She was keenly aware that giving birth to an heir, hopefully Dashrath’s first son, had the potential to dramatically alter her status. 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.
‘My son will be born naturally,’ announced Kaushalya firmly.
A natural birth was considered more auspicious. She had no intention of putting the future prospects of her child at risk.
‘He will be king one day,’ continued Kaushalya. ‘He will be born with good fortune.’
Nilanjana sighed. She wasn’t even sure if the child would be a boy. But she wouldn’t risk the merest flagging of her mistress’ spirits. 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. This gave her strength for it wasn’t an ordinary name. The name she had picked was that of the sixth Vishnu.
‘Vishnu’ was a title given to the greatest of leaders who were remembered as the Propagators of Good. 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. That was the name that reverberated in Kaushalya’s mind.
Ram… Ram… Ram… Ram…
The fourth hour of the second prahar saw Dashrath battle-ready. 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. This was because Kubaer’s hordes had planted dense thorny bushes all around the Karachapa fort. It was almost impossible to charge from the landward side of the port city. Dashrath’s army could have cleared the bushes and created a path to charge the fort, but that would have taken weeks. Kubaer’s army had scorched the earth around Karachapa, and the absence of local food and water ensured that Dashrath’s army did not possess the luxury of time. 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. Hence, Dashrath’s tactical decision to form a suchi vyuha. 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.
‘Your Highness,’ he said, ‘are you sure about this tactic?’
‘Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts, King Ashwapati!’ remarked Dashrath, surprised by the words of caution from his normally aggressive father-in-law. He had been a worthy ally in most of Dashrath’s conquering expeditions throughout the realms of India.
‘I was just thinking we will not be using our numerical superiority in full strength. The bulk of our soldiers will be behind the ones charging upfront. They will not be fighting at the same time. Is that wise?’
‘It is the only way, believe me,’ asserted Dashrath confidently. ‘Even if our first charge is unsuccessful, the soldiers at the back will keep coming in waves. We can sustain our onslaught on Kubaer’s eunuch forces till they all die to the last man. I do not see it coming to that though. I will annihilate them with our first charge!’
Ashwapati looked to his left where Kubaer’s ships lay at anchor more than two kilometres into the sea. There was something strange about their structure. The front section, the bow, was unusually broad. ‘What role will those ships play in the battle?’
‘Nothing!’ dismissed Dashrath, smiling fondly at his father-in-law; while Dashrath had had experience of a few naval battles, Ashwapati hadn’t. ‘Those fools haven’t even lowered their row-boats from the vessels. 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. By then, we would’ve wiped out the soldiers who are inside the fort.’
‘Outside the fort,’ corrected Ashwapati, pointing towards Karachapa.
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.
‘It is the strangest tactic I have ever seen,’ said Ashwapati warily. ‘Why is he giving up his strategic advantage? With the fort walls being right behind his army, he does not even have room to retreat. Why has Raavan done this?’
Dashrath sniggered. ‘Because he is a reactionary idiot. He wants to prove a point to me. Well, I will make the final point when I dig my sword into his heart.’
Ashwapati turned his head towards the fort walls again as he surveyed Raavan’s soldiers. 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. He turned his gaze to Raavan’s army once again. In sharp contrast, they emanated no sound. There was no movement either. They stood quietly in rigid formation, a brilliant tribute to soldierly discipline.
A shiver ran down Ashwapati’s spine.
He couldn’t get it out of his mind that those soldiers were bait that Dashrath had chosen to take.
If you are a fish charging at bait, then it usually doesn’t end well.
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. ‘Ayodhyatah Vijetaarah!’
The conquerors from the
unconquerable city!
Not all in his army were citizens of Ayodhya, and yet they were proud to fight under the great Kosala banner. They echoed the war cry, ‘Ayodhyatah Vijetaarah!’
Dashrath roared as he brought his sword down and spurred his horse. ‘Kill them all! No mercy!’
‘No mercy!’ shouted the riders of the first charge, kicking their horses and taking off behind their fearless lord.
But then it all began to unravel.
Dashrath and his finest warriors comprised the sturdy tip of the Sapt Sindhu needle formation. As they charged down the beach towards the Lankans, Raavan’s troops remained stationary. 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 soldiers pointed these spears, tipped with sharp copper heads, directly at Dashrath’s oncoming cavalry. The pointed heads tore into the unprepared horses and their mounted soldiers. Even as the charge of Dashrath’s cavalry was halted in its tracks and the mounted soldiers thrown forward as their horses suddenly collapsed under them, Lankan archers emerged, high on the walls of the Karachapa fort. They shot a continuous stream of arrows in a long arc from the fort ramparts, right into the dense formation of Dashrath’s troops at the back, ripping through the Sapt Sindhu lines.
Many of Dashrath’s warriors, who had been flung off their impaled horses, broke into a fierce hand-to-hand battle with their enemies. 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. Within moments, arrows were being fired from the ships into the densely packed forces under Dashrath’s command. The Lankan archers on the ships tore through the ranks of the Sapt Sindhus.
No brigadier in Dashrath’s army had factored in the possibility of the enemy ships beaching; it would have cracked their hulls. Unbeknownst to them, though, these were amphibious crafts, built by Kubaer’s ingenious ship-designers, with specially constructed hulls that could absorb the shock of landing. 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.
Even as he watched the destruction unleashed upon his forces near the fort, Dashrath’s instincts warned him that something terrible was ensuing at the rear guard. 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.
‘NO!’ he yelled. What he saw was enough to break his mighty warrior’s heart.
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. Dashrath stared at a scene he’d never imagined he would as the supreme commander of his glorious army. His men had broken rank and were in retreat.
‘NO!’ thundered Dashrath. ‘FIGHT! FIGHT! WE ARE AYODHYA! THE UNCONQUERABLES!’
Dashrath swung hard and decapitated a giant Lankan in one mighty blow. As he turned to face another of the seemingly never-ending waves of Raavan’s hordes, his gaze fell upon the monster who was the mastermind of this devastation. 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.
Dashrath knew that he’d lost the battle. He also knew that he’d rather die than face defeat. But he had one last wish. Redemption lay in his spitting on the decapitated head of that ogre from Lanka.
‘YAAAAAHH!’ screamed Dashrath, as he hacked at the arm of a Lankan who jumped at him, severing the limb cleanly just above the wrist. 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. He didn’t feel the blade go in too deep. 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.
Don’t let me live to bear this, Lord Surya. 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.
‘There!’ screamed a soldier.
Ashwapati saw Dashrath’s motionless form wedged between the corpses of two soldiers. 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. Ashwapati dragged Dashrath towards his own horse, lifted him, and laid the emperor’s severely injured body across the saddle. 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. As her father’s horse drew near, she r
eached across and dragged Dashrath’s prone body into the chariot. She didn’t turn to look at her father, who had also been pierced by many arrows. She picked up the reins and whipped the four horses tethered to her chariot.
‘Hyaah!’ screamed Kaikeyi, as she charged into the bushes. 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. Riding furiously on the other side of the field of thorns, her father and his bodyguards were being chased by a group of mounted soldiers from Raavan’s army. Kaikeyi understood immediately what her father was trying to do. He was leading Raavan’s soldiers away from her.
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. But she couldn’t allow them any respite. Not yet.
‘Forgive me,’ whispered Kaikeyi, as she raised her whip.
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.
‘MOVE!’ screamed Kaikeyi as she whipped the horses ruthlessly, again and again, forcing them to pick up a desperate but fearsome momentum.