GFB's Guide To The Ramayana, Pt. 2

Fact: if you start typing "how" into Indian Google, the top suggestion is "how to get pregnant". Clearly, this country needs my help with a few things.

Anyways, we're back with the second half of our guide to the Ramayana. This guide is part of an ongoing series on Hinduism starting...now. Read the first half first, or you'll find it even more confusing than reading a book about demons and shapeshifting monkeys should be.

We left off with our hero Rama vowing to protect the jungle sages from the predations of demons. However, he doesn't seem to run into any, and ten years pass without event.

By "ten years pass without event" I mean nothing directly happens to the protagonist. As usual, a bunch of crazy other stuff happens, not least of which is a story in which a pair of demons kill sages by transforming into food, then resuming their demon form when they are inside the rishi's stomach. One sage gets wise to the play and asks the gods for a boon. When he eats the demon, the other demon shouts that it's time to transform back and burst the sage asunder, but the sage just smiles and says that demon number one has been thoroughly digested. The reader is left to imagine the sort of gas the rishi must have had after dinner.

Anyways, ten years pass, and the heroes have made a new friend of the old eagle-king Jataayu, who tags along and becomes Sita's escort so the boys can go out hunting without worrying about her. For their last two years in exile, they decide to build themselves a proper ashram, which Lakshmana does skillfully.

One day Rama and Lakshmana are lounging out in the woods, reminiscing about what a sweetie their brother Bharata is, when the she-demon Soorphanakha stumbles across them. She is immediately overcome by the burning desire to jump Rama's bones, because let's face it, Rama is a hot hunk of man. She gets so hot and bothered that she forgets to even change forms and begins to hit on Rama, basically by calling herself the world's number one hot mommma, while still in full-on hideous demon mode. Rama has a good laugh at this, shrugs her off, and jokingly suggests she try her luck with Lakshmana, who is also a delectable slice of all that is man. When Lakshmana scoffs at her too, she realizes she's been played and becomes furious. She takes her anger out on Sita, making the ever-foolish choice of attacking her. She can't understand what Rama sees in her, but it's probably that Sita is literally the incarnation of the goddess of beauty and embodies the qualities of the perfect Indian woman. Soorphanakha gets a fight with Rama for her troubles, and he shoots her nose off. She goes crying to her brother Khara, who by the way is king of the jungle demons, and is also the brother of Ravanna. Fate begins to draw its noose ever tighter...

Khera assembles all the demon-warriors of his domain and marches against Rama's ashram. The demon army is 14,000 strong, and Sita becomes a little concerned for their safety. Sita, being the perfect Indian woman, is quite wise and raises reasonable concerns, but these are always pithily smacked down by Rama the way Socrates just so happens to have an answer to every question his challengers present him with. Rama's answer in this case is "sigh...women. I'll take care of this, sweetie. Here, let Lakshmana guard you." Rama then goes off alone to fight the demon army. Wave after wave assail him but he fends them off with a machine-gun-like spray of arrows and magic charms, slaughtering them dozens at a time until he has singlehandedly killed every last bastard in the entire demon army. He shoots incoming arrows and javelins out of the sky, launches arrows with such skill they pass ricocheting through seven demons in a row, and is generally un-fucking-touchable. He stands over a pile of 14,000 demon corpses, walks up to the last surviving demon general, and goes "You got some dirt on your shoulder...let me brush that off for you."

Far away in Lanka, Soorphanakha has run awauy and cried to her other brother Ravanna, who is even more powerful, having recently returned victorious from a campaign to the underworld and also having conquered the mountain fortress of Kubera, the god of wealth. Curses are shouted. Vengeance is sworn. He is still a little slow to act...until he hears about Sita and decides he would very much like to add a five-star biddie to his harem. The plot is hatched.

Ravanna slinks over to Rama's ashram and conceives of a ploy to separate Sita from her escorts. He teams up with the demon Maricha, who has a long-standing grudge against Rama. Maricha transforms into a gold-skinned deer and prances about merrily. Sita sees the deer and immediately demands that Rama capture it because it is just so pretty. Rama replies to the effect of "No, woman! You fool! Don't you see this could be a trap! Forget your womanly desire for shiny things!", but the quintessentially feminine Sita throws a fit and more or less implies that if Rama can't catch a bejeweled deer for her, he's going to find himself sleeping in the living room. Rama sighs, and sets off after it, leaving Lakshmana in charge. Once Maricha has lured Rama far, far away he parrots Rama's voice and cries out in distress "Oh ouch! Oh help! Lakshmana! Come save me!" Lakshmana hears the cries in the distance but isn't buying it. Rama has after all just slain 14,000 demons. He can take care of himself. Sita on the other hand is utterly duped, throws a hysterical womanly fit again, and threatens Lakshmana that if he doesn't go after Rama she will kill herself. Lakshmana says "ok ok ok, I'm going.....women" and runs off with a bad feeling in his gut. As soon as Lakshmana's gone, Ravanna easily kidnaps Sita and hauls her into his magical flying chariot.

Apparently there is some divergence in the tale here if you read the North Indian version. In North India they allegedly teach that Ravanna did not actually lay hands on Sita herself, but on a spiritual holographic projection of Sita's body. This, the translator points out, is because North Indians are raging misogynists, even compared to other Indians, and believe that a woman who is manhandled is as much a slattern disgrace as the man who committed the offense. And obvi, because Sita is perfect she could not be disgraced, so it must have been a hologram that was physically touched. Basically it's a lot of logical hoops to jump through to continue being able to treat women like shit. The South Indian version, which has traces of the attitude that maybe she should have been in the kitchen instead, at least concedes that it isn't her damn fault she got grabbed a bit while being kidnapped by a nigh-omnipotent demon king. Alas, in the getaway our dear eagle friend Jaatayu intervenes but he is too old to fight Ravanna and is tragically slain.

Lakshmana finds Rama and they piece together they have been tricked, and Lakshmana tells Rama everything he knows. They hurry back to the ashram and find the dying Jataayu, who tells them what happened, in full. When you read the Ramayana and one character recounts events to another, the poet never says "...and then Lakshmana told Rama all that had happened." The poet actually has Lakshmana repeat verbally every damn thing that happened, in slightly altered words, for the other characters' benefit. Many religious types think this style of writing is a good thing and love nothing more than reading over the same story five or six times, but for the reader who isn't trying to be put into spiritual bliss might question whether every one of the 25,000 verses is really necessary.

The damsel is in distress, and we have two heroes sworn to retrieve her. Rama and Lakshmana move southwards, turning over every possible place the demon could have taken her, but to no avail. Sorry, the princess is in another castle. In their dismayed wanderings they might the deposed monkey-king Sugreeva, and his minister Hanuman. Sugreeva is engaged in a tragic struggle with his brother who has taken the throne, and would very much like it back. Rama thinks about this for a minute and tells Sugreeva that if he gets the throne back, the entire monkey kingdom has to help find Sita. Hanuman strokes his monkey-beard throughout. To make a long story (a very long story) short, Sugreeva draws his brother into an unprotected duel and Rama rather sneakily shoots him in the back. A dirty trick, but you do what ya gotta do.

The Ramayana suddenly takes a turn into realism and has the heroes doing jack shit because they can't go marching around outside for months during the monsoon. As Rama and Lakshmana huddle in their hut under the torrential rains, Sugreeva spends the summer getting fat and drunk. When the rains finally stop, Sugreeva is still pretty much drunk all the time and doesn't move his fat monkey ass. Rama sends Lakshmana over for a little chat knowing that Lakshmana has ways of...motivating people. Just having Lakshmana show up is enough to scare Sugreeva shitless and he orders his army of monkeys to scour the ends of the Earth in search of Sita.

When I say "army of monkeys", strictly speaking they are vanaras a plentiful race of monkeys and bears that were actually offspring of the gods and capable of limited shapeshifting and other godly powers. So Rama has an army of a few million superhuman monkeys on his side now. Things are looking up.

The armies sent north, east, and west return with no luck, but the southern army accompanied by Hanuman meet Sampati, king of the vultures. Sampati has had his wings clipped off so he can't fly, but he still has incredible eyesight and sees all the way to Lanka, where he spots Sita. He then reveals he is Jataayu's brother. It is revealed that Jataayu is dead, and guess what, time for more obsequies.

For whatever reason, possibly because they are monkeys, it doesn't occur to the vanaras to ask Sampati where on the island of Lanka Sita is. They need to send a scout. Hanuman volunteers, and from this point on the Ramayana becomes one long stream of simian badassery. Hanuman grows to the size of a tree and jumps across the ocean. No...he doesn't just jump across the ocean. He half-jumps-half-flies and kicks the living shit out of anything that tries to stop him. As he reaches the opposite shore, he is ensnared by the tongue of a large fish. About to be eaten, he shrinks into a tiny monkey and painlessly enters the fish's digestive tract before regaining his massive size, ripping the fish apart from the inside, and landing on Lanka roaring with victory and drenched in blood and tattered fish guts. Hanuman is the shit.

Hanuman becomes a tiny monkey again and infiltrates the city of Lanka, eventually finding Sita in the garden where she is imprisoned. Sita has had a rather rough go of it but has nobly maintained her chastity through her despair. She tells Hanuman all that has befallen her, treating the reader to the third telling of those events. Having accomplished his mission, Hanuman decides to start some shit and climbs into Ravanna's palace, annoys the crap out of everybody, and gets into a fight with several platoons of demons who he kills in open combat, crushing walls and ceilings in a Godzilla-like struggle of titans. He hops off with a smug grin on his face from the chaos he's caused and says goodbye to Sita. He prepares to jump back to India, only to be seized by a magic rope. Some dumb ass demon supplements this with a normal rope, which negates the magic rope's power, but Hanuman plays along. He is brought before Ravanna's ministers, who decide to torture the monkey in the most cruel way possible: by setting his tail on fire. With his tail lit, Hanuman miraculously feels no pain and bursts from his bonds, then rushes about the city setting things on fire until he's burnt half the city to the ground and killed a few more notable demons. He hops back to Sita and says "Well, I could rescue you here and now, but.....nah, let's have a giant war instead."

Hanuman tells Rama everything that happened (and oh boy, he sure tells Rama everything that has happened). Rama presumbaly raises an eyebrow at Sita not having rescued already, but no matter. There's only one problem: Rama can't jump over the ocean, and neither can most of the monkey army. But there's a solution. The monkeys gather millions of stones and build a bridge all the way to Lanka. You can still see the bridge today on Google Maps. Yup, that was monkeys.

Rama's army invades Lanka, and after all diplomatic entreaties are refused by the stubborn Ravanna, war is declared. When your council of unvanquished demon ministers is divided on whether war is advisable, you might want to think twice, but Ravanna is trapped by his pride and his yet-unquenched desire to motorboat all ten of his heads in Sita's bosom.

The battle begins, and it goes on and on and on and on. Though not as egregious as the battle in the Mahabharata in this regard, it is still extremely tedious. The different vanara and rakshasa champions face each other off in duels many times, invariably destroying each other's chariots and so on but never managing to kill the opponent. Occasionally, after maybe seven duels one particular demon general might finally be slain under a hail of magical arrows or whatever. The good guys prove most luckily unkillable, constantly being knocked unconscious by their foes, only to be rescued in the nick of time by another vanara hero, living to fight another day and almost, almost kill demons yet again. While these duels are taking place, regular vanaras and demons are being killed by the champions in the tens of thousands and the fields sprout rivers of blood. The problem in this war is that every damn character is unbeatable. Hanuman can kill a thousand demons, but then he runs into demons that can fight gods, and calls on Rama, who can also fight demons and gods, but this demon is immune to Rama and can only be killed by Hanuman, who is currently overmatched by another demon who only Rama can kill, but right now Rama can't kill him so Rama goes to kill a thousand other demons instead and then an unkillable demon gets in his way and Hanuman has to....you get the idea.

Rama, Lakshmana, and Hanuman are the ultimate badasses in this fight, firing volleys of arrows that block out the sun, so on and so forth. However, they are not totally unbeatable. Not once, but twice they are immobilized by magic arrows that knock them unconscious. Hanuman knows the magic and flies off to the Himalayas in search of a magic plant to heal them, then realizes he doesn't know which plant to pick, and flies back carrying the entire mountain. Then rather foolishly he spends the time to put the mountain back, which is a mistake, because this is such a fucking ridiculous book that Rama and Lakshmana get immobilized again, and Hanuman has to fly back and retrieve the same goddamn mountain. LISTEN, POET VALMIKI, YOU POEM IS TOO FUCKING LONG. YOU ONLY NEED TO HAVE THE MONKEY FLY CARRYING THE MOUNTAIN ONE FUCKING TIME.

At the end of the war, Rama kills Ravanna. Big surprise. Hey, Valmiki, thanks for keeping us all in suspense. You had me thinking Rama wasn't going to fulfill his destiny for a minute there. Gotta say, it was one of my favorites of the eight million duels. Could use some touching up though. Maybe Lakshmana gets knocked unconscious and rescued by Neela the monkey? I'm just making suggestions. You're the poet; do what feels best.

Triumphantly, the forces of righteousness enter the city and Rama rescues Sita. They walk away, and one imagines they are soon to cuddle before an epic sunset. But no, Rama has to be a dick. He refuses to believe Sita could have been faithful for six months, and considers her rescue to be the completion of his duty and wants nothing more to do with her. She pleads and begs and Rama relents, provided she pass a test. Sita is outraged and resolves to burn herself alive rather than be subjected to a test. Way to go, girl,....sort of. Needless to say, this is the North Indian version of Rama's conduct. In South India they realize this is a little unbecoming of a hero and awkwardly try to patch things up by having Rama explain that he was only pretending to test her for the benefit of his troops, who would otherwise assume that the returning prince had been cuckolded. I guess that's an improvement.

It's a shame that while this is all being explained, Sita has jumped into a pyre. Oops.

But it's alright! Sita's divine truth and purity have saved her! Agni, the god of fire walks out carrying Sita in his arms, and flowers rain from the heavens in celebration of Sita's virtue! All of the gods assemble within the flame and continue to shower flowers. Rama is like, "Whoa man, all the gods are here! Yo, is that Indra? and Brahma? Holy shit!" and Brahma is like "Yo, dude, you're Vishnu! DUUUUHHHHH" and Rama is like "Say what?" and Brahma is like "You are the latest avatar of Vishnu" and Rama is like "Oh Brahma, you playin'" and Brahma is like "Nuh-uh" and flowers rain from the heavens.

Rama and Sita return to their kingdom in a magic chariot, Bharata gives Rama his rightful throne. And everyone lives happily ever after.

The end.

Except in North India; there's another act and Rama exiles Sita to the fucking woods.

The end.