaic purposes.
It worked as an effective flood-control mechanism, as water from the tempestuous Sarayu could be led in through control-gates. Floods were a recurrent problem in North India.
Furthermore, its placid surface made drawing water relatively easy, as compared to taking it directly from the Sarayu. Smaller canals radiated out of the Grand Canal into the hinterland of Ayodhya, increasing the productivity of farming dramatically.
The increase in agricultural yield allowed many farmers to free themselves from the toil of tilling the land. Only a few were enough to feed the massive population of the entire kingdom of Kosala.
This surplus labour transformed into a large army, trained by talented generals into a brilliant fighting unit. The army conquered more and more of the surrounding lands, till the great Lord Raghu, the grandfather of the present Emperor Dashrath, finally subjugated the entire Sapt Sindhu, thus becoming the Chakravarti Samrat.
Wealth pouring into Kosala sparked a construction spree: massive temples, palaces, public baths, theatres and market places were built. Sheer poetry in stone, these buildings were a testament to the power and glory of Ayodhya. One among them was the grand terrace that overhung the inner banks of the Grand Canal. It was a continuous colonnaded structure built of red sandstone mined from beyond the river Ganga; the terrace was entirely covered by a majestic vaulted ceiling, providing shade to the constant stream of visitors.
Every square inch of the ceiling had been painted in vivid colours, chronicling the stories of ancient Gods such as Indra, and the ancestors of kings who ruled Ayodhya, all the way up to the first, the noble Ikshvaku. The ceiling was divided into separate sections and, at the centre of each was a massive sun, with its rays streaming boldly out in all directions. This was significant, for the kings of Ayodhya were Suryavanshis, the descendants of the Sun God, and just like the sun, their power boldly extended out in all directions.
Or so it had been before the demon from Lanka destroyed their prestige in one fell swoop. Vashishta looked into the distance at one of the numerous artificial islands that dotted the canal. This island, unlike the others, did not have a temple but three gigantic statues, placed back to back, facing different directions.
One was of Lord Brahma, the Creator, one of the greatest scientists ever. He was credited with many inventions upon which the Vedic way of life had been built. They had, over the years, evolved into the tribe of Brahma, or Brahmins. To its right was the statue of Lord Parshu Ram, worshipped as the sixth Vishnu. Periodically, when a way of life became inefficient, corrupt or fanatical, a new leader emerged, who guided his people to an improved social order.
Vishnu was an ancient title accorded to the greatest of leaders, idolised as the Propagators of Good. The Vishnus were worshipped like Gods. Lord Parshu Ram, the previous Vishnu, had many centuries ago guided India out of its Age of Kshatriya, which had degenerated into vicious violence. This was an ancient title accorded to those who were the Destroyers of Evil. His task was restricted to finding and destroying Evil. Once Evil had been destroyed, Good would burst through with renewed vigour.
Unlike the Vishnu, the Mahadev could not be a native of India, for that would predispose him towards one or the other side within this great land. He had to be an outsider to enable him to clearly see Evil for what it was, when it arose. Lord Rudra belonged to a land beyond the western borders of India: Pariha. Vashishta went down on his knees and touched the ground with his forehead, in reverence to the glorious trinity who were the bedrock of the present Vedic way of life.
He raised his head and folded his hands in a namaste. The marble was not what it used to be. The ceiling of the terrace had paint flaking off its beautiful images, and the sandstone floor was chipped in many places.
The Grand Canal itself had begun to silt and dry up, with no repairs undertaken; the Ayodhya royal administration was probably unable to budget for such tasks. However, it was clear to Vashishta that not only was the administration short of funds for adequate governance, it had also lost the will for it. As the canal water receded, the exposed dry land had been encroached upon with impunity. The Ayodhyan population had grown till the city almost seemed to burst at its seams. Even a few years ago it would have been unthinkable that the canal would be defiled thus; that new housing would not be constructed for the poor.
But, alas, many improbables had now become habitual. We need a new way of life, Lord Parshu Ram. My great country must be rejuvenated with the blood and sweat of patriots.
What I want is revolutionary, and patriots are often called traitors by the very people they choose to serve, till history passes the final judgement. Vashishta scooped some mud from the canal that was deposited on the steps of the terrace, and used his thumb to apply it on his forehead in a vertical line.
This soil is worth more than my life to me. I love my country. I love my India. I swear I will do what must be done. Give me courage, My Lord. The soft rhythm of liturgical chanting wafted through the breeze, making him turn to his right.
A small group of people walked solemnly in the distance, wearing robes of blue, the holy colour of the divine. It was an unusual sight these days. Along with wealth and power, the citizens of the Sapt Sindhu had also lost their spiritual ardour.
Many believed their Gods had abandoned them. Why else would they suffer so? The worshippers chanted the name of the sixth Vishnu, Lord Parshu Ram. Thank you, Lord Parshu Ram. Thank you for your blessings.
Vashishta had pinned his hopes on the namesake of the sixth Vishnu: the six-year-old eldest prince of Ayodhya, Ram. Poetically, the sun was the face and the moon its reflection; who, then, was responsible for the pleasant face of the moon?
The sun! It was appropriate thus: Ram Chandra was also a Suryavanshi name, for Dashrath, his father, was a Suryavanshi. That names guided destiny was an ancient belief. Parents chose the names of their children with care. A name, in a sense, became an aspiration, swadharma, individual dharma, for the child. Having been named after the sixth Vishnu himself, the aspirations for this child could not have been set higher!
Vashishta was aware that Kaikeyi was a passionate, wilful woman. She was ambitious for herself and those she viewed as her own. She had not settled for the eldest queen, Kaushalya, being one up on her by choosing a great name for her son. Her son, then, was the namesake of the legendary Chandravanshi emperor, Bharat, who had ruled millennia ago. The ancient Emperor Bharat had united the warring Suryavanshis and Chandravanshis under one banner.
Notwithstanding the occasional skirmishes, they had learnt to live in relative peace; a peace that held. It was exemplified today by the Emperor Dashrath, a Suryavanshi, having two queens who traced their lineage to Chandravanshi royalty, Kaushalya and Kaikeyi. One of the two names will surely serve my purpose. He looked at Lord Parshu Ram again, drawing strength from the image. They may even curse my soul. But you were the one who had said, My Lord, that a leader must love his country more than he loves his own soul.
Vashishta reached for his scabbard, hidden within the folds of his angvastram. He pulled out the knife and beheld the name that had been inscribed on the hilt in an ancient script: Parshu Ram. Inhaling deeply, he shifted the knife to his left hand and pricked his forefinger, puncturing deep to draw out blood. He pressed the finger with his thumb, just under the drop of blood, and let some droplets drip into the canal. By this blood oath, I swear on all my knowledge, I will make my rebellion succeed, or I will die trying.
Vashishta took one last look at Lord Parshu Ram, bowed his head as he brought his hands together in a respectful namaste, and softly whispered the cry of the followers of the great Vishnu.
Chapter 5 Kaushalya, the queen, was happy; Kaushalya, the mother, was not. She understood that Ram should leave the Ayodhya palace. Your Rating:. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Great book, Scion of Ikshvaku pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone.
Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta by Amish Tripathi. The Oath of the Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Publication date Usage Public Domain Mark 1. Based on Ram, the legendary Indian king regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu. The story begins with King Dashrath of Ayodhya being defeated in a war by Lankan trader Raavan, and the birth of his son Ram.
It follows through Ram's childhood and tutelage, along with the politics surrounding his ascension to the throne, and ultimately his year exile, accompanied by wife Sita and brother Lakshman. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review.
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