Whilst yet a mere stripling, Rama was appealed to by the sage Vishwamitra to destroy certain demons who interrupted the religious rites of the hermits.
The boy was only sixteen years of age, and Dasahratha, naturally solicitous for his safety, declined to let him go to fight the dreadful brood of demons, who had an evil reputation for cruelty and ferocity; but the mighty ascetic waxed so wrath at this refusal of his request, that “the entire earth began to tremble and the gods even were inspired with awe.” Vasishta, the king’s spiritual adviser, who had unbounded confidence in Vishwamitra’s power to protect the prince from all harm, strongly advised compliance with the ascetic’s request, and Dasahratha was prevailed upon to allow Rama and Lakshmana to leave Ayodhya with Vishwamitra.
The incidents of the journey reveal a very primitive state of society. The princes and their guide were all of them on foot, apparently quite unattended by servants and unprovided with even the most ordinary necessaries of life. When they reached the River Surayu,[20] Vishwamitra communicated certain mantras or spells to Rama, by the knowledge of which he would be protected from fatigue and fever[21] and from the possibility of being surprised by the Rakshasas against whom he was going to wage war.
The land through which our travellers journeyed was sparsely inhabited. A goodly portion of it seems to have been covered with woods, more or less pleasant, abounding in the hermitages of ascetics, some of whom had been carrying on their austerities for thousands of years. Beside these pleasant woods there were vast, trackless forests, infested by ferocious beasts and grim Rakshasas, and it was not long before the might of the semi-divine stripling, Rama, was tried against one of these terrible creatures, Tarika by name, an ogress of dreadful power, whom Rama undertook to destroy “in the interests of Brahmans, kine and celestials.” When the ascetic and the two princes arrived in the dark forest where the dreaded Tarika ruled supreme, Rama twanged his bowstring loudly, as a haughty challenge to this redoubtable giantess. Incensed at the audacious sound of the bowstring, Tarika uttered terrible roars and rushed out to attack the presumptuous prince. The ascetic raised a defiant roar in response. That was his entire contribution to the combat in which Rama and his adversary were immediately involved, Lakshmana taking part in it also. This, the first conflict in which Rama was engaged, may be taken as a type of all his subsequent battles. Raising clouds of dust, Tarika, “by help of illusion,” poured a shower of huge stones upon the brothers, but these ponderous missiles were met and arrested in mid-air by a volley of arrows. The battle raged fiercely, but the brothers succeeded with their shafts in depriving Tarika of her hands, her nose and her ears. Thus disabled and disfigured, Tarika changed her shape[22] and even concealed herself from view, while still continuing the fight with unabated fury; but Rama, guided by sound alone, assailed his invisible foe with such effect that he eventually laid her dead at his feet, to the joy of Vishwamitra and the relief of the denizens of the great forest over which she had terrorized.
After this successful combat, the ascetic, Vishwamitra, conferred on Rama a gift of strange weapons, which even the celestials were incapable of wielding. How very different the magic weapons received by Rama were from those familiar to the sons of men, will be apparent from the poet’s statement that the weapons themselves made their appearance spontaneously before Rama, “and with clasped hands, they, well-pleased, addressed Rama thus: These, O highly generous one, are thy servants, O Raghava. Whatever thou wishest, good betide thee, shall by all means be accomplished by us.”
Such wonderful and efficient weapons, endowed with a consciousness and individuality of their own, needed, however, to be kept under strict control, lest in their over-zeal or excitement they might effect undesigned and irreparable mischief. The sage accordingly communicated to Rama the various mantras or spells by which they might, on critical occasions, be restrained and regulated in their operations.
In their woodland wanderings amongst the hermitages the brothers and their guide came across many sages whose laborious austerities were constantly being hindered by wicked, flesh-eating Rakshasas. Indeed the world, outside the cities and villages,—which it would seem were very few and far between,—as pictured by Valmiki, is a very strange one, mostly peopled by two sets of beings, hermits striving after supernatural power through the practice of austerities, and demons bent on frustrating their endeavours by unseasonable interruptions of their rites, or impious pollution of their sacrifices. Sometimes, as in the case of Ravana, the demons themselves would practise austerities for the attainment of power.
Very prominent figures in the poem are the great ascetics, like Vishwamitra himself, who, a Kshatriya by caste and a king by lineage, had obtained, through dire austerities prolonged over thousands of years, the exalted rank and power of Brahmanhood. A single example of his self-inflicted hardships and the consequences resulting therefrom may not be out of place. He once restrained his breath for a thousand years, when vapours began to issue from his head, “and at this the three worlds became afflicted with fear.” Like most of his order, he was a very proud and irate personage, ready, upon very slight provocation, to utter a terrible and not-to-be-escaped-from curse.[23] Once, in a fit of rage against the celestials, Vishwamitra created entire systems of stars and even threatened, in his fury, to create another India by “the process of his self-earned asceticism.”
The life led by the princely brothers in their pedestrian wanderings with this mighty sage was simplicity itself. They performed their religious rites regularly, adoring the rising sun, the blazing fire or the flowing river, as the case might be. Their sojourn in the forests was enlivened by pleasant communion with the hermits to whose kind hospitality they were usually indebted for a night’s lodging, if such it can be called, and a simple fare of milk and fruits. Vishwamitra added interest to their journeyings by satisfying the curiosity of the brothers in regard to the history of the several places they visited. Here, as he informed them, the god Rudra had performed his austerities—for even the gods were not above the necessity and ambition of ascetic practices—and blasted the impious Kama into nothingness with a breath. There, the great god Vishnu of mighty asceticism, worshipped of all the deities, dwelt during hundreds of Yugas, for the purpose of carrying on his austerities and practising yoga.[24] At one time Vishwamitra would relate the history of the origin of Ganga and of her descent upon the earth, as the mighty and purifying Ganges, chief of rivers. At another time he would himself listen complacently, along with his princely companions, to the history of his own wonderful asceticism and marvellous performances, as the wise Satananda related it for the special edification of Rama.
So passed away the time in the forests, not altogether peacefully, however, for the object of the journey would not have been fulfilled without sundry fierce and entirely successful encounters with the Rakshasas, those fiendish interrupters of sacrifice and persistent enemies of the anchorites. Eventually the wanderers came to the kingdom of Mithila, whose king, Janaka,[25] had a lovely daughter to bestow upon the worthy and fortunate man who should bend a certain formidable bow which had belonged to Siva and which he had once threatened to use in the destruction of the gods.