RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Read online

  Contents

  PRINCE AT WAR

  Preface

  AKB eBOOKS

  BRIDGE OF RAMA

  Invocation copy

  Dedication copy

  Epigraph copy

  Introduction copy

  Introduction copy

  Introduction copy

  Prarambh

  Prarambh

  Prarambh Text

  Kaand 1

  Kaand 1

  Kaand 1 Text

  Kaand 2

  Kaand 2

  Kaand 2 Text

  Kaand 3

  Kaand 3

  Kaand 3 Text

  Invocation copy

  Dedication copy

  Epigraph copy

  Introduction copy

  Introduction copy

  Introduction copy

  Kaand 1

  Kaand 1 Text

  Kaand 2

  Kaand 2

  Kaand 2 Text

  Kaand 3

  Kaand 3 Text

  Kaand 4

  Kaand 4 Text

  Samaptam

  Samaptam Text

  Afterword to 2006 edition

  PRINCE AT WAR

  Ashok K. Banker’s Ramayana series is presented here the way the author originally intended for his retelling. Four magnificent omnibus ebook editions bring together all the eight books. PRINCE AT WAR, Part Three of the Ramayana Series, includes the complete text of the fifth and sixth paperback books published earlier as Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya. Each of these omnibus ebook editions contains around 300,000 words of text and includes the original Author Introduction and Preface to the Indian print editions, in all major ebook formats hand-crafted by the author himself and made available exclusively under his own AKB eBOOKS imprint. To know more, visit the official website at www.ashokbanker.com

  AKB eBOOKS

  www.ashokbanker.com

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE INDIAN HARDCOVER EDITION 2007

  Unlike people, a broken spine on a book is a good thing. So are battered covers, peeling lamination, torn corners, tea stains, and dog-eared pages.

  They’re signs that the book is loved and has been enjoyed often.

  In the four years since the first book of my Ramayana series was published, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing and signing many such copies of my books.

  It’s the best sight in the world to an author. It means you’ve written a book, or in this case, a series of books, that readers genuinely love. Some of those copies even had favourite passages underlined or highlighted. You can’t buy that kind of appreciation with a fat marketing budget or media hype; it has to be earned, word by word, page by page.

  As of this writing, each of the six books in the series have gone through multiple reprints. Rather than tapering off after the publication of the sixth and final book, sales have continued to increase steadily—despite my not having publicized the books nor given any media interviews, attended any book launches, signings or readings, for close to two years. If anything, the reader response has swelled overwhelmingly, with the online community showing extraordinary support for the series and for my humble attempt to retell this seminal epic.

  And so, four years after the first paperback edition of Prince of Ayodhya was released, the Indian publishers of my Ramayana series have decided that it’s time that this appreciative readership had an edition that was more durable and better designed to withstand such enthusiasm and affection.

  With the publication of this hardcover omnibus set, you finally get to see my Ramayana retelling exactly as I originally intended: as one long book split into three continuous parts, rather than six separate paperback novels. The text remains almost exactly the same, I’ve reinstated the original volume titles that I had wanted for the series and the story is now split at exactly the points at which I wanted it split.

  Prince of Dharma, the first volume, contains the complete, unabridged text of Prince of Ayodhya and Siege of Mithila. Prince in Exile, the second volume, contains Demons of Chitrakut and Armies of Hanuman. Prince at War, the third and final volume, contains Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya.

  If you’re new to the series, then turn the page and read the introduction reprinted from the paperback editions, which will answer many questions and hopefully help prepare you for perhaps the most unorthodox and unusual retelling of this classic tale ever attempted.

  And when you’re done with that, then I wish you happy reading.

  Scuff these shiny new covers, cause the laminate to peel off, spill tea or coffee or cola on the book, bend and crack the spine. Even published in this fancy hardcover edition, this isn’t a book that’s designed to be put on a shelf and admired over the years, it’s a book meant to be read, and reread, and reread yet again…and loved.

  Because that’s how it was written, with love. And passion. And devotion. And that always shines through, no matter how thick that hardcover, or how stiff that spine.

  May you find many happy hours of pleasure and contemplation in travelling this long, winding road of dharma with its greatest proponent.

  Jai Bajrang Bali. Jai Siyaram. Jai Hind.

  Ashok Kumar Banker

  Mumbai,

  April 2007

  AKB eBOOKS

  Home of the epics!

  RAMAYANA SERIES®

  PRINCE OF DHARMA

  PRINCE OF AYODHYA & SIEGE OF MITHILA

  PRINCE IN EXILE

  DEMONS OF CHITRAKUT & ARMIES OF HANUMAN

  PRINCE AT WAR

  BRIDGE OF RAMA & KING OF AYODHYA

  KING OF DHARMA

  VENGEANCE OF RAVANA & SONS OF SITA

  KRISHNA CORIOLIS SERIES

  SLAYER OF KAMSA

  DANCE OF GOVINDA

  FLUTE OF VRINDAVAN

  LORD OF MATHURA

  FORTRESS OF DWARKA

  CHARIOT OF ARJUNA

  RIDER OF GARUDA

  LORD OF VAIKUNTA

  MAHABHARATA SERIES®

  THE FOREST OF STORIES

  THE SEEDS OF WAR

  THE CHILDREN OF MIDNIGHT

  (& 15 more volumes)

  MUMBAI NOIR

  THE IRON BRA

  TEN DEAD ADMEN

  MURDER & CHAMPAGNE

  A BLOOD RED SAREE

  THE ARBITRATOR

  GODS OF WAR

  VORTAL:SHOCWAVE

  VERTIGO

  THE VALMIKI SYNDROME

  TEN KINGS

  SAFFRON WHITE GREEN

  & MUCH, MUCH MORE!

  only from

  AKB eBOOKS

  www.ashokbanker.com

  BRIDGE OF RAMA

  Ashok K. Banker

  RAMAYANA SERIES®

  Book 5

  AKB eBOOKS

  Invocation

  Ganesa, lead well this army of words

  Dedication

  For Biki and Bithika Banker,

  The Gemini twins.

  One saved my life,

  The other gave me

  Two new ones.

  For Ayush Yoda Banker,

  Friend, son, Jedi Master.

  When you were born,

  I was born again.

  For Yashka Banker,

  Devi, daughter, princess.

  You made me believe in luck again,

  And, more important, in love.

  Epigraph

  Om Bhur Bhuvah Swah:

  Tat Savitur Varenyam

  Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi

  Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

  Maha-mantra Gayatri

  (whispered into the ears of newborn

  infants at their naming ceremony)

/>   INTRODUCTION

  Adi-kavya: The first retelling

  Some three thousand years ago, a sage named Valmiki lived in a remote forest ashram, practising austerities with his disciples. One day, the wandering sage Narada visited the ashram and was asked by Valmiki if he knew of a perfect man. Narada said, indeed, he did know of such a person, and then told Valmiki and his disciples a story of an ideal man.

  Some days later, Valmiki happened to witness a hunter killing a kraunchya bird. The crane’s partner was left desolate, and cried inconsolably. Valmiki was overwhelmed by anger at the hunter’s action, and sorrow at the bird’s loss. He felt driven to do something rash, but controlled himself with difficulty.

  After his anger and sorrow subsided, he questioned his outburst. After so many years of practising meditation and austerities, he had still not been able to master his own emotions. Was it even possible to do so? Could any person truly become a master of his passions? For a while he despaired, but then he recalled the story Narada had told him. He thought about the implications of the story, about the choices made by the protagonist and how he had indeed shown great mastery of his own thoughts, words, deeds and feelings. Valmiki felt inspired by the recollection and was filled with a calm serenity such as he had never felt before.

  As he recollected the tale of that perfect man of whom Narada had spoken, he found himself reciting it in a particular cadence and rhythm. He realized that this rhythm or metre corresponded to the warbling cries of the kraunchya bird, as if in tribute to theloss that had inspired his recollection. At once, he resolved to compose his own version of the story, using the new form of metre, that others might hear it and be as inspired as he was.

  But Narada’s story was only a bare narration of the events, a mere plot outline as we would call it today. In order to make the story attractive and memorable to ordinary listeners, Valmiki would have to add and embellish considerably, filling in details and inventing incidents from his own imagination. He would have to dramatize the whole story in order to bring out the powerful dilemmas faced by the protagonist.

  But what right did he have to do so? After all, this was not his story. It was a tale told to him. A tale of a real man and real events. How could he make up his own version of the story?

  At this point, Valmiki was visited by Lord Brahma Himself.

  The Creator told him to set his worries aside and begin composing the work he had in mind. Here is how Valmiki quoted Brahma’s exhortation to him, in an introductory passage not unlike this one that you are reading right now:

  Recite the tale of Rama … as you heard it told by Narada. Recite the deeds of Rama that are already known as well as those that are not, his adventures … his battles … the acts of Sita, known and unknown. Whatever you do not know will become known to you. Never will your words be inappropriate. Tell Rama’s story … that it may prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

  Valmiki needed no further urging. He began composing his poem.

  He titled it, Rama-yana, meaning literally, The Movements (or Travels) of Rama.

  Foretelling the future

  The first thing Valmiki realized on completing his composition was that it was incomplete. What good was a story without anyone to tell it to? In the tradition of his age, a bard would normally recite his compositions himself, perhaps earning some favour or payment in coin or kind, more often rewarded only with the appreciation of his listeners. But Valmiki knew that while the form of the story was his creation, the story itself belonged to all his countrymen. He recalled Brahma’s exhortation that Rama’s story must prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

  So he taught it to his disciples, among whose number were two young boys whose mother had sought sanctuary with him years ago. Those two boys, Luv and Kusa, then travelled from place to place, reciting the Ramayana as composed by their guru.

  In time, fate brought them before the very Rama described in the poem. Rama knew at once that the poem referred to him and understood that these boys could be none other than his sons by the banished Sita. Called upon by the curious king, Valmiki himself then appeared before Rama and entreated him to take back Sita.

  Later, Rama asked Valmiki to compose an additional part to the poem, so that he himself, Rama Chandra, might know what would happen to him in future. Valmiki obeyed this extraordinary command, and this supplementary section became the Uttara Kaand of his poem.

  Valmiki’s Sanskrit rendition of the tale was a brilliant work by any standards, ancient or modern. Its charm, beauty and originality can never be matched. It is a true masterpiece of world literature, the ‘adi-kavya’ which stands as the fountainhead of our great cultural record. Even today, thousands of years after its composition, it remains unsurpassed.

  And yet, when we narrate the story of the Ramayana today, it is not Valmiki’s Sanskrit shlokas that we recite. Few of us today have even read Valmiki’s immortal composition in its original. Most have not even read an abridgement. Indeed, an unabridged Ramayana itself, reproducing Valmiki’s verse without alteration or revisions, is almost impossible to find. Even the most learned of scholars, steeped in a lifetime of study of ancient Sanskrit literature, maintain that the versions of Valmiki’s poem that exist today have been revised and added to by later hands. Some believe that the first and seventh kaands, as well as a number of passages within the other kaands, were all inserted by later writers who preferred to remain anonymous.

  Perhaps the earliest retelling of Valmiki’s poem is to be found in the pages of that vast ocean of stories we call the Mahabharata. When Krishna Dwaipayana-Vyasa, more popularly known today as Ved Vyasa, composed his equally legendary epic, he retold the story of the Ramayana in one passage. His retelling differs in small but significant ways.

  Sometime later, the burgeoning Buddhist literature, usually composed in the Pali dialect, also included stories from the Ramayana, recast in a somewhat different light. Indeed, Buddhist literature redefined the term dharma itself, restating it as dhamma and changing the definition of this and several other core concepts.

  In the eleventh century, a Tamil poet named Kamban undertook his own retelling of the Ramayana legend. Starting out with what seems to have been an attempt to translate Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kamban nevertheless deviated dramatically from his source material. In Kamban’s Ramayana, entire episodes are deleted, new ones appear, people and places are renamed or changed altogether, and even the order of some major events is revised. Most of all, Kamban’s Ramayana relocates the entire story in a milieu that is recognizably eleventh-century Tamil Nadu in its geography, history, clothes, customs, etc., rather than the north Indian milieu of Valmiki’s Sanskrit original. It is essentially a whole new Ramayana, retold in a far more passionate, rich and colourful idiom.

  A few centuries later, Sant Tulsidas undertook his interpretation of the epic. Tulsidas went so far as to title his work Ramcharitramanas, rather than calling it the Ramayana.

  By doing so, he signalled that he was not undertaking a faithful translation, but a wholly new variation of his own creation. The differences are substantial.

  In art, sculpture, musical renditions, even in dance, mime and street theatrical performances, the story of Valmiki’s great poem has been retold over and over, in countless different variations, some with minor alterations, others with major deviations. The tradition of retellings continues even in modern times, through television serials, films, puppet theatre, children’s versions, cartoons, poetry, pop music and, of course, in the tradition of Ramlila enactments across the country every year.

  Yet how many of these are faithful to Valmiki? How many, if any at all, actually refer to the original Sanskrit text, or even attempt to seek out that text?

  Should they even do so?

  So many Ramayanas

  Does a grandmother consult Valmiki’s Ramayana before she retells the tale to her grandchildren at night? When she imitates a rakshasa’s roar or Ravana’s laugh,
or Sita’s tears, or Rama’s stoic manner, whom does she base her performance on? When an actor portrays Rama in a television serial, or a Ramlila performer enacts a scene, or a sculptor chisels a likeness, a painter a sketch, whom do they all refer to? There were no illustrations in Valmiki’s Ramayana. No existing portraits of Rama survive from that age, no recordings of his voice or video records of his deeds.

  Indeed, many of the episodes or ‘moments’ we believe are from Valmiki’s Ramayana are not even present in the original Sanskrit work. They are the result of later retellers, often derived from their own imagination. One instance is the ‘seema rekha’ believed to have been drawn by Lakshman before leaving Sita in the hut. No mention of this incident exists in Valmiki’s Ramayana.

  Then there is the constant process of revision that has altered even those scenes that remain constant through various retellings. For example, take the scene where Sita entreats Rama to allow her to accompany him into exile. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, when Rama tells Sita he has to go into exile, and she asks him to allow her to go with him, he refuses outright. At first, Sita pleads with him and cries earnest tears, but when Rama remains adamant, she grows angry and rebukes him in shockingly harsh terms. She refers to him as a ‘woman disguised as a man’, says that ‘the world is wrong when they say that there is no one greater than Rama’, calls him ‘depressed and frightened’, ‘an actor playing a role’, and other choice epithets. It is one of the longer scenes in Valmiki’s Ramayana, almost equalling in length the entire narration of Rama’s early childhood years!