When Vishvamitra set out in the direction of river Sharayu,
he was accompanied by Rama and Laxman. They had left Ayodhya far behind now.
When they reached the south bank of the river, it was time to rest. Vishvamitra
told Rama and Laxman to drink the water of the sacred river. It was a solemn
ritual. As they held the water in the cup of their hands, Vishvamitra held his
hands above their heads and chanted mantras in a deep, sonorous voice. They
absorbed the vibrations in reverence. After the chanting of the mantras
stopped, there was a profound silence.
The brothers waited in expectancy. Vishvamitra said, “I transmitted
indomitable courage, alertness and immense strength to you by means of these
mantras. Their power will stay with you always, at all times and at all places.
Henceforth you will never be troubled by fatigue, sickness or anxiety. Your enemies will not be able to take you by
surprise while you are asleep. You will have no adversary. Good luck, presence of mind, intuition and
intelligence will always come to your aid. I have blessed you with those powers
of the mind which give rise to all knowledge. You will conquer hunger and
thirst. I have attained this state of mastery by devoting all my life to
penance and austerity. Now I am endowing you with my power so that you may use
it for the benefit and protection of the helpless on this earth. “
On that night, Rama and Laxman slept on a bed of grass and
listened to Vishvamitra. His words carried tremendous assurance and gave them a
glimpse of their mission.
The next day, they reached the place where the river Sharayu
merges with the great river Ganga. The sages living on the bank of the river
had grown fond of the grave sage Vishvamitra and his young disciples who had
conquered their hearts by their unworldly charm. As soon as Vishvamitra
mentioned to them that they were going to cross the river, the sages arranged
for an elegant and comfortable rowing boat for them. As they reached midstream,
they listened to a roar of two streams clashing with each other. It was like a
gong of thousands of huge bells clashing together. The impact was tremendous.
On reaching the middle of the stream, Rama asked, “Why is the sound of two
great streams, when they meet each other, so awesome? There is a terrible
beauty in it.”
Vishvamitra was looking at the waters in deep awe. He said,
“The two rivers which are singing this awesome, sublime duet, are none other
than the river Sharayu and the river Ganga. Sharayu springs from the heavenly
lake ‘Manas’ on the crest of the mountain Himalaya. This is the river which
flows by Ayodhya. She is pouring forth her waters in the stream of Ganga. The
two rivers clash here. When two mighty phenomena greet each other, there is an
illusion of war before we recognize it as love. All that we can do is bow down
in reverence.”
The boatman circumnavigated the tumultuous merger of the two
streams. They got off on the south bank of the river and walked ahead briskly.
Their path cut across a thick uninhabited forest where there was no sign of
human life. The eerie silence was pierced across by screech of owls and bats
and they had to halt from time to time as they came across signs of wild
animals crossing their path. Vishvamitra gathered the two brothers around him
and told them to slow down their gait. The boys were curious to know about this
land which they had never seen before.
“It was a fertile and prosperous land once upon a time,”
Vishvamitra said, “until it came under the dominion of a woman called Tataka.
She was still the undeclared ruler of this land. She was the only child of a
Yaksha: a divine race closely connected to the devas. Once a very beautiful
woman, she had now turned into a cruel ugly hag. The kingdom which had belonged
to her Yaksha father was now devastated. She had married and borne a son. Her
husband was a lackluster person and she would get him into trouble by her
wayward conduct. Thus, by her arrogance, she offended a sage called Agastya and
incurred his wrath. In the course of a long drawn out battle between Agastya
and Tataka, the land suffered; Agastya’s curse put an end to the life of
Tataka’s husband Sunda; her son lost his godly appearance and grew into a
demon; and Tataka herself, once a beautiful woman of the godly Yaksha race,
turned into an ogress. She vowed revenge upon Agastya and was bent upon making
life a hell for him. The result was a perpetual state of war in which the
people of this land had to pay with their life and property. She was still in
command over this area which had already turned into a veritable inferno.”
Vishvamitra related the whole story to Rama and Laxman and
said, “Rama, you must have understood the gravity of your mission by now. I
want both of you to see the kind of world we are living in. Tataka is
uncontrollable. Her greed for power and her love for her only son have made her
what she is today. Insane anger, frustration and revenge have produced a
devastation and terror called Tataka. She won’t change. The only way to restore
peace and order is too kill her now. Vishvamitra was precise and
uncompromising. Seeing Rama perplexed, he said, “Have no qualms about killing
her because she has no qualms left in her. There were many instances in the
past when mighty princes were called upon to kill female tyrants. You have my
consent and order to kill her in a battle.”
Tataka was enraged when she learnt about the entry of Rama,
Laxman and Vishvamitra into her domain. She marched angrily towards them alone
because she was confident of her power. There was an exchange of missiles first
between the two parties. A whirlpool of dust surrounded Tataka and her
adversaries lost sight of her for a while. There was a hailstorm. But In The
midst of all that turbulence Rama and Laxman slashed her hands. She was still
invincible because she possessed occult powers of destruction.
Vishvamitra knew what kind of power she was using now. He
said, “We must kill her before sunset because those who possess occult power
are at their worst in the twilight hour.”
Rama allowed Tataka to come near and made himself appear
non-resistant. As she closed in on him, he could feel her advance only by the
sound because a screen of smoke covered her on all sides. He threw his missiles
by the direction of the sound. Soon she emerged out of the screen and revealed
her awful presence. Rama was quick and precise. His missile hit her on the
heart and she fell on earth.
They spent the night in the forest which was the stronghold
of Tataka until a few hours back. Vishvamitra imparted a lot more instructions
to them on the art of war with rakshasas and asuras who were advanced in occult
power and the art of warfare.
The next day they walked out of the forest. They could see a
mountain ahead of them at the foot of which was lush-green wood’s cluster like
clouds. The sight of those distant woods told them that they were well out of
the bounds of the sinister domain of Tataka.
On the way, Vishvamitra told them how, eons ago, in the age
called the ‘Age of Truth’, Devas and Daityas, though belonging to the same
origin, had parted ways. The Devas occupied the northern hemisphere and the
Asuras and Daiyas were pushed to the southern hemisphere. They were literally
poles apart in every respect. Devas were poetic by temper. They had an innate
predilection towards beauty and luxury. They relished the good things of life
and controlled the elements of nature. The highly spiritual of the humans were
believed to have a place among the Devas after death.
Daityas were the progeny of a divine being called Diti. They had a demonic energy and great physical
prowess but in respect of shrewdness the Devas took the laurels. The Devas and
the Daityas had co-operated with each other only once. They had joined in a
venture to delve deep into the oceans to investigate what was concealed there.
Among the treasures which were discovered, (and Devas contrived to lay a claim
on most of them) was wine, which was claimed by the Devas. As a result, the
Devas came to be called Sura, that is, the beings who relish wine, and the
Daityas came to be called Asura, that is, the ones who were deprived of wine.
The most vicious among the Daityas came to be known as rakshasas. The uncivilized
among them were man-eaters. The Devas were worshipped by humans who had to pray
to them for protection against the rakshasas.
Some of the rakshasa dynasties were gifted with
extraordinary accomplishments in architecture and technology and possessed
knowledge of occult powers. They were envious of the humans who were ready to
work hard and knew how to use the resources of nature for the well-being of
their race. They were the protégés of Devas who were superior to both rakshasas
and the humans by virtue of their divine astral existence. Devas belonged to
the bright dimensions of existence and the humans attributed to them the
grandeur and ethereal beauty they could envisage in the highest state of
meditation. The sages would make it the goal of their life to attain the godly
state in this life itself, or if not in this life, in life after the death of
the earthly body.
Rakshasas lacked calm and serenity on the whole. Envy, pride
and insecurity drove them to acquire power and more power with which they would
strive to subdue Devas. Rakshasas had a great capacity to withstand physical
stress and some of them followed the path of rigorous penance to acquire occult
power. For them, penance was a means of propitiating Shiva who was the most
impartial of the deities. He gave his blessings without discrimination. Shiva
is purity incarnate: withdrawn from the duality of good and evil: leaving the
choice between them to the discretion of his devotees.
Vishvamitra understood the importance of power. He was not a
saint. He had outgrown personal ambition and pride, but he had not given up his
commitment and responsibility to his people. After all, he was a warrior king
before he became a sage in retreat. Rama and Laxman had begun to understand his
vision and mission by now. They understood their own role in that massive
project. Cocooned in Ayodhya, they were unaware of the threats which the
foresters faced because of the growing menace of the rakshasas. Their encounter
with Tataka had given them a glimpse of the life in the far-flung parts of the
kingdom which were almost no-man’s-land.
On their way, Vishvamitra also told them how one of their
ancestors, king Sagara had initiated a sacrifice to declare his sovereignty,
and how Indra, the lord of the Devas of that time, stole the sacrificial horse
in order to obstruct the completion of the sacrifice. The person who held the
seat of power as Indra, was supposed to prevent the kings and the sages of this
earth from asserting their power because then they might usurp his position. He
always feared a threat to his position from the sages, kings and rakshasas, so
he always set them against one another.
The result was that the kings and rakshasas were always fighting each
other and Indra enjoyed his seat of power among Devas. Sages preferred to take
asylum with kings rather than with Indra. Indra rallied kings and sages around
him whenever it suited him, while rakshasas were always left high and dry.
However, this time, Indra had straight away challenged the
sovereignty of Sagara who ordered all his sons to search the entire earth and
bring back the horse. But nobody knew that the thief was none other than Indra.
They all thought that it was the deed of some rakshasas. The armies of Sagara spread in all four quarters
of the earth. There was massive digging, aggression, atrocities and
destruction. All the races living on earth feared extinction. The war-crazy
soldiers of Sagara under the leadership of the princes reached the hermitage of
an ancient sage called Kapila. Indra had left the horse there deliberately to
mislead the princes. A terrible war began between Kapila and the princes in
which the princes were reduced to ashes. By this time, vast terrains of this
earth were devastated by digging and war. The face of the earth changed beyond
recognition. The place where the princes lay in a heap of ashes had become a
vast desert with not a drop of water in sight. The agrarian economy of earth
faced a tremendous set back.
Sagara’s grandson Anshuman went in search of his missing
uncles and the lost horse. He realized what had happened, saw the extent of the
damage and came back with the horse, but without his uncles. A prophecy was
made by great visionaries when he had left that he would bring the horse back
and the sacrifice would be completed, and so it was. King Sagara died soon
after. Anshuman came, ruled, and passed away, leaving the kingdom to his son
Dileep. After Dileep his son Bhageerath
took over. With superhuman engineering
effort, he diverted the flow of the river Ganga and built seven canals, three
of which started flowing in the direction of the east of Himalaya. Three more
were in the direction of the west and the seventh stream was channelized by
Bhageerath to flow over the dry terrains until it reached the sea. That was how
the land devastated by Bhageerath’s forefathers was restored to its ecological balance,
peace and prosperity.
Bhageerath’s superhuman endeavor was inspired by a greater
vision than the ambition for sovereignty which had driven his ancestor Sagara
to devastate the land.
Rama and Laxman were now eager to hear more stories from the
ancient past. These stories belong to the age of mythology. Myths are encrypted
truths and only those with subtle minds can decode their meaning.
Vishvamitra told them another story.
“Long ago, at the beginning of time immemorial, the two
mighty races of Devas and Daityas were not at war constantly as they are now,”
said Vishvamitra. “Both the sisters were married to sage Kashyapa. Devas and Daityas were equally mighty. They
used to meditate a lot over the prospect of living a life without malady,
ageing and death. The ocean was, according to them, an untapped source of
untold mysteries, one of which might unlock the secret of conquering old age
and death, they thought. Together, they began to explore the depths of ocean.
The experiment continued over centuries. It yielded some valuable findings. The
first among those was a deadly poison. The Daityas did not know what to do. But
the minds of Devas worked quickly in such crises. They appealed to the greatest
of all powers in the universe: Lord Shiva. Shiva was unaffected by good and
evil, joy and sorrow, desire and aversion, all alike. They also appealed to
Lord Vishnu who was known to be their protector always. But somehow, they saw
to it that Lord Shiva would arrive first on the scene. Lord Vishnu, who was in
collusion with them, arrived a little later. He smiled and said to Shiva, “The
precedence of claim over the first finding of this experiment goes to you,
since you are the greatest of all powers. Please accept this poison.” Saying
thus, Vishnu disappeared. Shiva, who was always amenable to prayers, consumed
it and saved the earth from the deadly pollution which experiments often lead
to. The mighty experiment continued for years and mountains arose and sank in
the ocean under its terrible impact. This time Lord Vishnu came to the rescue
of the experimenters and raised the level of the land beneath the ocean. They
called Vishnu an almighty tortoise and continued the churning of the ocean. For
some years the power of Vishnu lay dormant beneath the ocean. But a time came
when Lord Vishnu was himself curious and instead lying passive he decided to
add his power to the efforts of the experimenters. That was a stroke of good
fortune which experiments see sometimes. The experiment now began to yield good
results. By now, they found out many medicinal herbs and developed a science of
remedies. The person who developed it came to be known as Dhanvantari. There were
many minor discoveries in the process. Then they found a wine called Sura. They
thought it to be the best potable water they had known because it tasted
divine. So they attributed it to the god of rains: Varuna: and called it
Varuni: the daughter of Varuna. However, the leader of the Daityas became wary
when he felt dizzy and lost his power of thinking upon tasting it. He was all
the more suspicious because the taste was very tempting. He suspected some
crooked design of the Devas behind it and told his followers to drop it
forthwith. Devas relished it. They knew Daityas’ propensity for declining the
good things of life and were quick to claim it for themselves. Thereafter they
were nicknamed ‘Sura’, the connoisseurs of wine, and the Daityas—‘Asura’---
that is, the abstainers. But the best was yet to come.
