The Ramayana (39 page)

Around the corner from the cave mouth lay the skeleton of a creature that had been as tall as five men. Its huge bones glinted dully in the sun. Lakshmana cried, “What is it?”

Sugriva said, “Dundubhi's skeleton. If Rama can lift this skeleton and throw it for a yojana, I will believe he is as strong as Vali.”

Rama smiled kindly. “It is natural for you to be full of doubt after what you have suffered. I will do my best to convince you that I am stronger than Vali; though I fear it won't be easy.”

He strode up to the skeleton and lifted it with one hand. Effortlessly he flung it high into the air. It vanished into the sky, and then they saw it as a dim speck, falling beyond the horizon ten yojanas away. Four of the vanaras gasped. Hanuman was the most round-eyed of them; he alone began to guess who this dark prince really was. But Sugriva hopped around the place where the rakshasa's skeleton had lain; he chattered to himself.

Finally he explained, “When Vali flung the rakshasa here from Kishkinda, Dundubhi was much more than a skeleton. He was immense with meat and gristle: at least five times greater than his bones and ten times as heavy. But if you can also shoot an arrow through one of the sala trees, I swear I will believe you are as strong as Vali. My brother shot seven arrows through the boles of all seven.”

Rama put an arm around Sugriva. He said quietly, “I will try to convince you.”

He drew an eagle-feathered arrow from his quiver. He strung his bow so quickly the vanaras stepped back a pace from him. Rama bent his bow in a circle and shot one arrow of uncanny trajectory through all seven trees. Sugriva gave a hoarse cry. His monkeys leaped into the air, gibbering in amazement. Rama's arrow, which had entered the earth beyond the seventh sala, flew up from the ground behind him and settled back into his quiver.

Sugriva whispered, “Vali is dead.” Then he shouted so the mountain echoed with his cries: “Vali is dead! Rama has killed Vali!”

He turned to Rama and grasped his hands. He danced around him, crying, “Forgive me that I doubted you. You are among archers what the sun is among planets, what Himavan is among mountains, what the lion is among beasts!

“But why waste time? Let the thorn in my heart, which has lodged there for so long, be removed today. Let me sleep this night in peace, knowing my enemy is dead. I can't wait a moment to be free of fear. Let us go and kill Vali!”

Rama smiled at his excitement. He embraced Sugriva fondly, and said, “Let us go then.”

They set out for Kishkinda. At times the vanaras loped along beside the kshatriyas on the ground, and at others they swung through the branches of the trees, picking ripe fruit for Rama and Lakshmana on the way.

 

6. An arrow from the leaves

Sugriva stood at the gates of Kishkinda and roared a ringing challenge to Vali. Rama and Lakshmana hid themselves behind some trees and waited. Vali was amazed at what he heard: his cowardly brother, whose nerve he thought he had broken forever, had come to fight. He would show him; he would mangle him. He laughed aloud in his court. Great Vali cried, “Sugriva has come to challenge me. Has he gone mad? Or is he so sick of exile that he prefers to die?”

Vali came out of his city gates like the sun. He was Indra's son, a mighty vanara in his prime. He did not say a word to his brother. With a roar, Vali charged Sugriva as bull apes of the jungle still do, and knocked him to the ground. Emboldened by the thought of Rama hidden in the jungle, Sugriva jumped up and fought back.

As they fought, both vanaras grew tall as trees. They rained blows like thunder and lightning on each other. Like Budha and Angaraka, who fought across the sky in ancient times, the brothers battled in the jungle outside the secret city. Each blow was like Indra's vajra striking, and the forest shuddered.

Rama fitted an arrow to his bow. He drew the bowstring to his ear and waited his chance. But he could not tell Vali from Sugriva! They were like twins, as alike as the Aswins of heaven. Rama waited, trying to distinguish vanara from vanara in the hot fray of curses and blows; but he could not. When he saw that no golden arrow flashed out from the jungle to deliver him from his brother, Sugriva panicked. He cringed from the fight, and at once Vali unleashed a flurry of blows to his head. Sugriva spat blood. He turned tail and fled howling through the forest.

Vali chased him until he reached the boundary of Matanga's curse. He roared after his brother, “Don't come back or I will kill you!”

Not pausing even to look over his shoulder, Sugriva flew screaming back to Rishyamooka. He did not see Rama anywhere. Only when he had scampered up the loftiest peak did he sit sobbing his sense of betrayal on a wind-worn crag.

Shortly Rama, Lakshmana, and Hanuman arrived on the mountain. Sugriva was just a terrified monkey now. He shivered and bared his fangs. He growled; he turned away from Rama. At last he whined, “You came here offering me friendship. You showed me how strong you were. But instead of killing Vali, you stood by while he almost killed me.”

He was so angry he would have attacked the prince. He wiped the blood from his nose and mouth and studied it briefly, moaning. He shivered at how close he had come to dying.

Tears in his eyes, Rama cried, “I couldn't tell you and Vali apart! You look so alike; you walk and even fight exactly like each other. My bow was bent, my arrow was ready: but I could not tell if I aimed at Vali or at you. I did not want to kill you instead of your brother.”

Sugriva stopped whining. He scratched his head and considered this. The vanara laughed nervously, as the truth of what had happened dawned on him.

Rama said, “You must not lose heart; we will kill Vali before tomorrow's sun sets. Lakshmana, make a garland for Sugriva with some gajapushpi vine. So I can tell him from his brother, and I will know which one to kill.”

Drawing his sword, Lakshmana severed a length of the colorful elephant-flower creeper. Tying its ends together, he made a garland for Sugriva and draped it around the vanara's neck. They slept that night without much comfort. Often Sugriva groaned in his sleep, when his dreams showed him his brother, fangs bared, hands outstretched to throttle him.

*   *   *

The next day, the rising sun saw them at the gates of Kishkinda once more. Rama had to reassure Sugriva repeatedly, hugging the wounded vanara, comforting him. At last, Lakshmana said bluntly that the choice was either to trust Rama or to return to his life of terror on Rishyamooka. Again the kshatriyas hid themselves behind a tree entwined with a dense creeper. With them were Hanuman, Nala, Thara, and Neela, who was once Sugriva's Senapati. For a clearer view, Rama climbed onto one of the leafy branches.

Sugriva drew a deep breath. Taking the last shreds of courage in his hands, he rattled the wooden gates. He kicked those gates and roared his challenge to his brother within the city.

In his wife's bed, Vali awoke in surprise. The coward he had given such a thrashing had come back roaring for more fight. Vali leaped out of bed and clothed himself. He would not let Sugriva off alive today.

But his queen, the sage and comely Tara, said, “Only yesterday you gave Sugriva a beating, and he is back already. If I know him, he would sit licking his wounds for a year before he dared return. I am sure he has not come alone. Be careful, Vali, my every instinct warns me of danger.”

Vali stared at her in surprise. Tara said, “Angada told me two kshatriyas have been in the jungle lately. Their names are Rama and Lakshmana. I am sure Sugriva has their help that he dares come so boldly to our gates. I have heard Rama has no equal as an archer, that he blazes like the fire at the end of the yugas. Listen to me today, Vali: befriend Sugriva and crown him yuvaraja; end this enmity, it will benefit us all. After all, he is your brother who once loved you. Perhaps he did not lie about the cave and the Asura. My heart quails for you, my love: don't make an enemy of Rama!”

But Vali was too angry at being woken from his morning dreams in her arms to pay Tara any heed. He cried, “How can I let him taunt me at my gates? What kind of king shall I be if I don't respond with a fight? As for Rama, I have heard he is an embodiment of dharma. Even if he could, how will such a prince kill me when he has no quarrel with me? But for your sake, I won't kill my foolish brother. I will only give him a sounder beating than he had yesterday, and he will never come back.”

Tara came out into the passage with Vali. She had tears in her eyes as she clasped him tightly, her slim form quivering in his arms. He laughed, “You are frightened for nothing! Go back inside. I will come back to you as soon as I have chased that fool away with the thrashing he is howling for.”

Helpless, Tara went back into her apartment.

Vali swaggered out of his gates, roaring for Sugriva. His brother sprang at him with fresh courage, now that the actual moment of battle was here. Raging like two storms they fought; their blows were like earthquakes.

Rama waited in his tree hoping that, by a miracle perhaps, Sugriva would kill his brother without his help. He knew if he shot Vali down with his arrow, that karma would cling to his name forever; and a stain on white cloth is always starker for being on otherwise taintless fabric. Tensely, Rama waited. Vali struck Sugriva with fists of thunder, and Sugriva uprooted a young sala and struck his brother back. They had grown tree-tall again, in titanic combat.

Rama waited for a miracle. But again, it was Sugriva who tired first: perhaps because he relied on the strength of another, while Vali counted just on himself. Suddenly courage failed Sugriva. Vali struck him three awful blows on his temples and his knees buckled. He swayed on his feet and began to fall. Then Rama shot Vali through the chest from his tree; the sound of his bowstring was like the end of the world.

The sky and the earth shook at Vali's scream when Rama's arrow pierced him like fire. He toppled like a great tree felled by an ax. With a crash, Vali fell to Rama's cunning shaft, and at once the sky was dark as dusk over Kishkinda. They say Vali the vanara fell as the Indradhanush falls onto the earth on the paurnima day of Asvayuja, when the rainbow is pulled down after the festival of the king of the Devas.

 

7. Vali's anguish

Vali looked like a fallen God with Rama's arrow in his chest. Kishkinda's heartbeat stopped around its stricken king; silence fell on the jungle kingdom. The trees strained down over the wild warrior. The birds in their branches were hushed; no vanara made a sound. Nothing stirred as Vali lay there like a sunset cloud edged with the gold of his father Indra's garland. His chest heaved; his breathing was agonized.

Magnificent Vali lay upon the earth like Yayati of old, who fell when his punya was exhausted; like the sun fallen into the world at the end of the yuga. He was a smokeless flame, incandescent and pure. A dancer in a dream, Rama emerged from hiding like a vision at the hour of dying. With Lakshmana at his side, he came softly toward Vali. The silence in that place was complete: an ocean of quiet, the heart of death. Rama stood over Indra's vanara son.

Vali had shut his eyes in anguish and disbelief. Now he let them flicker open and stared at Rama, who stood unstringing his bow. Vali waited for the prince to come near. Then the fallen vanara spoke, and his voice was clear though death was upon him.

“How did you shoot me down from hiding like a coward? I fought my brother, not you, and suddenly you struck me with your arrow. You have killed me, Rama. Why?” It was no empty question; life ebbed swiftly from Vali. “What do you gain by my death? You are a noble king's son, a prince from a renowned and flawless line. I have heard you are generous and brave, truthful and just. I have heard your compassion and your courage are hardly of this earth. Why, I have heard you are an incarnation of dharma.

“A kshatriya should be a master of his emotions. Patience should adorn his character, manliness, truth, and valor. Just before I came out to fight, my wife Tara warned me Sugriva must have made you his ally. But I scoffed at her fear; I thought you were a man of honor. What should I fear from you, with whom I had no enmity? But, oh, how wrong I was.

“You are the worst kind of sinner: the one who pretends to be dharma itself. You are a dark well covered with green grass; treacherous prince, no one knows what you really are until it is too late. I have done you no wrong. Did I come to your kingdom and insult you? Sugriva and I are not even of your human kind. We are vanaras, monkeys of the jungle, living here, fighting our own battle. Yet you have killed me today: you who are a kshatriya and know every nuance of dharma. You came here and took it upon yourself to string your bow with my death and strike me with it from hiding.
Why, Rama?”

His eyes welled over. Vali shook his head slowly, from side to side. “We are monkeys of the forest. To us, fighting over a kingdom, a flashy bauble, or a woman is part of our nature. How does our quarrel concern you so much that you kill me for it? You have not even heard both sides of our story. And look at me: all my glory is as nothing now, that you have struck me down, Rama of Ayodhya. What will you say when the rishis of the earth ask you why you lolled Vali? A king may hunt an animal of the jungle. But for what do you kill a monkey? Not his meat or his hide, not his bones or his hair. Brahmanas and kshatriyas may eat the flesh of animals with five nails. But look at my hand; it has just four. Why have you killed me, Rama?”

His chest heaved again and speech came tortured from him. “Dasaratha is cursed that he has a son who is addicted to killing; and killing by stealth and deceit. If you had challenged me openly, I would have crushed you. But you crept upon me like a serpent in the grass and you shot me down.

“I have heard something of your story from my vanaras. I know you want to please Sugriva, so he will help you find your wife. But if only you had come to me first, I would have brought her to you in a day, and Ravana with a rope round his neck. Instead, you have killed me. When I am gone Sugriva will have my throne; and that much, at least, is lawful. But not that you killed me. That torments my spirit as it leaves this broken body, because I don't know why I have been shot down like a beast on a hunt.”